

I’ll Be Watching You: NSA Surveillance and the Male Gaze - mgunes
http://thenewinquiry.com/blogs/the-beheld/ill-be-watching-you-nsa-surveillance-and-the-male-gaze/

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mjfl
I think there is a fundamental difference between the "male gaze" evaluating
and "objectifying" females and the "Sauron's eye" of digital surveillance
these days. Sure, men may make you uncomfortable, pay you less, and make your
overall self-esteem go down, and that's an injustice, but the other knows, or
can know, _everything_ about you. Every out-of-line or could-be-racist comment
that you have ever made, any weird porn site you accidentally stumbled upon
one day, every angry message you have sent to an ex, any "private" confession
you have made on the internet, everyone you care about, everything that you
like or don't like, your political and religious beliefs, can be pulled from
these databases and used against you. And that is something that I don't think
the "male gaze" can do.

I will also say that I was not terribly surprised either. Neither were a lot
of people. How could anyone believe their Facebook accounts would be kept
private after reading Mark Zuckerberg's chat messages with his friends? ("They
trust me, dumbfucks"). I don't know how anyone believes what they say on the
internet is private or "anonymous", that is just so naive. But that doesn't
make it right to allow it to happen if we know about it.

