Ways of Seeing by John Berger - Essay Example

In the attempt to convey the disparity in perception of “beauty” between men and women, Berger illustrates that women tend to adore themselves much more than men, while the latter focus on women’s appearance rather than their own. This gives the implication that women perceive themselves as being beautiful and they expect men to recognize the same of them. This is a theme that Berger builds with the pictures described hereunder (Berger [b] 35).On the 36th page of “Ways of seeing”, there are two photographs of two different women.

The first photograph depicts a lady working at a store, wrapping a box on the table with her head bowed low (Berger [b] 36). Despite her admirable stature, the lady has numerous portraits of “beautiful” ladies hanging on the wall behind her. In the second photograph, there is a lady sitting in the back left side of a car. The lady appears to be receiving a lot of attention from onlookers, who seem to be astounded by her looks. However, the woman in the photo looks so carefree, an aspect evident from her sitting posture and closed eyes.

This is a clear indicator that she perceives herself as being beautiful and expects complete attention from others, yet she does not even acknowledge her admirers. Her perception is, however, as a result of people’s general definition of beauty. Both photographs, display women yet they maintain extremely diverse levels of “beauty”. Most importantly, the depicted “beauty” is defined by other people. For instance, the lady working at the store is striving to achieve prosperity and become like the woman on the second photograph since she also upholds a definition of “beauty”, similar to that, which is admired by other people (Berger [b] 36).