Unseen and Overlooked: Gender Inequality and the Male Gaze in Western Art History
- Angel Tung
- Apr 11
- 6 min read
Throughout the annals of art history, gender inequality has profoundly shaped both the portrayal of women and the opportunities afforded to women artists. Women have been systematically reduced to objects of admiration, their agency erased to serve male perspectives, while their contributions as artists have been consistently overlooked. This dual injustice, reducing women to stereotypes in artistic representation and excluding them from the narrative of artistic production, reflects broader patriarchal power dynamics that have dominated Western culture for centuries. By examining historical barriers and the cultural forces perpetuating these inequities, it becomes evident that art history remains an incomplete chronicle, one that demands reevaluation to acknowledge the full scope of women’s contributions.
Historically, the art world has been a male-dominated domain, particularly in the Western tradition. Societal norms and rigid gender roles long restricted women’s access to the training, resources, and public platforms necessary for artistic success. For instance, until 1897, the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in France barred women from enrollment, effectively denying them the formal education that was a prerequisite for recognition in the art world. Even when exceptions occurred, such as the admission of women to the Royal Academy in Britain, they were often relegated to secondary status. As noted by Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock, women were prohibited from life-drawing classes deemed essential for mastering the human form, and have been ideologically framed within restrictive categories, such as "feminine" genres (e.g., flower painting or domestic scenes). Art historian Linda Nochlin, in her seminal 1971 essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” argues that this exclusion stemmed not from a lack of talent but from systemic obstacles: the absence of institutional support, the expectation of domestic duties, and the societal belief that genius was an inherently male trait. These barriers ensured that women artists, no matter their skill, were rarely afforded the same opportunities as their male counterparts to achieve prominence.
When women did appear in art, their representation often reinforced rather than challenged these inequalities. The concept of the “male gaze,” introduced by English art critic John Berger in 1972, provides a critical lens for understanding this phenomenon. Berger describes how visual arts, including painting, were frequently crafted from a heterosexual male perspective, positioning women as passive objects of desire rather than active subjects with their own narratives. Titian’s Venus of Urbino (1538), for example, presents a reclining nude woman whose pose and expression cater to the viewer’s pleasure, her identity subsumed by her role as an erotic ideal. Similarly, in Diego Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus, the male gaze manifests through the deliberate pose and presentation of Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty, depicted as a reclining nude. Positioned with her back to the viewer and her face partially visible in a mirror held by Cupid, her son, Venus is framed within a dual perspective that simultaneously exposes her physical form and renders her gaze elusive. This dual perspective positions her as the "surveyed," to borrow John Berger’s terminology from Ways of Seeing (1972). Berger succinctly captures this dynamic: “Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.” In Rokeby Venus, Venus embodies this gendered dichotomy; she does not actively engage the viewer but exists as an object of contemplation. Her nudity, soft curves, and relaxed posture cater to an idealized fantasy of feminine beauty tailored for male consumption. The mirror acts as a device that both reveals and conceals, amplifying the sense of voyeurism. Contextually, this painting was created in a conservative Spanish society under the Catholic Church’s influence, where nudity in art was rare and often censored. Velázquez likely painted it for a private, elite male audience (possibly the Marquis of Carpio or another nobleman) underscoring how the male gaze here is tied to power and privilege. The act of viewing Venus in such a private, almost secretive setting amplifies the sense of possession and control over her image. As such, the two paintings reveal the systemic objectification of women under the male gaze, with their visual structure reinforcing gendered power imbalances central to the painting’s historical and cultural significance.
Beyond objectification, women in art were often confined to reductive stereotypes of femininity that further diminished their complexity. Across centuries, they were cast as virtuous mothers, seductive temptresses, or tragic figures—roles that reflected male fantasies and societal expectations rather than lived realities. The Pre-Raphaelite obsession with Shakespeare’s Ophelia, for instance, epitomizes this trend: in paintings like John Everett Millais’s Ophelia (1851–52), she is a beautiful, doomed figure, her death aestheticized and her inner life unexplored. Such portrayals not only limited the scope of female representation but also perpetuated cultural assumptions about women’s passivity and subservience. Even in portraiture, where individuality might have been foregrounded, women were frequently depicted in domestic settings or as appendages to men. Renaissance portraits often positioned women alongside their husbands, their identities subordinated to the male figure’s status and lineage, reinforcing their secondary societal role. In the Portrait of Sir Thomas More and His Family (1527, surviving in copies and sketches), Holbein depicts Sir Thomas More surrounded by his household, including his wife, Lady Alice More, and daughters. The women are positioned around More, the central male figure, their presence emphasizing his status as the patriarch. This composition reflects the broader convention of the period, where women’s roles in portraiture were often secondary, serving to enhance the male subject’s lineage and authority.
The misrepresentation and underrepresentation of women in art mirror broader cultural attitudes rooted in patriarchal power structures. Art has long served as a reflection of societal values, and in male-dominated societies, men wielded the authority to craft and preserve the dominant narrative. Religious and mythological themes, pervasive in Western art, further entrenched these limitations. Women were often depicted as biblical or classical archetypes: Eve as the original sinner, the Virgin Mary as the epitome of purity, or goddesses like Venus and Diana as embodiments of beauty or vengeance. These archetypes, while symbolically potent, constrained the range of female experience depicted in art, reducing women to allegorical figures rather than multifaceted individuals. Moreover, the intersection of gender with race and class compounded these distortions. Non-Western women and women of color were largely absent from the Western canon, and when they did appear, as in the Orientalist paintings of the 19th century (e.g., Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s The Turkish Bath, 1862), they were exoticized and fetishized, their humanity overshadowed by colonial fantasies.
The marginalization of women artists and the objectification of women in art are two sides of the same coin, each reinforcing the other within a patriarchal framework. While male artists like Michelangelo or Picasso are celebrated as singular geniuses, women artists such as Artemisia Gentileschi or Mary Cassatt are often framed as anomalies, their achievements overshadowed by the dominant male narrative. Yet the works of these women—Gentileschi’s visceral Judith Slaying Holofernes (1614–20), for instance—demonstrate not only technical mastery but also a reclamation of female agency, challenging the very stereotypes that confined their predecessors. The failure to integrate such contributions into the mainstream of art history underscores the depth of gender inequality in the field.
In conclusion, gender inequality in art history manifests as both a misrepresentation of women as passive objects and a systemic erasure of women artists from the canon. From the exclusionary practices of art academies to the pervasive influence of the male gaze, the art world has long privileged male perspectives at the expense of a more equitable narrative. By perpetuating stereotypes and sidelining the diverse experiences of women, this imbalance distorts our understanding of artistic heritage. Addressing this inequity requires not only a reevaluation of how women have been depicted but also a concerted effort to amplify the voices of women artists, past and present, whose talents have too long been relegated to the margins. Only then can art history begin to reflect the full richness of human creativity.
Other references:
Berger, J. (1972). Ways of seeing. Penguin Books. ISBN: 978-0140135152
Pollock, G., & Parker, R. (1981). Old mistresses: Women, art and ideology. Pantheon Books.
Nochlin, L. (n.d.). Why have there been no great women artists? Retrieved from https://www.writing.upenn.edu/library/Nochlin-Linda_Why-Have-There-Been-No-Great-Women-Artists.pdf
Winter, A. (2012). Feminist aesthetics. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter 2012 ed.). Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/feminism-aesthetics/
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