CNN: After years of progress on gender, the male gaze is back

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This summer, I got cultural whiplash.

As a child of the ’90s and early 2000s, I grew up with my mother’s and grandmother’s generations’ fight for legal and workplace equality helping shed social misogyny.

In the past decade in particular, I saw the evidence of progress in my media diet. The movies, shows, books and advertisements I consumed were increasingly giving women a seat at the table. Heroin chic fell away, and body positivity entered the fashion world. Stories about a woman stealing your man were traded for celebration of the “girl’s girl” who resisted the competition for men’s attention.

It seemed like women were taking a deeper breath without such heavy cultural restrictions.

Then there was a shift

Was it around the 2024 presidential election? Or since the overturn of Roe v. Wade? Maybe when men’s rights activists pushed back against #MeToo? Whatever the catalyst, a change in the political environment seemed to connect with a social change that brought back narrow, and at times constrictive, ideas of womanhood depicted in media.

The recent rise of weight loss medications coincided with social media influencers sharing ways to get smaller and no longer celebrating bodies of all sizes. Advertisements followed suit, making men’s desire once again a dominating factor in how stories are told, and how women are portrayed.

How had these discarded ideas made their way back into circulation? Didn’t we all agree we were through with them?

The culprit, I have learned, is the male gaze. It was always there, but now it has stepped back into the spotlight.

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The male gaze came roaring back this summer.

American Eagle –– whose partner brand Aerie has been known for marketing underwear to women with imagery that celebrated stretch marks, cellulite and a range of body sizes –– ran a controversial ad campaign starting in July. The ads sell jeans to women featuring actor Sydney Sweeney, who many men see as a sex symbol, insinuating the clothing would make men find them more attractive.

Then there was e.l.f. Beauty’s campaign led by a comedian infamous for domestic violence jokes and disdain of a primarily female audience. And this year saw viral content around an OnlyFans star’s attempt to break the world record for most sexual partners in one day –– a lucrative career move made even more viral by her bashing the wives and girlfriends of her sexual partners and suggesting men cheating is the fault of the women who aren’t available enough for sex.

“Most typically, the male gaze is about representing women in media solely to satisfy heterosexual men,” said Dr. Linda Tuncay Zayer, professor of marketing and John F. Smith, Jr. Chair in Business Administration at the Quinlan School of Business at Loyola University Chicago.

If you are observing women in movies, TV, fashion, social media and marketing and they don’t feel as fully materialized as their male counterparts, that is the male gaze.

The woman’s value is reduced in so far as existing for pleasure or basically an object,” Zayer said.

It’s Bond girls. And a long, lingering shot panning up a woman’s body in an advertisement for soda. It’s when an action movie accessory is running through explosions in tiny shorts and flowing curled hair before collapsing helplessly in the hero’s arms. And a social media star making a recipe while all dolled up and explaining her steps in a soft, sultry voice.

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