No student will ever make it through art school without learning about ‘The Male Gaze’. Developed by Laura Mulvey, it suggests the way art and visual media views the world (and particularly women) is through the eyes of a heterosexual male. The camera drifts towards boobs, bums, necks and thighs; often looking down onto women, or upward toward men. It’s subliminal, subtle and I agree, there is truth to it. But as a former student of the arts myself, and lecturer at a leading art’s school too, I question if Mulvey’s seminal theory goes *far enough.* Because yes, we do centre women. Not just in art, but often in advocacy, crisis, and intervention too. If there’s a disaster, I guarantee you’ll hear someone shout “save the women and children!” (FYI this is called The Birkenhead drill). If there’s humanitarian aid to be distributed to those who need it, you know who it’s going to first (yes, it is literally official UN World Food Program Policy to prioritise women over men). Why not take a look at any domestic abuse campaign, or read the intervention strategies themselves (ahem The Duluth Model) and you’ll only see women supported. Or visit a refuge, and see how they literally will not let you in if you’re an abused man, or even a boy. Flick through the Sexual Offences act, there is no mention of female perpetrators of rape. So much so that it is legally impossible for a woman to rape a man in modern Britain. Child marriage is not just something that happens to girls, for there are 115 MILLION child grooms in the world, did you know that? I didn’t. What about the missing indigenous men of Canada? They outnumber the missing women 2:1, any mention of them? And I saw no signs held up to bring back the 10,000 boys taken by Boko Haram. Take a look. If we speak of homelessness, prison reform, victims of violent crime, it’s all women, women, women; if you’re male, trans or non binary, then too bad. So I agree with Mulvey wholeheartedly, the world is obsessed with women, and in more ways than we’re willing to admit. What do you think? Male victims of abuse tinyurl.com/2zmb2tcn Images by Aleksandr Kadykov and Alexander Chimmeck from Unsplash.

2022-11-05