Books: “Ways of Seeing” by John Berger

A book selected by the lovely Jaime @ Books Actually here in Singapore. Upon reading, I reached out to my graphic designer sister, sending the image of the book with a half condescending caption (cause what are big sisters for?) : “I suppose you have read this?” To which she replied, returning my serve, “it’s a classic.”

While knowing next to nothing of art and its history, the book guides you to understand how art became a filtered view of how the owners wanted to be portrayed: think Instagram pre camera phones. Once that idea is established, it is quickly realized just how inundated we are with visual cues. In addition, how much we understand visual communition is subliminal and we are invited to experience our power of recognition through the wordless essay chapters.

What I will take away from the book is how women tend to see themselves from a man’s point of view: a desirable or undesirable object. Berger’s words, I feel, are accurate. I believe there cannot be much further progress in the women’s movement until we see femininity for the sake of femininity – not as a weakness or symbol of sexual appeal, but for what it is. Like virtue, the definition of femininity should lie between two extremes – a balance of metaphysical ideas, not physical ideals. And as difficult to express as the answer to the question “what makes us human.”

“Presence for a woman is so intrinsic to her person that men tend to think of it as an almost physical emanation, a kind of heat or smell or aura.”

“To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. But this has been at the cost of a woman’s self being splint in two. A woman must continually watch herself. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself.”

“The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyor female. Thus she turns into an object- and most particularly an object of vision: a sight”

“The state of being envied is what constitutes glamour. And publicity is the process of manufacturing glamour.”

“The gap between what publicity actually offers and the future it promises, corresponds with the gap between what the spectator-buyer feels himself to be and what he would like to be. The two gaps become one; and instead of the single gap being bridged by action of lived experience, it is filled with glamorous day-dreams.”