The Feminine Gaze

Abstract

This research investigates how women are represented in fashion photography produced by three influential female photographers active between 1945 and 1960: Lee Miller, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, and Lillian Bassman. Goffman’s gender advertisement coding scheme served as the primary analytical framework, through which eighty-two photographs were systematically evaluated across seven dimensions of stereotypical gender representation: relative size, function ranking, feminine touch, ritualization of subordination, licensed withdrawal, body display, and movement. Analysis revealed that images produced by these photographers demonstrated markedly lower incidences of stereotypical gender coding than those documented in comparable studies conducted during later periods. These results suggest that the gender of the photographer played a meaningful role in shaping visual representation, and that the relatively fluid and experimental conditions of postwar fashion photography further enabled more independent and self-possessed portrayals of female subjects. The study concludes with a discussion of the broader significance of these findings for scholarship in art history, media studies, and feminist theories of the gaze.