The aim of this work is the qualitative analysis of the new wave of female gaze photographers with a comparison of the female gaze pioneers. For this purpose, there were used photographs by Arvida Bystr​öm​, Petra Collins, Harley Weir, and Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin, Corinne Day, which were published in fashion magazines such as ​Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, i-D, Dazed, and ​Vice​. The theoretical part examined how female identity has been shaped by western culture and dominant ideology, and how patriarchy paradigm has influenced the visual representation of women in art, pop culture, and advertisement. It is shown through key feminist concepts including Simone De Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Judith Butler, John Berger, Laura Mulvey, theory of young girl, gagafeminism, and xenofeminism. The second part of the thesis is dedicated to social semiotics analysis of each photograph and the results of this research, which show changes of topics in the female gaze content and the shift to social media-related topics and the virtual representation of women. The work could enrich further research in the field of feminist aesthetics, fashion journalism, photography, advertisement, and social media.

Det finns forskare som menar att medierna är med och skapar vår identitet, därför måste vi ställa oss kritiska till de bilder vi ser. Enligt Gillian Rose ska vi med noggrannhet granska de bilder som exempelvis ett omslag har, för där det finns vissa kriterier vi måste ta hänsyn till. Syftet med min studie är att med semiotiska och retoriska verktyg analysera Elle, Plaza Kvinna, GQ samt King’s omslag för att se om män och kvinnor gestaltas olika beroende på vilken publiken är. Samt om det finns en skillnad tidningarna emellan. Med hjälp av Yvonne Hirdmans genusteori, Erwing Goffmans teori om avkodningen på bilden samt Laura Mulveys begrepp ”the male gaze” såg jag hur omslagen med en manlig publik gestaltade både män och kvinnor på sina omslag. Samt att de omslagen som inriktade sig till kvinnlig publik endast gestaltade kvinnor. Av de fyra modemagasinen som jag valde att analysera så anspelade tre av dem på kända personers trovärdighet istället för att låta kläder eller skönhet tala. Ord som blev centrala i analysernas konnotativa del var bland annat självständighet, makt, elegans och fullständighet. / There are scientists who believe that the media are creating human’s identity, therefore we need to be critical to the images we see. According to Gillian Rose we must view the cover pictures carefully with several criteria to take into consideration. The purpose with this study is to analyze Elle, Plaza Kvinna, GQ and King’s covers to see if men and women are portrayed differently depending on who’s looking. With the help of semiotic and rhetorical tools I saw a difference to how the genders were portrayed. The theoretical position I have taken is gender theory by Yvonne Hirdman, the theory Erwing Goffman presents in his work Media Advertisement where he talks about the decoding of a picture and Laura Mulveys concept of” the male gaze”. In the material, I saw that a different was made between male and females. The magazines that had a male audience portrayed both men and woman on their covers. And the magazines that has a female audience portrayed woman only. Of the four- fashion magazine three of them focused on the credibility of the model instead of letting the fashion speak.

La présente thèse s’organise comme une étude du cinéma brésilien contemporain visant à mettre en évidence la constitution des regards féminins. Cette étude s’appuie sur l’analyse filmique pour circonscrire un modèle esthétique en opposition au regard dominant qui structure la majorité de la production cinématographique. Il propose une perspective distincte de la théorie féministe classique, moins focalisée sur des paires d'opposés historiquement consacrées (masculin versus féminin), et qui se concentre davantage sur ce que les films offrent comme indices d’une organisation symbolique. L’ambition est de déceler la constitution d’un regard féminin cinématographique, et de décrire les traits structurels de ceux-ci. / The present thesis is a study of contemporary Brazilian cinema focused on the constitution of female gazes. This study is based on film analysis and aims to describe an aesthetic model in opposition to the dominant (male) gaze that structures the majority of film production. It develops a perspective that distinguishes itself from classical feminist theory, by means of a shift in focus from the historically consecrated pair of opposites (masculine versus feminine) to an emphasis on what films offer as indications pointing to new symbolic structures. Its goal is to shed light on the constitution of a cinematic female gaze, and to describe the structural lines that define it.

Denna uppsats ser på vem det egentligen är som tittar på de nakna eller halvnakna verken som ställs ut på den Nationalmuseum i Stockholm efter deras nyöppning hösten 2018. Metoden som har använts för att söka svar på detta är genom fysiska observationer på plats, medan en avgränsning till större skulpturer och målningar som visar bröstvårtor eller kön har gjorts, även en kvantitativ inventering har gjorts av verken. För att analysera resultatet används en feministisk postkolonial diskursanalys, med utgångspunkt från den tidigare forskningen om ”blicken” eller ”the Gaze”, från Sartre, Mulvey, och Gamman & Marshmen. Resultatet visar att majoriteten av de nakna verken har placerats i avdelningarna för den tidiga konsten från 1500-1700- talet, medan det är få nakna verk i den senare tidens avdelningar från 1800-1900-talet. Denna uppdelning följer även en uppdelning av var män och kvinnor uppehåller sig längst, då männen är på 1500-1700-tals avdelningen längst medan kvinnorna uppehåller sig längst på 1800-1900-tals avdelningen.Det visar sig även att män är mer intresserad av att titta på nakna män än vad kvinnor är, dock så är män och kvinnor lika intresserade av att titta på nakna kvinnor. En intressant vändning är att kvinnorna och männens beteenden ändras i varandras sällskap, då kvinnorna tar samma plats som männen medan männen tar mindre plats som kvinnorna.

In the traditionally patriarchal Hollywood industry, the heterosexual man’s “male gaze,” as coined by feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, is the dominant viewing model for cinematic audiences, leaving little room for a negotiated reading of how visual images are created, presented, and internalized by male and female audiences alike. However, as Hollywood’s shifting feminist landscape becomes increasingly prevalent in the mainstream media, content incorporating the oppositional “female gaze” have become the new norm in both the film and television mediums. Through an extended analysis of the gaze as socialized through gendered learning in children, the “safe space” afforded through the formulaic platform of “boy bands,” and the function of romantic comedies and the emerging feminist rhetoric prevalent in such films as “Magic Mike: XXL,” the conceptual “female gaze” is defined and explored through the demographic of young girls as they grow and push their understanding of desire, particularly as they develop into the mature, media-cosuming women that have become increasingly vocal in the Hollywood sphere.

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Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion have no problem destroying the male gaze to empower women through the female gaze within the WAP music video. They both empower women by creating a whorehouse for women by women as Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion both play the role as the entertainer and the entertained therefore forcing the viewer into a trance. Feeding into the Jezebel trope, Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion play with the idea of stereotypes, by embellishing some aspects of the stereotype such as animalistic and negating others attributes of the stereotype such as slut shaming. Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion deny respectability politics and create a discussion about ratchet respectability including anti-respectability as they are both icons in discussions about these socio-political subjects. Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion empower women by unapologetically exploring their own sexuality and promoting sex positivity throughout various rooms of the whorehouse from the aspect of the viewer and the viewed. Confusion and trickery are employed through a trance which can be witnessed from a visual perspective throughout the whorehouse as Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion rap their lyrics.Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion both create power dynamics of dominance and submission within their dynamic together and with the viewer and the viewed based on the camera angle, time, and space created. Cardi B and Meg Thee Stallion create a trance as the viewer is sucked into a dystopian/utopian setting warping a sense of time and space. While the lyrics paint a picture of emasculating men, the visuals completely leave men out of the picture and focus only on the women through the female gaze. The aim of the analysis of this music video is to critically examine how WAP empowers women to explore their sexual identity in relation to other women by denying the male gaze. Furthermore, this paper will illustrate how this music video acts as a political tool for social justice advocacy and equality within Hip-Hop feminism and trap feminism and overall patriarchal Hip-Hop culture. For research purposes, the WAP music video makes for a unique case study to visually analyze through Hip-Hop feminist theory and the female gaze, from an intersectional perspective.

This essay contains a discussion of my influences for making the choreographic work The Horrors of:, which was the practical part of an examination for the degree work of the bachelor’s Programme in Dance Performance at Stockholms Konstnärliga Högskola in the fall of 2022. The horrors of: is an exploration of women in horror and the potentiality of the monstrous feminine. Inspired by Julia Kristeva’s concept of abjection, Barbara Creed’s concept of the monstrous-feminine as well as films in the body horror genre, a search to represent the subjectivity of the women depicted in horror through dance emerged. In the body horror genre, the female characters are neither villains nor heroes, but complex characters who possess the capacity to both do good and destroy.    The text is divided in two parts: The first part dissects how the process was generated from researching the topics of femininity and abjection into a staged choreographic work and the second part contains a collage of poems along with other material collected from the artistic research process.

Denna studie undersöker problemområdet sexualiseringen av kvinnokroppen på sociala medier, eftersom det är en stor källa till visuella intryck idag. Syftet är att undersöka hur influencers, mer specifikt Fanny Lyckman och Amanda Ekström representerar kvinnokroppen i sociala medier utifrån ett postfeministiskt perspektiv, och där frågeställning lyder: Hur representerar Lyckman och Ekström kvinnokroppen i sina sociala medier utifrån ett postfeministiskt perspektiv i relation till sexualiseringen av kulturen? Studien genomförs med en kvalitativ semiotisk visuell analys där materialet undersöks enskilt samt kompareras. Teorin som appliceras är bland annat postfeminism, representation och gaze-teori. Resultatet av undersökningen visar att Lyckman objektifierar och sexualiserar sin kropp vilket skapar en tydlig koppling till mjukpornografin, och att den manliga blicken används. Ekströms bilder är också avklädda, men det finns ingen tydlig koppling till pornografins bildspråk, här är modellerna i stället subjekt och bilderna utgår inte från en manlig blick, snarare en icke-blick. Både Lyckman och Ekström representerar kvinnokroppen medvetet med en underton av empowerment, samtidigt som det finns kopplingar till hur kvinnokroppen stereotypiskt representerats genom historien och sexuella anspelningar, framför allt i Lyckmans material vilket skapar en dubbelhet i resultatet.

Initially, my developing body of work aimed to redesign the traditions of representational painting, specifically the female nude, to depict the contemporary notions of lesbianism and femininity in an honest and empowering manner as a form of identity and not as vehicle for voyeurism. As an artist who paints the female nude and identifies as a woman and a lesbian, I examine the preexisting notions of the male gaze and the effect of socialization as it pertains to my work. The act of looking from the point of view of a woman, which is not synonymous with a "female gaze", or from the point of view of a lesbian, is not a birthright, but a conscious effort to constantly question the way we see and produce pictures and realizing that the male gaze permeates most images of female nudes. By the nature of my sexuality and my exposure to existing male-produced images, do I see the female nude through the male gaze or is there a gaze that is essentially female? Does it matter either way if the image is aesthetically compelling? My paintings neither attempt to conform to the male gaze or debunk it, nor do I attempt to prove the existence of a female gaze. Like Edgar Degas, I wish to look through a keyhole-a form of voyeurism-to see people outside of their public facade.