Since I was a child, I have been raised to be modest, to not show “too much skin.” Skirts should not go passed your fingertips, and shirts must have sleeves or else “You would be a distraction”. A distraction to who? To Boys, To Men. Ironic since our most revered historical Paintings are almost entirely based upon nude women. Berger discusses the idea that nude oil paintings despite their beauty all stem around the male gaze showing the perception of women at that time period.

Women lounging about in her everyday life, posed ready in waiting with a longing seductive gaze toward the viewer who was meant to be presumably a man. Berger makes a distinction between nakedness and Nudity that might clarify this idea further “To Be Nude is to be seen as a work of art, to be Naked is to simply be without clothes.”  To summarize, Nude is intended to be seen as an object by a spectator, left to be judged. These Paintings were a representation of that era’s societal view against women.

Women of today are progressive; we have more rights and a voice. However, we still are battling to gain respect from the male gaze. Society still sexualize women ,some blatantly, some without realizing, making judgments from the clothes she chooses to wear, assuming the amount of clothing she wear equals the level of availability she has.

Women have been trying to fight against these ideals and one way this is being done is through Slut Walk. It is a March where women gather to raise awareness to society against blaming women’s clothing,professions and prior consensual relationships, as an excuse for sexual assault,and to effectively end rape culture. The attire worn is typical of what society deems too revealing such as exposed navels , low cut shirts , shorts , mini skirts , bras or pasties . Their minimal clothing is to combat the stereotype that women’s bodies and what they wear justifies the verbal physical sexual and societal abuse they would receive when wearing revealing clothing . What a person wears should not be a way to excuse the assaulter and blame the victim, and just cause you wear revealing clothes does not mean you should be thought of as less than a person.

Name: Mina Sunuwar                                                                                                09/18/2019

ENG: 101

Response paper             

                                                      ‘Ways of Seeing’ by John Berger

John Berger is the famous English artist, novelist, real painter, and poet in ‘Ways of Seeing ‘ author explains that why we discover something about ourselves and situation in which we are surviving. The process of seeing painting, it comes suddenly or naturally in our mind because painting has own authentic meaning. All the paintings of the tradition used the convention of perspective, which is unique any countries. The paint is our tradition of art called those appearances reality, perspective makes the eye center of the visible world. But  people’s eye can only be in one place at a time.The Camera can changed everything like paintings creations, design, more copies.However, we can see things which were not there in front of us. Author mentions that the invention of the camera has changed not only what we see, but how we see it. Our mind is not easy to think of appearances always traveling to a single center. The camera reproduces it making it available in any size anywhere for any purpose. When we are going to think deeper it becomes various meanings and thoughts.

             In my view ‘ways of seeing’ this essay’s writer trying to show us how we see the picture and our  ways of seeing changed because of modern technology and science. The author trying to explain so many ways takes example how much reality,unique,authentic,value,invention,perspective of paintings in old generation. He compared old generation and to present. Many years  before painting is very valuable,familiarity of surrounded by different objects, different sounds, different colors. Originally, painting were placed special national gallery, pieces in church and buildings. That painting makes us internal reality feelings, memorable further long life.everything around the image is part of its meaning. Now a days technology makes easy,and happy for people. You do not have to go anywhere for visible world. We can go google any kinds of research at home. 

Throughout the years, women’s image has been depicted in many different ways. In episode two of ways of seeing, John Berger explains how in the Western art, the nude figure was used to express female beauty and its forms, but also, nude portraits were made with the purpose to appeal to men’s sexuality. Berger’s central argument was that nudity objectifies women. He mentions that nakedness does not define a woman as she is; instead it just shows their submission to others.

This can be compared to the current situation in society, where women are more acknowledged for the way they look than for their values and what they have to offer. The #MeToomovement is a movement that was created to help and support those who have been victims of sexual harrassment or sexual assault. Many american celebrities were encouraged by this movement to speak their truth and consequently a high number of other victims followed and told their personal stories. All this was done hoping to spread awareness  of how many women are being sexually neglected on their daily lives by the media, in their jobs or even their own family.

Women should start being respected  and acknowledged by their unique qualities and not for their  physical appearance.  

In Berger’s second episode of “ Ways of Seeing”, he said “Shame is not in relation to one another, it is the spectator looking which shames them.” Society has molded women to focus more on what they should look like in the eyes of others and more specifically in the eyes of men, and at what cost? Even though it shouldn’t matter, men believe hairy legs and hairy armpits on a woman is gross. Which I think is also why woman hate their body hair and are very insecure about it. In this day and age, women are taking a stance and believe they could do whatever they want with their appearance and choose if they want to shave or not. More and more women are rebelling against this norm. Modanna for instance, showed a picture with her armpit hair. Julia Roberts showed up at a premier in 1999 with unshaved armpits. Little by little, women are making it their choice to shave when they want and if they want. They are taking their power back ! Women are teaching women that their body hair is not gross and that their decisions shouldn’t be based on opinions of men. So thank you to the fearless women that are brave enough to walk out with hairy legs and sticking their middle fingers up showing off armpit hair!

As women, many of us are told to cover ourselves up, that men will look at us with lust and that they “simply can’t help it” and they’re just boys being boys. Funny, that’s hysterical. In Berger’s second episode of “Ways of Seeing” he talks about how women are a sight for men in nude paintings. When the woman is looking passively at the spectator of the painting (most always a man) that woman gives that man the power, and shows that she is subservient to him. He also eluded in the episode to the fact that a woman’s naked body hold so much more meaning compared to a man’s. That once a woman removes her clothing in a painting, or even has a partner alongside with her, that it is all about the man’s sexuality not hers, she is simply an object for that man to use to his pleasure. This reminds me A LOT about the “Free the Nipple” campaign. An organization that takes a stand against the objectification of a woman’s chest. No one is offended if a man removes his shirt on a hot summer’s day, but people go nuts over a woman simply FEEDING her baby in public!…..why can we not do that peacefully in public? That is why we have breasts….. to breastfeed.

below is a URL to a youtube video, to get a glimpse of the Free the Nipple movement. There are breasts exposed, as a warning, but I shouldn’t even HAVE to warn you, they’re just breasts.

Jeffery Chacon

English

Blog#1

 The invention of the camera has really changed our perspective we get from images and and some may get different meanings from an image based on their past experiences or common knowledge. For example, Ai Weiwei’s picture of someone showing his middle finger at the white house. I feel like we are all entitled to our freedom of speech and in this picture that person is not harming or discriminating anyone so I feel like that the controversy that exists regarding that picture is irrelevant. For all we know it is a United States veteran showing his middle finger at the white house because he feels like his or her voice is not being listened to. Another reason why I am not offended because of this picture because In a way I relate a lot to this picture because of the Trump. I am not in agreement with most of his absurd ideas and racist comments he shares on national Television. Although I am aware that this picture was taken long before Trump was in office but this picture might have been directed at whoever was in office at the time of the picture maybe the American sticking out his middle finger was also not in agreement with the administration at the time because of the ways the president might have handled certain situations at the time. This shows how the invention of the camera has changed our lives and created a totally different language that creates a lot of controversy on social media and also shows how an image can mean many different things for different people.

Images often convey different meanings, the significance of an image is usually based on the spectator’s point of view, individual way of thinking or past experiences. Each person has their own unique way of seeing things. Therefore, two people observing the same work of art can have a completely different idea of the meaning that it holds behind it, this is called perspective.

Images are a way of transmitting a message without saying any words, they  also allow us to see historical paintings that we are unable to see personally, and as stated in the book in Episode 1 of  Ways of Seeing, images show us how things were in the past and how people once looked.

This image’s theme is perspective. It shows how the painter is drawing the egg as the way he sees it, which can differ from what others see. As stated before, people see things differently depending on certain factors, and what can be very clear to one might not be to others. This fits with the ideas described in Episode 1 of ways of seeing because John Beger states that “…our perception or appreciation of an image depends also upon our own way of seeing”. Based on this we can also say that although this image is about perspective, it can mean something different for someone else.

          In this image, I can see that there is an old lady sits on a wheelchair  and stays alone in a room. Besides, there are some flowers and a music player on the desk. In the picture, the old lady is smiling and raising her arm so that she can use light to make her shadow look like she is dancing. As we can see from the photo, she is really enjoying this moment. She knows that she is old. She can’t even stand up by herself. But in her mind, she believes that she can still be young again. Here, I can strongly feel that she really wants to change her situation and go back to her young age times so that she can dance again. Therefore, she uses her humor and optimistic attitude to against her life’s struggle. She likes flowers and music, desires to dance. On the other hand, she is also very creative like a child, because I never see a senior who likes to play with his or her shadow. The message from this image, I believe, is to keep optimistic in difficult situation. Don’t be afraid of being under the shadow, you know the light creates shadow. Don’t ever think your world is dark, you should know that your light is created by yourself. If you have a dream, you will never feel old because your heart is young.