FEMINISM

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights for women.It is the response to society's assumptions that women should be subservient to men. Until the emergence of feminism women were treated almost as objects.

Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze links with feminism as she believes that cinema audiences look at films in two ways:

• Voyeuristically
• Fetishstically 

She says that cinema audiences watch a film without being watched by the characters on screen and that usually in a darkened cinema so other audiences do not observe them either. Therefore we are almost voyeurs ourselves by watching the people on screen and this can lead to two effects:

• Objectification of female characters in relation to this controlling male gaze
• Narcissistic identification with an ideal image seen on screen