The ‘female gaze’ is part of the title of this website, but what exactly does it mean? The concept has its origins in a different field and in a different time: Let me take you back to film theory in the 1970s…

The male gaze

British film theorist Laura Mulvey coined this term in a feminist essay published in 1975¹.  She analyzed the roles of women in movies and how they are represented: As passive accessories and sexualized objects.  The male, Mulvey analyzed, is “the active one of forwarding the story, making things happen”², he is the bearer of the look; the female, on the other hand, is characterized by passivity and “to-be-looked-at-ness”³. 

Example of the male gaze in Transformers.
Bay, M. (Director). (2007). Transformers [Film]. Paramount Pictures.

Let’s look at an example to make things more tangible. Mulvey in her essay discusses movies with icons like Marilyn Monroe or Marlene Dietrich, but there are also more contemporary examples of the male gaze. Maybe you know the movie Transformers, a science fiction action film — think about the following scene, where protagonist Sam meets the female character Mikaela:

• • The scene starts off with a shot of the backside of Mikaela walking, she’s wearing a short skirt and a fitted cut off shirt, her long hair bounces as she walks
  • Sam intensely gazes upon Mikaela’s body; a moment later, after he invites her into his car, Sam’s eyes flicker between her lips and her chest
  • The car breaks down and Mikaela gets out to take a look; the camera focuses on her body and slowly pans upwards

This scene has many elements of the male gaze: the camera movement and close ups on Mikaela’s body; the male character’s stare; the spectators in the audience following this male gaze through the cascade of camera and characters;

There is much more to be said about Mulvey’s theory, and many more examples to show the male gaze; At the heart of it, the question is: What stories are told, and how? With the male gaze, the stories are those of active male protagonists where females are “useful resting points and diversionary asides”⁴, presented in ways that are visually pleasing to the male characters and spectators. They reflect a male perspective on women and the world. 

With this basic understanding of the male gaze, let’s move on to what developed next:

The female gaze

This is not simply an inversion of the male gaze but more of a response to challenge this masculine look and open up other perspectives⁵. Zoe Dirse sums it up: “Once women or members of other groups enter the equation, then there needs to be a shift in the gaze to reflect their point of view”⁶.

With this different point of view, the question What stories are told, and how? is answered very differently. Let’s look at some examples:

• • Camera movements and shots are different: for example, women are rarely displayed naked — and when the female body is revealed then not in order to be seductive to the male lead⁷
  • Female characters play different roles within the narrative: for example, women appear as central figures, “disconnected from the male economy of desire”⁸; they are shown in their singularity, as complex human beings, and not confined to being sexualised objects
  • Such movies appeal to different audiences: for example, Forbidden Love is a movie by lesbian directors about a lesbian couple for lesbian spectators⁹

So, in contrast to the male gaze, the female gaze describes other ways of looking at females, at males and at the world¹⁰. In my own words, it is an invitation to tell different stories, and to tell stories differently¹¹. 

The female gaze expanded

So far, so good. The male gaze and the female gaze are both well established concepts in film theory, but how can we now take it back to physics education? 

For this leap, we need to expand the term a little bit. Instead of using it just to describe what happens within a film, the female gaze can also be applied for talking about the film, I would say. Participating in discourse about a film, or more broadly a topic, also reflects our ‘ways of looking’. 

Of course, since this is all about perspective, your own gender doesn’t determine your gaze. You can identify as male, but look at physics education from the female point of view, or the other way around.

This is exactly what we’re doing on this website: We apply the female gaze as a certain lens to look at and talk about physics education. We answer the question What stories are told, and how? from a perspective that challenges the male point of view on physics.

Throughout the three parts of this website, we follow the invitation of the female gaze to tell different stories, and to tell stories differently:

• • Analysis is about finding stories with a female gaze on physics education in the research literature
  • Voices is about telling stories about female experiences
  • Visions is about creating stories for futures of physics education beyond the male gaze

It is worth noting that a recent generation of feminist film theorists has critiqued the concept of the female gaze for falling short on allowing for other forms of difference, for example sexual orientation, race and ethnicity^5,9.  In my expanded interpretation of the concept, it can take any of those perspectives; I see the female gaze as an open, alternative point of view to that of the white, wealthy, heteronormative male. 

¹ Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen, 16(3), 6–18. https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/16.3.6

² Mulvey, 1975, p. 7.

³ Mulvey, 1975, p. 11.

⁴ Cohen, P. M. (2010). What Have Clothes Got to Do with It? Romantic Comedy and the Female Gaze. Southwest Review, 95(1/2), p. 79.

⁵ French, L. (2021). The ‘Female Gaze.’ In L. French (Ed.), The Female Gaze in Documentary Film: An International Perspective (pp. 53–70). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68094-7_3 

⁶ Dirse, Z. (2013). Gender in cinematography: Female gaze (eye) behind the camera. Journal of Research in Gender Studies, 3(1), 15–30.

⁷ Cohen, 2010.

⁸ Cohen, 2010, p. 80.

⁹ Dirse, 2013.

¹⁰Female gaze. (n.d.). Oxford Reference. Retrieved Feb 21, 2024, from https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095814800