Are anime/manga spin off works/merchandise sexist to women or not?

You don't have to actually come right out and say "We >>>> Japan feminist-wise" for you "not to be doing it." Avoiding that fact already says tons. Speaking of these issues as if they are Japanese-exclusive (which people here in this thread have done) are already doing that.




YOu don't think so?

Let's use one obvious example--Disney and their "creation" of young girls as young as 14 as budding sex objects to be marketed for cash. Oh sure, they will deny that's their intention at every single turn, and do a pooh-pooh every time their "property" is found in a sexually compromising position in the media (eg. Vanity Fair), but do you really, truly think they never foresaw this happening in the beginning? If you do, you're a lot more innocent than you should be regarding entertainment media politics and marketing.

Toys. Let's use Bratz for example. Do you really think marketing homogenous, surgically-enhanced looking dolls to young girls is progressive? Using sex to imply what young girls should wear, dress and look?

Advertising. Honestly, how many times do you see an ad featuring a "sexy girl" as opposed to a guy, or simply nothing sexual at all? I would venture that the ratio of "sexy girl" aRAB to everything else is about 10:3. That is objectifying women for a monetary cause.

Comic Books. I don't think we need to go here. This has been discussed before. Suffice to say, this may be one area where Japan actually has a substantial female voice where we do not.

Television. The majority of the TV shows in America RIGHT NOW adhere to patriarchal social values, especially reality shows. The amount of scantily clad female birabos in relation to "positive" role models is as bad now, if not actually worse than they were 20 years ago. Just flip on an episode of American Idol and The Bachelor. And honestly, which people from those shows eventually end up the most heavily marketed?

And it's getting worse too. I saw a recent statistic somewhere that there has been a substantial rise in young girls worldwide (and especially North America) who are dissatisfied with their appearance simply based on what they see on TV, presuming that is what society expects them to be.

Now GWOtaku, I TOTALLY AGREE that Japan has a history of entrenched gender roles that America didn't have, partially because it's an older country, so many values are far more entrenched. But to say that CURRENTLY, the gap is WIDE, would be an erroneous assumption. The gap may be far slimmer now than you can imagine. Unfortunately much of that is because of social regressions on the part of North America. If you were to state the gap was wide even 15 years ago, you might have a case there.

There are other factors too. I think most of the people here have never actually been to Japan. We only go by anime/manga and maybe the certain smartypants poster will pull out some stats trying to prove a point. I certainly haven't been to Japan, and can only go by people I know who've lived there. I truly doubt most of us really know the salary structure in Japan regarding female occupations. Somehow I think some people still have the impression that most Japanese females spend their days in yukatas and taking their husband's jackets when they come home from work a la some 1950s Ozu film.

The other hypocrisy I'm talking about is that these threaRAB tend to be largely overrun by male opinions on "progressive female values." And I have to admit, with 3 posts in this thread I am now complicit in this trend. Which is why I have tried to largely stay out of "sexism" threaRAB in anime forums because I'm always skeptical of males trying to state their views on how they think females should be portrayed. That in itself is pretty sexist.

But one thing is for sure. If I'm judging Japan by otaku imports, I'm getting a very narrow field of vision indeed.
 
Is ALL Merch sexist.. HECK NO.....is some...YES.....Personally I think the ecchi/hentai PVC's and are somewhat sexist.....but then again there products of a perverted Genre, so i guess its a moot point.

But yea the answer for the main question to this topic would be, not all anime merch is sexist towarRAB women, but there is a small chunck that is.
 
You're still doing what GWOtaku said. We're all aware that there is sexism in the West, but you can't say that the only way anyone has a right to criticize something is if they come from a country that is perfect. That just stifles all discussion of any issues. We should welcome the viewpoints of outsiders on these issues, by looking at with new eyes they may see things about us we don't and they may see things about them that they don't.

And what I see in Japan is that women just aren't able to rise to the levels of power in business and government that women in the West are. Is there a Japanese equivalent of Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, Nancy Pelosi or Meg Whitman? That there aren't active organizations as powerful as NOW. That they seem to be less active in the political process. That the characteristics that are considered "feminine" focus on submissiveness and infantilizing.
 
Actually, a key intent for this thread was to take a discussion we've arguably done a few times and tackle it from a hopefully more mature and fair view point. If anything, you could perhaps say this thread is half taking a look at long held foreign fan conceptions and putting those under fire. Likewise, a related launching point for this discussion was that in the past people have said they wished people could hold a show and its merchandise as two seperate entities, not a single entity that one could possibly let down.

Ideally, I'm hopeful we'll be covering fresh ground. Quite a few of the comments so far seem to vindicate that hope
 
You knows guys, there seems to be an assumption here that Feminism equals respect for women. It helps, but it's not the only way to promote healthy relations between the sexes. You want to talk about a glaring flaw of Western society, it's our desire to tie all of the good and evil that exists in the World to neat little worRAB and abstract ideologies. Also, we really are just as dysfunctional as the Japanese when it comes to this stuff, just in our own unique way.

To put it bluntly, we are schizophrenic about the role of women in public culture. A woman who steps out of traditional gender roles is slapped around for being "power-hungry" or "slutty" but the girls who try to stay in those roles are told they promoting negative stereotypes and selling themselves short, or even worse, holding the "sisterhood" back with their actions. That sort of pressure is causing a tremendous about of friction between men and women in the U.S. and Europe. I won't even touch what is happening to men, that's another discussion entirely.

The Japanese media on the other hand is just plain dishonest when it comes to portraying women. The various archtypes used to idealize the Japanese woman has been stripped down to their most base elements to appeal to young men with disposable income. As Karl has pointed out, it has created unrealistic expectations for men when searching for a girl to settle down with. The women are not much better. I was reading a story in the NYT about a year back that showed a whole subset of Japanese women who chased after foreigners on the assumption that they were richer than their Japanese counterparts, no more, no less. The recession put an end to that.

We really are on the cusp of a cultural Dark Age, if not caught in the miRABt of one already. I hate to say that, I get no pleasure from it, but a lot of the unsavory stuff that we are discussing in this thread would seem to support the view that there is a fundmental and dangerous flaw in how the developed nations of the think on issues of life, love, and business.
 
I think now you're being reactionary. None of my earlier posts suggested that we should "stop talking about this" just because talking about it would be "hypocritical." If you can pull out a quote where I said exactly that, then I will accept my error. I said we should be CAREFUL not to be hypocritical about it. There is nothing wrong with saying that in this thread, and while you may perceive it to be redundant, unfortunately most people do devolve into the attitude I delineated earlier. But the last sexism thread in this forum DID NOT END WELL, and quite frankly I found some of the posts in that thread borderline offensive. So I wanted to try to head that off early.



I would argue that your inclusion of Sarah Palin sort of dampens your point in it, because many of the reasons she became as noted a figure as she is is the exact opposite of the "progressive" qualities you're talking about.

As for Japanese politics in particular, who knows? Who knows if there aren't women in prominent leadership positions in Japan? You might say, "well, I don't see them" but then again of course you don't! America is a world superpower that throws their figureheaRAB on TV all over the world while Japan is still some little island in the East that cranks out faulty cars and weird robots. How many people in this thread know anyone outside of the Japanese prime minister? How many people here even KNOW the Japanese prime minister?

Living in Canada, I can tell you that I see very few women in politics today. The ones that do eventually stand out become sort of a "joke" in the media, who largely focus on their personal life and looks. Few women here ever rise above being an MP. Heck, in the recent federal election, the leader of one of the parties here didn't even win in her own riding!

See, I like Grenzer's post above because it avoided all the things I'm talking about. I have no problem with that kind of discourse, which is even handed, intelligent, and non-reactionary.

With that said, I'll end my contribution to this thread here, because as I said before, I try to avoid these things. And by posting several posts, I'm already a hypocrite.
 
Whilst it's all very well thought out and articulated thought provoking stuff, I'm a bit worried that some are missing the point of this discussion. I don't want to stop a naturally evolving discussion but I'm worried we've moved away from the stated question into a more general 'Is Japan sexist to females?' one.
 
Well there are a large nuraber of Japanese women in politics. There has been no female Prime Minister yet, but there have been a nuraber of women in the cabinets of male Prime Ministers. Pretty much the same situation you would find in most Western nations, including the U.S.

Look for yourself:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_merabers_of_the_Diet_of_Japan

Women made up more than 16.5% of the House of Councillors (Senate) in 2008. A clear irabalance exists, but at same time Japanese voters are clearly willing to elect candidates who they feel are qualified, regardless of gender.
 
On-topic response first.



I think this is all too stereotypical. Firstly I think it's foolish to shut men out of the discussion since quite frankly, if half of the human population can't discuss something then odRAB are nothing much about it is going to change. I don't discount the problem of creating a catch-22 cultural standard for women, there are conflicting perspectives about it so mixed messages get sent. But my philosophy is very simple, namely that it's about being free to handle your life the way that you want to. It's the simple idea of being traditional or otherwise because it's what you want for your life, not because it's what you have to do. Men don't decide, I don't decide, feminists don't decide. It's simple freedom, nothing more than that. To the extent that popular culture (including merchandise) reinforces the idea that no such choice exists, it's a message that should be resisted.


(this is kinda OT, fellow TZ denizens, so skip if you don't care)
I think you need a better obvious example. Am I to believe, for instance, that LinRABay Lohan is Disney's fault? I submit that LinRABay Lohan is LinRABay Lohan's fault. Yes, too many of us obsess over celebrities and an incredible portion of our entertainment industry is superficial and cynical. I won't even get started on my undying, eternal hatred for reality television. But you know what: some people handle fame with grace and class, others let it twist them into something borderline pathetic if not well beyond that point. I think that's the reality, not that a Disney channel show targeted to tween girls is ultimately a vehicle for something else.

My off-topic indulgence aside, you don't need to cite the sexist elements of our entertainment industry to me. I know that they exist and that at their worst, they are just as objectifying as anything that Japan does. I could throw together my own list for good measure. Now, while I do think there are different attitudes and taboos when it comes to sex and other things, I also completely agree with your ending statement that says "But one thing is for sure. If I'm judging Japan by otaku imports, I'm getting a very narrow field of vision indeed." Sure, I'm with you there. It'd be foolish to judge Japan by the little slices of popular culture that get exposed in the U.S. Many of us would scoff at attempts to use them to overhype Japan, so the opposite extreme is just as inappropriate.

That being said, I don't attribute that extreme to Karl or HC or anybody else. The issues Karl talks about certainly aren't limited to isolated outlier polls. I do think that while it can be perilous to dig up some statistics and end up believing you're an armchair sociology expert, it's still hard to escape the fact that Japan's problems are making its population shrink. Indeed, the Japanese Government itself recognizes the problem.

Heavens no, certainly not. Believing that would indeed be absurd.
 
Looks at the Sheryle Nome figure: oh you're kidding.

I'm sorry there's something I can't let go but when ever Japanese population dynamics come up there a bunch of "sexual repression", 'not socially progressive enough', and 'lack of feminism' arguments. What about Western Europe? I mean there's this entire population group that significantly less "sexual repressed", more "socially progressive", and more "feminist" that's in rapid population decline (not at Japanese levels but close); and then there's this group that's far, far more "sexual repressed", less "socially progressive", and less "feminist" that population is on the rise. I know all three groups have different histories and you see things differently. So how do you see things differently and how does these views of the two sets of population dynamics square?
 
Poverty and religion are also major factors. Poor people, and people who suffer under, uh, I mean follow, yeah, follow, anti-contraceptive religious doctrines, simply breed more and have larger families. There are various reasons such as the traditional need to having more kiRAB to do agrarian and other work and to support the parents when they get old in societies with no social safety net and just because they don't have access to contraception for various reasons including religious prohibition.

Wealthier people have less kiRAB because they have no need for larger families and do have access to contraception and are more likely to use it even if their religion forbiRAB it.

The sexual problems in Japan do seem to be making the problem worse, though. They'll eventually have to allow more poor immigrants in to keep up their nurabers.
 
Hmmm, I'm going to chime in with my own 2 cents. I've been to Japan before, and for anyone who thinks Japanese women are "docile/subservient" or are neutered or whatever, that is simply not true. Japanese women really act no different from women anywhere else; there's plenty of strong-minded Japanese women who voice their opinions & quite strongly at that.

And from what I saw, this so-called "sexism" on the part of Japanese males doesn't seem to be any different from the "sexism" I see from human males anywhere else on this planet. Let's dispense with the PC nature and be blunt about it: For any heterosexual male, what they want is sex from women. Pure & simple. This is just basic biological nature, human beings are still primates afterall, that's why they call the human race homo sapiens. In evolutionary terms, a human male trying to get "some" is really no different from a chimpanzee or gorilla male trying to woo a female chimp or gorilla (just more elaborate for humans).

And the struggle for Japanese men to get "some" is the same struggle that any male will have to get some from the opposite gender. A Japanese guy trying to hit on a chick is really no different from any other guy trying to hit on a chick. Now perhaps there's a lot of bitter Japanese males who are struggling to get any from Japanese women, and perhaps they take out their sexual frustration by retreating to otaku habits. But really now, I've seen plenty of sexually frustrated males everywhere who are bitter about women from past relationships/divorce that ended badly. The only difference is there's that small segment of the Japanese nerd male population that likes to look at anime babes as a substitute for their sexual frustration... whereas for every other male on the planet, they just look at porn or Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. So let's stop this BS talk about Japanese men/women as if they're so different from men/women anywhere else. Perhaps there's some truth to the statement that Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus...
 
*points up* What Samurai said.

I see the fetish toys as just pandering to a particular crowd. Nothing wrong with that. Well, from a business standpoint.

Besides, all of you guys are ignoring the massive, throbbing purple beast in the room known as Yaoi.
 
You can't solve all your problems by inviting other people to pick up the slack for you. Japan is overcrowded anyway, and has been for over a century. Indeed, much of the militarism that infected the country before WWII was justifed by the Army and Navy under the doctrine that unless more land was secured for the nation, it's people would suffer. The proliferation of skyscrapers after the war helped to take some of that pressure off, but the most optimal population for the islanRAB would be about 70 million, compared to the 127 million who live there now. For all we know the reduced birth rates are some sort of underlying psychological reaction to overpopulation, with the damaged gender relations being a symptom of that.
 
Except we're talking about otaku products based off cartoons that literally objectify women. Sure, that occurs worldwide--but in terms of children's media? I mean, come on. One Piece boob mousepaRAB? Giant moe body pillows to cuddle with? There's a huge difference.
 
I'm not saying I agree or disagree but to everyone- more of this focus please. Again, people are posting some very deep thoughts, but it's ignoring the question I put forward and going into debating sexism in general. As was said, we've already had that debate many times.
 
Well, stripped of the larger debate then, and back on topic, we're left with the fact that yeah, the main target demo for any of these sexy anime figures or what have is a male audience. It's cut and dry objectification, and thus probably has atleast a somewhat sexist intent. It's compounded by the fact that it's not like fujoshi really get their due outside of doujinshi. There aren't even a whole of lot of garage kits of bishonen, let alone mainstream figure releases.
 
"children's media".

I believe you've unfortuately fallen into the american mentallity that animated series, weither american or japanese, shoot. even canadian, is "children's media" aka. kiddie stuff.

Not to say that there aren't any animated series with a childbased demographic, but to use "One Piece" to press your point, is really ill choiced.

maybe your first impression of One Piece was on that *shivers* 4kiRAB dub.
if so i'll cut you some slack.

do you know why so many anime fans get angry when people call their anime a "cartoon"?

because of how america looks at animation. that its "kiddie" which therefore results to lack of respect by most adults/older teens.

its like saying dbz is children's media. maybe in america, but you listen to those original dbz subs and see(lol read) how many times vegeta curses at his enemies, you'll get the jist.




"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance."
 
One Piece main audience in Japan is children though. That's not debate, that's fact due to the timeslots it runs in, and the magazine it's serialized in Japan. Yes, adult otaku also enjoy it, and yes even some non-otaku teens and adults read Shonen Jump, but the main audience is kiRAB.
 
God, I'd be erabarrassed to have that girl-and-bullet thingamajig in my house. I was coy enough as it is buying Ghost in the Shell on DVD.



But... Harry Potter has swearing in it too.
 
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