The Gaze Theory Explored Further

I once wrote a paper on the Gaze Theory. I read about it in a film class and have since been obsessed with the notion because I think it's deliciously complicated and applicable to everything. According to Laura Mulvey, "In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly” (Norton 2088). Mulvey's specialty was film. The camera adopts the male perspective.  I want to apply the theory of the gaze to the images from the case study we did.  

Assuming Mulvey's correct in thinking that the camera caters to men and their whims...do the pictures distributed by PETA therefore also adopt the male perspective?  Welling mentions the sexualization of women within ecoporn--or rather how the way in which the images of ecosystems evoke "untainted" and/or "virginal" appeal for the voyeur.  For him and Todd McGowan (another theorist on whom I've written a paper) it's all about the power. McGowan says, "The desire for mastery is an active rather than a passive process: the desiring subject actively takes possession of the passive object” (McGowan 31).  So the camera takes possession of the passive subject--I can see the appeal for men.  But what if we thought about it from the woman's perspective?  Do any of the images appeal to women?  And if so then what appeals to women?

I was looking into some of the images to see if the camera adopts a female perspective rather than a male's and I think there are some breeches in the theory.  The image of the baby chicks makes me think more from the women's perspective than men's.  The way in which the chicks are poised in the picture (bright yellow colors)--caters to a maternal instinct rather than patriarchal, violent image.  Much a like how a mother would want to protect her own chicks (again...this is all speculation.  I'm just trying to have some fun with this).  Does the camera adopt the women's perspective?  Or is it forever male?  These are questions.