Medical Gaze

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Chapter one
‘Social and political history of the gaze’

The ‘gaze’, as described in the Oxford English Dictionary:
Gaze [Verb] Look steadily and intently especially in admiration, surprise, or throught: ‘he could only gaze at her in astonishment’ [Noun] A steady intent look: ‘he turned, following her gaze’
‘offices screened from the public gaze’

During the last few centuries many prominent figures in their fields of study have examined the ‘gaze’. These include philosophers, sociologists, ’neurologists and psychoanalysis’s, under the headings; ‘The system of power and the gaze’ (philosophy), ‘The Male gaze’ and ‘The Imperial gaze’ (Sociology) and Scopophilia (’neurology, psychology and psychotherapy). The term ‘gaze’ was generalised by French …show more content…

‘The Birth of the clinic’ which was written in 1963 by French philosopher Michel Foucault, first referenced the term “medical gaze” to explain the process of a medical diagnosis. This is an interesting form of the gaze, as it also states a power dynamic that is created between the doctor and the patient, which reflects on the inquisition of medical knowledge within society. Foucault states his theory of the gaze by illustrating a dynamic within “power relations” and disciplinary in his work ‘Discipline and Punish – The birth of the prison’, written in 1975 which analyses the social and theoretical mechanisms stating the changes in the Western penal systems such as prisons and schools, which contain apparatuses of power within …show more content…

It was made popular by feminist and film theorist Laura Mulvey in 1975 in her essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’. Mulvey a Professor of film and media at the University of London introduced the ‘second wave feminist’ which is a concept that focused and studied the “Male gaze”. The concept features a gender power that is located within the film, media and the art world. Even though earlier studies of the gaze could be found within other academics works, Mulvey has been acknowledged for bringing this theory to the forefront of both academia and feminist movements. Mulvey believed that women were being objectified within and by the use of film due to the fact that the cameras were being controlled by ‘heterosexual men’, this meant that Hollywood films were playing at being voyeuristic. Later, this concept became an influential theory within feminist films and media studies as well as

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