Anime & The Issue Of Feminism

[DeathHammer]

Was surfing through AnimeWorld and found an interesting old article about anime and feminism. Its a bit older, and so you have to wonder if anime is the last artistic medium not hammered to death by hardcore feminists. I say this because I can't watch network TV anymore without being bombarded by pro feminist ideals.

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http://animeworld.com/essays/feminism.html

At first glance, anime looks particularly un-feminist. The female characters are ridiculously proportioned, often portrayed as either vacuous air-heads or shrewish cynics, and compete shamelessly for the attentions of the men they are hopelessly infatuated with. And yet, in spite of all of that, anime and manga attracts a much greater female audience then most American comics and adult animation. While anime does promote many negative stereotypes, to concentrate entirely on these, tells only half of the story, and ignores the reasons many women are drawn to anime.

One aspect of anime rarely seen in American comics is an exaggerated sense of self-parody. In many anime comedy series, the traits of certain characters are amplified for comedic effect. This is as true for male characters as female. For every ditz you’re likely to find some cowardly guy. Anime does employ the same unrealistic female dimensions and skimpy costumes that you can find in American comics. However, most anime are self-deprecating on these counts, and can't resist poking at least a little fun at the stereotypes that exist within themselves. And for every stereotype that persists in anime, two or more are getting twisted and bent.

The prevalent female nudity in most of anime is also an issue. Many women would no doubt argue that the vast disproportion of female to male nudity is deplorable. But if you take the time to do some exploring on the Internet, you’ll find as many web sites created by women dedicated to their favorite male anime character as vice versa. What are the reasons for this? Generally, men find nudity much more arousing than women. But this is not to say that women cannot find male anime characters attractive. They do, but for different reasons. Women tend to find different aspects of a male character, such as personality, appearance, and behaviors, arousing. Mere nudity in itself would not be sufficient for many female fans. When viewed in this light, the large amount of female nudity present in anime can be better understood.

In anime, the hero is most likely not the studly hero type, but rather the shy, awkward, passive, but nice and decent guy. And you just have to take a look at series like Ranma 1/2 or El Hazard to see the bending and playing with of gender roles that occurs in anime. Transvestitism, bisexuality, and even homosexuality are common themes in anime. And while these subjects are not entirely condoned, they are not condemned and are treated with a playful sense of humor.

Many positive role-models for women also exist in anime. There are very few "damsels in distress," and helplessness is often viewed as a negative trait. Most women waiting for their heroes to rescue them end up having to rescue themselves. There are just as many series that feature women in leading roles as series that feature men. And women are rarely presented either as sex objects or as impassive, perfect goddesses, but instead as strong, capable, yet flawed and entirely human women. Ayane's High Kick is essentially the anime version of Rocky, but instead of Sylvester Stallone, we have Ayane, a teen-age girl who trains every day to make it in the world of professional kickboxing. Another reason many women are interested in anime is the humor, wit, silliness, and emotional content found in much of anime and manga. These are qualities unfortunately rarely found in American comics. Of course, there are plenty of exceptions. Many low-quality anime series are cheap, sleazy, and demeaning to women. One genre particularly notorious for this is Hentai, or "Perverted" anime. Hentai anime is cartoon pornography, and like most pornography, it can be quite revolting and offensive. However, it would be a disservice to condemn all anime because of these distasteful examples. It is important to remember that despite many of the flaws of anime, the number of female fans should stand as proof that a large part of anime possesses quality and features strong, mature female characters.

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Then I wondered if future anime would reflect certain modern day Japanese cultural/social struggles from a male perspective. Or completely spin it around in reverse since some anime is also popular with young girls as well.

For example -

'Gray Divorce': men must be wrong

In both the United States and Japan, divorce among older couples is on the rise. The American Association of Retired Persons detailed the phenomenon among American seniors in a study last year, and Japan's wave of "gray divorce" is expected to swell into a deluge, since Japanese women will soon be legally able to claim half of their husband's retirement pensions.

There are various explanations for the trend but media commentators agree on one thing -- when the husband divorces his wife, it's hubby's fault. When the wife divorces her husband, well, it's hubby's fault too.

In a recent New York Times article Terry Martin Hekker, whose husband of 40 years divorced her, criticizes what she and others in the media are calling a trend: selfish older men dumping their wives for younger women. In Japan, a popular book is "Why Are Retired Husbands Such a Nuisance?" -- and one of Japan's most-watched television dramas is "Jukunen Rikon" ("Mature Divorce").

One Japanese newspaper says "some Japanese women see their husbands as an obstacle to enjoying their sunset years. With few hobbies or friends to turn to, many Japanese retirees, often nicknamed 'wet leaves' for their tendency to cling to their wives, spend their time at home." These "wet leaves" are increasingly being swept aside by their newly independent wives.

In both countries this "Pin the Blame on the Husband" is unfair. For one, the stereotype of the husband trading in his wife for a younger model is by and large a myth. The women in the AARP study were 60 percent more likely to claim that they ended their marriages than the men were, and men were almost twice as likely as women to say that they never saw their divorces coming. In contrast to the Porsche and trophy wife stereotype, the AARP study found that these divorced men had many serious concerns, high among them their fear of losing touch with their children after a divorce.

Many of these men would see their fears in Hekker's description of her divorce. Hekker likens her anger to that of the jilted bride Miss Haversham in Dickens' "Great Expectations" who "spent decades ... consumed with plotting revenge." She says that at a family baby shower recently, her niece said, "I don't want to end up like Aunt Terry."

In other words, Hekker plays the victim and the family has been instructed to feel pity for her and outrage at her ex-husband. What a nice reward for the 40 years he worked to provide his wife and children with a comfortable standard of living.

Japanese women -- who enjoy one of the longest life expectancies in the world -- are apparently similarly ungrateful. Is it so surprising and contemptible that after four decades of work, work, work, retired Japanese men don't know what to do with themselves? They've never known the freedoms and unsupervised days that their homemaker wives have enjoyed.

This is not to say that there's no validity to women's complaints. Radio host Howard Stern recently interviewed television commentator Geraldo Rivera, who in 2003 married a woman less than half his age. Stern was only half-joking when he asked, "Aren't you worried about your future? Think of it -- when you're 75, you're going to be stuck married to a 45 year-old woman."

Yet marriages break up for a variety of reasons, most of them having little to do with male perfidy. There's a big distinction between dumping your wife for a younger woman, and pursuing a relationship with a younger woman after your marriage has ended.

Though nobody says it, "dumped for a younger woman" is sometimes just a woman's cop-out for not taking responsibility for her own contribution to the marital breakdown. Hekker says her ex-husband spent 16 pages of his divorce papers "meticulously detailing my faults and flaws." Yet the New York Times' editors didn't ask her to devote a single one of her 1,600-plus words towards giving the reader a clue as to what her ex-husband's feelings and complaints might be.

Given the way the media is portraying gray divorce on both sides of the Pacific, this is no surprise.

Jeffery M. Leving is a family law attorney and author of the book "Fathers' Rights: Hard-hitting and Fair Advice for Every Father Involved in a Custody Dispute." Glenn Sacks is a columnist.

© 2006 The Cincinnati Post. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved

Then you question if Western ideals and influences are changing Japanese values and subsequently their creativity and arts and subsequently the kind of anime we will see in the future. As such -

A 'marriage strike' emerges as men decide not to risk loss

July 5, 2002

by Dianna Thompson and Glenn Sacks

Listen to Thompson & Sacks Tuesday, July 9 at 6PM Pacific Time on MND Radio as they ask 'Have American Men Declared a Marriage Strike?'

Katherine is attractive, successful, witty, and educated. She also can't find a husband. Why? Because most of the men this thirtysomething software analyst dates do not want to get married. These men have Peter Pan syndrome: They refuse to commit, refuse to settle down, and refuse to "grow up."

However, given the family court policies and divorce trends of today, Peter Pan is no naive boy, but instead a wise man.

"Why should I get married and have kids when I could lose those kids and most of what I've worked for at a moment's notice?" asks Dan, a 31-year-old power plant technician who says he will never marry. "I've seen it happen to many of my friends. I know guys who came home one day to an empty house or apartment - wife gone, kids gone. They never saw it coming. Some of them were never able to see their kids regularly again."

Census figures suggest that the marriage rate in the United States has dipped 40 percent during the last four decades to its lowest point since the rate was measured. There are many plausible explanations for this trend, but one of the least mentioned is that American men, in the face of a family court system hopelessly stacked against them, have subconsciously launched a "marriage strike."

It is not difficult to see why. Let's say that Dan defies Peter Pan, marries Katherine, and has two children. There is a 50 percent likelihood that this marriage will end in divorce within eight years, and if it does, the odds are 2-1 it will be Katherine, not Dan, who initiates the divorce. It may not matter that Dan was a decent husband. Studies show that few divorces are initiated over abuse or because the man has already abandoned the family. Nor is adultery cited as a factor by divorcing women appreciably more than by divorcing men.

While the courts may grant Dan and Katherine joint legal custody, the odds are overwhelming that it is Katherine, not Dan, who will win physical custody. Overnight, Dan, accustomed to seeing his kids every day and being an integral part of their lives, will become a "14 percent dad" - a father who is allowed to spend only one out of every seven days with his own children.

Once Katherine and Dan are divorced, odds are at least even that Katherine will interfere with Dan's visitation rights. Three-quarters of divorced men surveyed say their ex-wives have interfered with their visitation, and 40 percent of mothers studied admitted that they had done so, and that they had generally acted out of spite or in order to punish their exes.

Katherine will keep the house and most of the couple's assets. Dan will need to set up a new residence and pay at least a third of his take-home pay to Katherine in child support.

As bad as all of this is, it would still make Dan one of the lucky ones. After all, he could be one of those fathers who cannot see his children at all because his ex has made a false accusation of domestic violence, child abuse, or child molestation. Or a father who can only see his own children under supervised visitation or in nightmarish visitation centers where dads are treated like criminals.

He could be one of those fathers whose ex has moved their children hundreds or thousands of miles away, in violation of court orders, which courts often do not enforce. He could be one of those fathers who tears up his life and career again and again in order to follow his children, only to have his ex-wife continually move them.

He could be one of the fathers who has lost his job, seen his income drop, or suffered a disabling injury, only to have child support arrearages and interest pile up to create a mountain of debt which he could never hope to pay off. Or a father who is forced to pay 70 percent or 80 percent of his income in child support because the court has imputed an unrealistic income to him. Or a dad who suffers from one of the child support enforcement system's endless and difficult to correct errors, or who is jailed because he cannot keep up with his payments. Or a dad who reaches old age impoverished because he lost everything he had in a divorce when he was middle-aged and did not have the time and the opportunity to earn it back.

"It's a shame," Dan says. "I always wanted to be a father and have a family. But unless the laws change and give fathers the same right to be a part of their children's lives as mothers have, it just isn't worth the risk."

I have to admit, I'm curious. I've always felt SDF Macross was partly a commentary on war from a Japanese perspective. Western artistic mediums are often used to grind axes about social issues, will that trend or has that trend already happened in Japan? Will it bleed into our anime? Or certain segments of anime in the future?

Curious what the guys overseas from Japan on the board have to say about this, if anything at all.

Edited June 24, 2006 by DeathHammer

[Roy Focker]

Haven't had chance to read all of this but I have problem thinking of anime a genre with themes to consider. Animation is medium and there all various genres of anime with in it. Can one really write article and say something about the entire scope of anime?

[1/1 LowViz Lurker]

feminism = communism (I said it before in another thread that I think it's a population control tactic imo to get force both sides to work while family life suffers, and bonds between parents are seperated and discouraged from having familes at all, resulting in slow moral decay over long period of time as the children are indoctrinated with politcal ideas that ordinarily would be challenged by the patriachal figure of the household. Seperation of both parents makes the indoctrination and brainwashing of the children much easier)

The next generation of fatherless kids are going to be so messed up. We are going to end up like the protoculture's soldiers. The zentradi (men) will have thier own planet in the future and the meltran women giants will have thier own matriacal figure which they worship and given thier own planet, and then after a time there will be wars between the two sexes and everyone will start cloning instead of marrying and having children. (which robots will raise on a different planet because the parents are way too busy with work - both need to to pay the bills and want "freedom" or so they were tricked into believing) Really sad. Can't wait for the birdhumans to come and sort this poo out.

DYRL = message to all the feminists when you don't have sex with men and choose to live bitter cranky life trying to be and replace them, and forgetting what love is for. (support life, survival, carry on the future etc) Society will crumble because you need some kind of loyalty and morals to hold it all together or there is no incentive for people to commit.

Haven't had chance to read all of this but I have problem thinking of anime a genre with themes to consider. Animation is medium and there all various genres of anime with in it. Can one really write article and say something about the entire scope of anime?

Yeah but isn't it all just comic books (manga) in the end? There is always going to be some special interest group out there whining about something about a certain character type not being treated in a favourable way. (and then some new law is made especially for that group to get better treatment than the rest of us who have to abide by seperate laws altogether, creating a massive imbalance)

I hate it when politically correct things start to get into any medium especially if it is not fairly challenged in the story and is just there to piss me off.

ie women kicks a man's butt in lord of the rings movie and says something like: It's not a man that beat you, but a woman" hahahah verrrrry funny.. Destroys the atmosphere imo. At least they don't really do this in anime. When milia kicks butt in DYRL, she doesn't highlight how she is a woman and poo, (even though the majority of the aliens are male she is killing ) we just go along with the idea that the character is tough, and do not have the PC idea thrown down us like that.

Edited June 24, 2006 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker

[Sumdumgai]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Political Correctness sucks. It's just another ideal used as a weapon for personal purposes and gains. It's like those people who are really insecure about (insert whatever here), but they deny it, instead they say they're proud of (insert whatever here), and that it's everyone else that's the problem.

As for women watching a lot of anime and reading manga, let me spell it out to you. Y. A. O. I. Funny thing is that women tend to like their yaoi story guys to be not REALLY gay, but just for whenever they screw some other guy.

[Nightbat]

The first article quotes for thruth

....but what the hell do those 2 other articles have to do with it?

that Anime is aimed at men is something feminists can shove up their ass

but it isn't nearly as chauvinistic as it could be

to bad most hentai anime is

While I seen a good amount of 'femdom' mangas seems all that is animated

has female slaves

if it has a 'female' master,... it's usually a dickgirl

Gotta say that "power/control"-erotism doesn't float my boat

[chrono]

Hardcore Feminism is nothing more then sexism dressed in a skirt!

The next generation of fatherless kids are going to be so messed up.

1/1 LowViz Lurker, what do you mean the next gen?!? The last 2-3 generations have been getting more progressively messed up as more and more of each generation 'believes' the PC-ism as simple fact or that "it's always been that way".

[Sumdumgai]

Something that I hate with PC and feminism. Double-standards. They can act like buttholes, but if you call them on it, they throw everything and the kitchen sink at you.

[Nightbat]

Something that I hate with PC and feminism.  Double-standards.  They can act like buttholes, but if you call them on it, they throw everything and the kitchen sink at you.

411005[/snapback]

You've got that wrong

though millions of men work(ed) in construction, feminists demand only the

"High authority" kind of jobs

They only want the jobs that men have that do not include physical labour

or a low salary/status *while men have to take any job that puts food on the table

No chance of them grabing hold of a kitchen sink in that case

Edited June 25, 2006 by Nightbat

[Roy Focker]

Someone suggested this topic could cause problems and being the case that I don't have time right now to monitor it a much I should it dies tommorrow.

[Twoducks]

A feminist is a person that wants both males and females to have the same rights and opportunities. Feminist aren’t there to destroy males or to castrate you; if they are, they aren’t feminist, they are sexist. You also don’t need to be a woman to be a feminist. I want women to have the same opportunities that we have therefore I’m a feminist.

The fact is that life is more difficult if you are a female in many more ways that if you are a male. Would you want your daughters to be treated as things?

And yes, they might batty a lot, but we are in the year 2006 and they still are discriminated because of their sex. Wouldn’t you be pissed? If they have gotten anything is thanks to the ones that have battyed before.

Sometimes females are granted help that males don’t get. That is positive discrimination and it’s done to make society evolve (something needed due to how hard old stereotypes are to kill and how wide spread they are). Culture can also make a society evolve but culture also helps to maintain old sexist stereotypes (just look how women are portrayed in older movies). If a girl sees constantly that the normal thing for here is to think about love and only dream about getting married then she has a good change to reproduce that kind of conduct. So yes, I don’t find it bad that some people batty to have shows that have females with more active roles.

PC doesn’t mean feminist either, remember that some values that some feminist might like to push can go against PC (they aren’t the same thing).

I’ve seen sexist anime, politically correct anime and anime that has good female roll models (that aren’t love obsessed girls bent on cooking for their loved one). There is a lot to choose from, but a lot of the mainstream stuff does tent to have weak female characters or old sexist stereotypes present.

Females are attracted a lot to love and fantasy manga/anime. The love interest can be seen as a result of education and social stereotypes for women but the interest in fantasy is interesting. Females in Japanese made fantasy have more active rolls and are in situations that make real world stereotypes hard to apply. Yes, there can still be found the princes in distress here and there, but in anime they aren’t very common. So if offered, women can like things other than hearts and strawberries.

Having stuff that promotes values that aren’t the same old sexist ones can’t be bad. And if they help make society more equal I don’t see a problem. From what I know, Japan is still a sexist country in some ways so there is still room for change.

[Sumdumgai]

Positive discrimination = discrimination. Someone is still getting the shaft because another person gets favored for skin tone/sex/eye color/hair color/place of origin. It can damage the feelings of worth in people, because some realize that they're not being chosen for a job (or to get into university) because of personal merit, but because they're a minority or a woman, or a woman minority, or a hemaphrodite (what do you check in those boxes that only have male or female anyway if you're a true hemaphrodite?).

The way a lot of people toss around the word elitism with contempt, and scream at the mention of discrimination. This double-standard of positive discrimination is abominable. Just like with PC, preaching tolerance when practicioners hold no tolerance for people who do not hold PC views. So for someone that's sexist, a PC person will condemn them rather than try to educate them and change that sexist person's view, without holding any tolerance as to why they may be sexist, the person's past history, or important things like that.

Or like those people that pull the race card all the time on EVERYTHING. It's okay because they're a minority and they can pull it. But if you point it out, you're going to get in a heap of trouble from not only the minority guy pulling the race card, but all the PC people who overhear you as well.

And I do understand why Roy is going to close this topic down. I could see how the subject matter may cause some people to lose sanity and not be able to debate in a civil manner.

[sketchley]

From what I know, Japan is still a sexist country in some ways so there is still room for change.

411124[/snapback]

*cough*

It's a whole, wide world out there, and one's personal beliefs, or the beliefs of the society they live in, aren't necessarily applicable to people in other cultures.

The three articles above were written from, what appears to be the US's cultural viewpoint and biases. A lot of the comments that followed, are also from the US's culture point of view.

Is the US's culture the ultimate culture? No.

Yes, there are good points to it, but there are bad points to it as well (the articles above highlighted some of them.)

The same is true of all cultures on Earth - they have both good and bad points, and none of them are better than the others. They are all equal. Different, and equal.

Is Japan a sexist country? Perhaps from your point of view. In Japan, a paternalistic country, the issue isn't viewed in those terms at all. In fact, the only way to truly inform you on how the Japanese view the issue, amongst other things, is "put yourself in their shoes."

In other words, a culture can only be judged on its own terms, not the terms of another culture that holds different beliefs.

I think the points to keep in mind is that anime is by and large entertainment. It is entertainment aimed at different subgroups and ages. These subgroups and ages all have different wants, needs, and escapism needs.

Also, it is unwise to view anime by only the few releases that make it overseas - the ones released are already scewed towards whatever the companies releasing them feels their target demographic will purchase. There may also be mistakes inadvertently introduced due to mistakes in translation, or inability to accurately translate the finer nuances of the language used in anime. Not to mention that a lack of understanding of Japanese culture in general will bring about different interpretations of small things - things that may be a non-issue to the Japanese. (For example: nudity. Japanese have a totally different point of view on nudity. Up until a few years ago, and still in the majority of main stream media, below the belt nudity, of both genders is, against the law.)

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

[Sumdumgai]

Good point on the cultural differences thing Skethchley. Each culture tends to think they're the best and ultimate. Europe isn't so uptight and squeemish about nudity. You can't show bare breasts in the US on primetime or during the news hour (female breasts, no one in either culture looks twice at man-boobs). In the streets you can see ads with bare breasts fairly often. Heh, it shocked a lot of Americans to come to Paris and see an add for water with a naked woman. Different culture, different standards and views.

Of course the different culture thing opens up another can of worms to debate on.

[Jemstone]

Someone suggested this topic could cause problems and being the case that I don't have time right now to monitor it a much I should it dies tommorrow.

411084[/snapback]

Geee.... I wonder who possibly could have suggested that to you. How would this topic become a problem? For once a guy on MW is showing an analytical view of sexism in anime that's quite open minded, considers cultural reasons, not bias and not a single "whore" joke made and it's a potential problem? A likely story coming from you. The first article is completely correct and one needs not look further than analyze an anime like Golden Boy for proof.

[Twoducks]

From what I know, Japan is still a sexist country in some ways so there is still room for change.

411124[/snapback]

*cough*

It's a whole, wide world out there, and one's personal beliefs, or the beliefs of the society they live in, aren't necessarily applicable to people in other cultures.

The three articles above were written from, what appears to be the US's cultural viewpoint and biases. A lot of the comments that followed, are also from the US's culture point of view.

Is the US's culture the ultimate culture? No.

Yes, there are good points to it, but there are bad points to it as well (the articles above highlighted some of them.)

The same is true of all cultures on Earth - they have both good and bad points, and none of them are better than the others. They are all equal. Different, and equal.

Is Japan a sexist country? Perhaps from your point of view. In Japan, a paternalistic country, the issue isn't viewed in those terms at all. In fact, the only way to truly inform you on how the Japanese view the issue, amongst other things, is "put yourself in their shoes."

In other words, a culture can only be judged on its own terms, not the terms of another culture that holds different beliefs.

I think the points to keep in mind is that anime is by and large entertainment. It is entertainment aimed at different subgroups and ages. These subgroups and ages all have different wants, needs, and escapism needs.

Also, it is unwise to view anime by only the few releases that make it overseas - the ones released are already scewed towards whatever the companies releasing them feels their target demographic will purchase. There may also be mistakes inadvertently introduced due to mistakes in translation, or inability to accurately translate the finer nuances of the language used in anime. Not to mention that a lack of understanding of Japanese culture in general will bring about different interpretations of small things - things that may be a non-issue to the Japanese. (For example: nudity. Japanese have a totally different point of view on nudity. Up until a few years ago, and still in the majority of main stream media, below the belt nudity, of both genders is, against the law.)

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

411130[/snapback]

Sorry if you were offended but I did say “IN SOME WAYSâ€. And please, please tell me a country that isn’t sexist in some way. Far as I know northern European countries are the ones that have a better rate of males and females in high responsibility jobs but they are far from being the Promised Land. What are Japans rates?

I’ve been exposed to a fair bit of Japanese popular culture and the everyday culture.

- I see businessman after businessman discussing business over sake. Would a businesswoman doing that be looked the same way? If not, then I’m sorry but you have sexism in a way.

- Why do I see a lot of jokes about how bad it is for a woman to not be married when she is 20something years old? I’m sorry but picking on a female more than a male because she isn’t married is also a way of sexism.

- Why do females act more humbly than males? I’m sorry but if it’s culturally incorrect for females to not act as humbly as males then you have another sexist conduct.

- Why have I seen female Japanese women complaint about sexism more than a couple of times? Looks like people from that foreign culture do view thing is “those termsâ€.

I can put myself in a lot of shoes but that doesn’t mean behaviour patterns that help make a sex be below another are good. Doing something for a long time (cultural traditions) doesn’t mean its right or wrong, it just means its being done for a long time. We aren’t talking about sitting in the ground, eating raw fish, being polite, accepting a specific kind of nudity or other idiosyncratic cultural things here.

Cultures change (and have changed), if not almost all of us would be lowly peasants, slaves or worst.

And you are confusing things. I don’t care about what the US says, if anything I care about what the Declaration of Human Rights says. Is it wrong to want to be equal to the other sex? If it is wrong, in what way does it help the whole of society to behave in a sexist manner? Positive discrimination is supposed to make society evolve quicker, but we aren’t talking about that here, right? When women are given the opportunity to have the same rights they sure like it (that must mean they don’t like to not be able to do things men do freely).

So like it or not Japan is a sexist country IN SOME WAYS (like the rest of the world).

[Roy Focker]

Shut up and get back in the kitchen.

[EXO]

Shut up and get back in the kitchen.

411154[/snapback]

Oh man that reminds me of this pic