the gaze
Prolonged visual attention
The gaze is a term from critical theory describing the act of looking as an exercise of power.
Originally psychoanalytic, it now appears most often in discussions of how viewers consume images of others—particularly the male gaze, which frames women as objects of heterosexual male desire in film, art, and advertising.
The concept emphasizes that looking is never neutral; it positions the viewer as subject and the viewed as object.
- stareProlonged fixed gaze
- lookDirect one's gaze
- eyesOrgans of sight
- watchingActively looking at something
- piercingPenetrating or very sharp
fixed stare · prying eyes · intense · laser focus · scrutiny · fixation · longing · desire · come hither · attention · regard · observation · lingering · voyeur · surveillance · admiration · contemplate · ogle
- French ThoughtDescartes, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, Camus
- Gender Artfeminist art, gender expression, gender identity, women in art, objectification
- Lacanimaginary, real, lamella, the Other
- sexualitysexual orientation, sexual behavior, erotica, sexual identity, bisexual
- othernessother, otherness, othering, stranger, foreigner
the gazeglance
Brief, casual look
glimpse · peek · quick look · cursory look · flash
the gazelooking away
Directing eyes elsewhere
avoidance · downcast eyes · averted gaze · closed eyes · inattention
the gazeinvisibility
State of being unseen
overlooking · anonymity · erasure · opacity · non-recognition