Ways of Seeing Women

When I heard John Berger’s Ways of Seeing mentioned in this week’s lecture, my attention was instantly caught, as I recently studied this in another class I am taking this semester. While discussing this piece in my other class, the professor pointed out this quote: “One might simplify this by saying men act and women appear.” When analyzing this quote, my class came up with these conclusions: men look at women while women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object-and most particularly an object of vision: a sight. This was a very interesting discussion to have, as the relationship between men and women is always changing. If our class wanted to have a discussion on what we thought this quote meant, it could be interesting to see the differences between my two classes, as different types of people were involved.