Feminism in Anime

thewiru said:
"It doesn't matter if they are people like us (which they aren't). What matters is, only violence in some form can bring about positive change."

It didn't work out several times, but it will this time, right?
Giving the state more power to violate you is one of the most backfireable things you can do.

hazerddex said:
@flannan

if your looking for a series with a strong female cast try the Official touhou mangas

i can send the manga's and novels Cronolology over if you want

Kuma said:


ehh... depend, it has really wide range... some female like to get dominated, some like defeating a man, some like sadist kind of man, but definitely not a weak (literaly) man... even infamouse skip beat that all of story about strong female want to beat his ravange and technicaly really hostile is "meak" when facing tsuruga ren...

flannan said:

There is a wide range of female characters in male-oriented anime too - tsundere, yandere, genki, shy, demigods and vulnerable kids... That's actually a major strong point of anime compared to western stuff.

15poundfish said:
Yeah but the core foundation of feminism is the same. Its a female supremacy movement that pushes for increased rights and benefits of women without the responsibilities. Feminists protested the right to vote until women could avoid the draft. Modern feminism is similar to communism in that it is based on core parts of critical theory in where reason and logic are denied and replaced with a subjective dogma that is toxic and dangerous. Communism denied science that disagreed with their ideology as being capitalist propaganda, similarity feminists will deny objective facts about science as being patriarchal propaganda. Strong female characters are not feminist, a feminist anime would have to embody the ideology it represents. The anime that do have feminist references are almost always seen as something not praise worthy but a negative flaw in the person or society. Armitage III is a cyberpunk that shows the results of a feminist dystopia where many men leave earth feminism society and begin dominating and oppressing self-aware gynoids on mars. Ghibli films are also not feminist in the same way a movie about love is not christian. In spirited away the main theme is about a selfish brat becoming more courageous and independent by living in the spirit world while finding a way to save her parents. There is nothing that screams feminist about a girl doing traditional female jobs in japan. In Nausicaä, the theme is about environmentalism that centers around a princess that studies insects and plants.

Yeah but the core foundation of feminism is the same.

Its a female supremacy movement that pushes for increased rights and benefits of women without the responsibilities. Feminists protested the right to vote until women could avoid the draft. Modern feminism is similar to communism in that it is based on core parts of critical theory in where reason and logic are denied and replaced with a subjective dogma that is toxic and dangerous. Communism denied science that disagreed with their ideology as being capitalist propaganda, similarity feminists will deny objective facts about science as being patriarchal propaganda.

Strong female characters are not feminist, a feminist anime would have to embody the ideology it represents. The anime that do have feminist references are almost always seen as something not praise worthy but a negative flaw in the person or society. Armitage III is a cyberpunk that shows the results of a feminist dystopia where many men leave earth feminism society and begin dominating and oppressing self-aware gynoids on mars. Ghibli films are also not feminist in the same way a movie about love is not christian. In spirited away the main theme is about a selfish brat becoming more courageous and independent by living in the spirit world while finding a way to save her parents. There is nothing that screams feminist about a girl doing traditional female jobs in japan. In Nausicaä, the theme is about environmentalism that centers around a princess that studies insects and plants.

That is a clusterfuck of quoting...

It's more the "teaching men not to rape" sentiment that I had a problem with. I'll admit I made some inferring based on what hes said in the past. But more or less the message he seemed to be trying to send is that men are "sexist pigs" and need to be taught "not to rape".

There is a disparity between amount of reported rapes and the actual occurrence of rape in every country. I don't believe Japan is special in this regard.

A lazy solution would be not giving a fuck and not investing money into women-only cars. Not only just money, but time and efficiently. Also I don't think you realize how packed these train cars are during rush hours.

French men who grope certainly exist, but they don't have the sort of opportunities that the men in Japan do. I never argued that molestation is not a problem. I was arguing about the reason why it happens and also the fact that the numbers of these cases could be inflated due to false accusations, considering in many circumstances its a "he said" "she said" situation.

Perhaps I was misunderstanding your stance. You're free to criticize other cultures, but that doesn't mean they need to or should change. They also are not necessarily going to change in the way you want. There are certainly cultures I disagree with as well, but I honestly don't care that much unless I am personally affected. Often times with laws though when a certain case sets a precedent, other countries can soon follow. Also its just kind of fun to follow world politics, but anti-islamic sentiment in particular seems a bit zealous to me. There are also different ways to spread culture like how the UN does it. In many ways those are "forced" as well, but because they are seen as "good changes" they are not always pushed against.

Brb said:
It's not that anime disavows feminism, it just so happens that the East gives little fuck about Western sensibilities.

Rotton-Girl said:

The core of feminism is a rights movement fighting for equal rights based on gender. How those rights will be achieved will differ between every group of feminists. Some believe that women should be equal in every way to a man and that is it by law. And some believe in tackling social things. Some believe in sepratism. An important thing to note is: These viewpoints are sometimes vehemently opposed to each other and do not think the other will bring freedom.

Rotton-Girl said:

Well this isn't true. Across the board. Rad Fems, Marxist fems, and Cultural fems were all mixed up in these statements. But you completely ignored Liberal feminists, Sex Positive feminists, Eco feminism. I mean I guess you could say you were talking about radical lesbian feminist separatists but they are a pretty small group.

Rotton-Girl said:

Don't get offended when someone calls a movie "feminist". It just means it would "appeal to a feminist demographic".

Rotton-Girl said:

Eco feminists would disagree. Because well, the entire movement is about nature and stuff. Even if it wasn't written that way, it writes his main character very well. As well as the harms of radiation to the planet which is what that movement was all about. And it was a movement of the 80's... and it is an 80's movie. lol.

Rotton-Girl said:

Then you have works like Revolutionary Girl Utena which I feel is all about defeating the patriarchy. Very much follows a rad feminist path.

Rotton-Girl said:

There are anime like Chu Bra which promote messages Sex Positive feminists would. And since it is an Ecchi written by a woman, you can't really say I am too wrong on that.

Rotton-Girl said:

There are Sex Positive feminists which... I would say there are two competing factions here. I would say the one I am apart of is the one Betty Dodson is in. Which is the one that popularized the use of dildos and is much more focused on helping women to be real world sexually happy. It is also about removing shame of wearing sexy panties, wearing the correct size bra or not wearing a bra, going topless.

Rotton-Girl said:

I mean I understand the slut marches in theory I guess... but they really didn't DO anything did they? You know what my group of sex positive feminists did? (at a college) Held a Female Orgasm event where we taught women about female orgasms and gave away sex toys. Handed out information about vaginas... and sex in general. Many women don't even know about their own ovulation cycle. Shocker.

15poundfish said:
similarity feminists will deny objective facts about science as being patriarchal propaganda.

15poundfish said:
Ghibli films are also not feminist in the same way a movie about love is not christian.

15poundfish said:
In spirited away the main theme is about a selfish brat becoming more courageous and independent by living in the spirit world while finding a way to save her parents.

15poundfish said:


Utena is about nobility tropes and fairy tale tropes, not feminist.

Darek said:
No issue with it, if the author wants it to be there, so be it. I guess my stand ends there when it comes to politics being a part of media of any form. I mean politics where part of art since the dawn of time.

Rotton-Girl said:




Lets go through this one by one:



The core of feminism is a rights movement fighting for equal rights based on gender. How those rights will be achieved will differ between every group of feminists. Some believe that women should be equal in every way to a man and that is it by law. And some believe in tackling social things. Some believe in sepratism. An important thing to note is: These viewpoints are sometimes vehemently opposed to each other and do not think the other will bring freedom.




Well this isn't true. Across the board. Rad Fems, Marxist fems, and Cultural fems were all mixed up in these statements. But you completely ignored Liberal feminists, Sex Positive feminists, Eco feminism. I mean I guess you could say you were talking about radical lesbian feminist separatists but they are a pretty small group.


Don't get offended when someone calls a movie "feminist". It just means it would "appeal to a feminist demographic".

Eco feminists would disagree. Because well, the entire movement is about nature and stuff. Even if it wasn't written that way, it writes his main character very well. As well as the harms of radiation to the planet which is what that movement was all about. And it was a movement of the 80's... and it is an 80's movie. lol.

Then you have works like Revolutionary Girl Utena which I feel is all about defeating the patriarchy. Very much follows a rad feminist path.

There are anime like Chu Bra which promote messages Sex Positive feminists would. And since it is an Ecchi written by a woman, you can't really say I am too wrong on that.

The feminists movements are all very different from each other. I would say Liberal feminism is much more based in the "real world issues". Like getting women the right to vote and really basic stuff like that. And they typically see themselves in a much more global way than the average feminist.

There are Sex Positive feminists which... I would say there are two competing factions here. I would say the one I am apart of is the one Betty Dodson is in. Which is the one that popularized the use of dildos and is much more focused on helping women to be real world sexually happy. It is also about removing shame of wearing sexy panties, wearing the correct size bra or not wearing a bra, going topless.

But there is a wingnut section of course that does slut marches which ironically enough were started by a man who..... used his position of power to sleep with lots and lots of his students. The same guy also wrote all those articles demonizing barbie and Disney princesses and women stupidly agreed with him. I don't even know how that could be called sex positive though, but some people call themselves that yet get pissed off about characters being a too smallsize...and in general most of this actually fits in to the RADICAL feminist agenda. I mean sure, some sex positive feminists might go out there and fight for toplessness and bralessness and even say "stop slutshaming" or something like that... but we wouldn't be like both "stop slutshaming" and "omg disney princesses shouldn't even exist". But what is more funny is that this was all done by a MAN who just wanted to get laid. lol.

I mean I understand the slut marches in theory I guess... but they really didn't DO anything did they? You know what my group of sex positive feminists did? (at a college) Held a Female Orgasm event where we taught women about female orgasms and gave away sex toys. Handed out information about vaginas... and sex in general. Many women don't even know about their own ovulation cycle. Shocker.


Which brings me to my final bit.

I don't even know what to call Tumblr feminists other than Tumblr feminists because they are so wishywashy in what they believe and seem to get upset over everything and don't seem to be actually fighting for anything other than their own self victimization. <--- Which I am not for.

Cultural feminists, Radical Feminists, and Lesbian Separatists are all people I really don't get along with IRL.

I mean that is the thing... when you start talking about feminism, you gotta know what feminism you are even talking about.

Simplified:

Radical feminsts: Getting rights by way of culture. Rad fems seek female LIBERATION not just equality.
Sex positive feminists: Getting rights by way of control over our own bodies. (usually in a very science based way)
Liberal Feminists: Legal rights.
Cultural Feminists: Revisionist history, Religious feminists. Seek LIBERATION not just equality.
Marxist Feminists/Socialist Feminists: Get rights by way of socialism or communism. Honestly very different than where it started as it is way more socialist than communist now.

Comic_Sans said:
@LoneWolfYour reply was rather long, so it's not that strange.And I didn't think the message he was trying to send was "men are sexist pigs who need to be taught not to rape", so like I said, point it out to me where and how in his post he was implying that.Then we don't have any disagreements thereHere is the Parisian metro during rush hours:Sure, it's not as crowded as the Tokyo subway, but it's not like it would be virtually impossible for a pervert to grope somebody. There's no "magical groper border". And even if there were that doesn't explain why the countries I listed have decided to implement them, especially considering that some of the cities I listed have a lower population density than Paris.

It is lazy because it sweeps the problem under the rug. It's not the problem that gets away from women, it's women that are forced to get away from the problem. For example, much like in Cologne, many women were sexually assaulted in the city of Kalmar on New Years Eve 2015. Last year, the number dipped to almost zero or even zero (I don't remember). But was it because the molesters had disappeared? No, it's because a lot of women chose to stay at home instead of going out. That does in no way mean that the problem has disappeared. Meanwhile, in Cologne, around 2000 cops were deployed and detained hundreds of suspect individuals, and as a result, the number of cases of sexual assault went significantly down. That's why Japan shouldn't primarily focus on building this or that many women only subway cars, Japan should focus on things like sex ed (which is virtually non existent in Japan) and teaching girls to defend themselves or at least get help. Cracking down on perverts is how you reduce the amount of perverts.

Now, I do actually think that the Japanese have started to care a little bit more about combatting sexual assault, however, they still need to go way beyond "uuuh let's just give the womynz man free cars, problem solved".And that is also bad, what you're missing is that if efforts were actually made to combat train gropings, then the amount of false accusations and need for anti groping accusation insurances would be reduced as well.Sure, a country is free to choose to change or not change in accordance with or not in accordance with my wishes, and I am just as free to judge them based on their actions.

zodd0 said:

Ironically, all you're doing here is denying facts. You and all other anti-feminists have your own personal defenitions of what feminism is. It won't change facts though.


You compare a religion to a womens rights movement, that's a new one. Everyone who has seen Ghibli films and at the same time knows what feminism is knows that it's one of the most feministic film studios in the world. It's run by feminists and it's movies are filled with feminist themes and narratives.






If Miyazaki is not a feminist, then nobody is.

Bourmegar said:

Yh We ppl should be able to talk about things, thus media like anime should also be able to talk about things that the creator wants to show and discus about.
This is why I don't like censorship, it makes us harder to talk about sensetive subjects like for example suicide or even femenism and etc.
And if we cannot talk or discus about these things then things will only get worse thanks to ignorance.

Sadly, ppl here seem to want to shut up each other instead of having a reasonable discussion here......

TheBrainintheJar said:


Did the guy just made a mindless, aimless generalization about the feminist movement? Oh my.

Funny how many of the 'pro free speech' want to censor feminism, isn't it?

Comic_Sans said:
@Nyu Yeah fam, I'm sure the Japanese police and Japanese rail work companies are full of angry radical feminists. I'm not even gonna comment on the second paragraph where you claim Japan is a sexist and discriminatory female only train instead of a country.

TheBrainintheJar said:


Did the guy just made a mindless, aimless generalization about the feminist movement? Oh my.

Funny how many of the 'pro free speech' want to censor feminism, isn't it?

zodd0 said:

Ironically, all you're doing here is denying facts. You and all other anti-feminists have your own personal defenitions of what feminism is. It won't change facts though.

zodd0 said:

You compare a religion to a womens rights movement, that's a new one. Everyone who has seen Ghibli films and at the same time knows what feminism is knows that it's one of the most feministic film studios in the world. It's run by feminists and it's movies are filled with feminist themes and narratives.

zodd0 said:


If Miyazaki is not a feminist, then nobody is.

15poundfish said:
Yeah, our definitions don't change the harm feminists continue to inflict on society and hobbies. I am fine with conceding I don't know the "true feminist" but I could care less about them because they have no influence or power.

15poundfish said:
Feminism is an ideology first and foremost. A dogmatic ideology can have many similarities with a cult or religion. The concept of male privilege and patriarchy theory is analogous to original sin or the invisible scapegoat in that blames a specific group of people for no reason other than being born. Feminism issues collective guilt on all men for the actions of a few bad man by their teaching men not to rape slogans or revises history to make it appear all men treated women like chattel in the modern western world.

15poundfish said:
Feminism is an ideology, wanting empowered women in art is not inherently feminist in the same way true love is not christianity. One characteristic an ideology claims to espouse doesn't mean you subscribe to the ideology if you hold that same value.

zodd0 said:

Even though you admit you don't know what feminism is you still insist on discussing it as if you know even more than people who actually do know.

zodd0 said:

No, I explained to you what feminism is and you even admitted you don't know what is is. Please, I've seen too much of this bullshit from male MAL-users.
You are another uneducated conspiracy theorist who can't be taken seriously.

zodd0 said:

Quit saying that feminism is this and that when you clearly are clueless and even somewhat admitted you are. Female empowerment is central to feminism, it actually is feminism per definition, and it is the main feminist theme in sources of entertainment, anime being one. Where the hell you get "true love" from I have no idea, but your comparasion is laughable and ridiculously unintelligent.

15poundfish said:

It was a joke about a certain fallacy feminists like to invoke.

15poundfish said:
Explained what? The thread is about the bad influence feminism has on anime not about semantics over definitions.

15poundfish said:
If you don't know what patriarchy theory is you can't call yourself a informed feminist. Anime and third wave feminism have nothing in common unless you watch dubs from funimation or watch crunchyroll subs.

zodd0 said:
I was pointing out your faulty logic in reasoning where you think certain characteristics in anime must be feminist because of similarities. Your logic would be similar to this if you apply to anything.
1. Nazi's drink water
2. Person B drinks water
3. Person B therefore is a Nazi.

zodd0 said:
Its similar to how a cult member will find these connections that don't exist by claiming a certain characteristic is part of the cult when either no connection is shown or the connection doesn't require the former. Female empowerment doesn't require feminism and to call any anime with a strong female protagonist feminist shows a extremely poor understanding of feminism.

Nyu said:


Wanting to censor the censorists isn't censorship.
You're basically arguing that people should be "tolerant of racists".

Your only arguments have ever been semantics.



Feminists don't lobby? That's what your asserting, that the only way Feminists can change things is by controlling the systems. That isn't true. Feminist changes happened by campaigning, not by controlling the government.

zodd0 said:

You miss the point. I know what it is and I know anti-feminists deny the existence of the patriarchy. Female empowerment is feminism per definition.

zodd0 said:

To quote one of Ghiblis founders and main producers:
"Miyazaki is a feminist. He also has this conviction that to be successful, companies have to make it possible for their female employees to succeed too. You can see this attitude in Princess Mononoke: all the characters working the bellows in the iron works are women. Then there's Porco Rosso: Porco's plane is rebuilt entirely by women."

It's the third highly feministic quote from Ghibli I have now posted in this thread.

15poundfish said:
No, but hijacking definitions and redefining words doesn't make it feminist.

15poundfish said:
So its hearsay from a co-worker, also even if miyazaki was a feminist none of his works are feminist. People just like to call his works feminist because he has female protagonists that are generally good characters. Only Yesterday, which is probably one of the best ghibli film's with a female protagonist is like the opposite of what feminists would want.

zodd0 said:

You still don't understand what feminism is.


No, it's a statement from one of Miyazakis closest friends, one of Ghiblis main co-founders and most successful producers. Once again; Ghiblis works are feminist because they are filled with feminist themes, messages and narratives. They are made by feminists who want to empower females in movies, as well as empower the female audience who are watching them. As I mentioned in the thread already Only Yesterday was in fact so feminist that it wasn't originally distributed in the west, with Ghibli refusing to let Disney cut away references to menstruation. Ghibli has always been many miles ahead of Disney when it comes to feminism.

You are completely clueless once again.

15poundfish said:
Did you watch Only yesterday? I doubt you have because its not a feminism movie.

15poundfish said:
Did you watch Only yesterday? I doubt you have because its not a feminism movie.

jal90 said:

This can't be left as a blanket statement. Explain.

15poundfish said:

jal90 said:

This is a valid reading of the film, I think. But there are aspects that kind of contradict this.

--ALEX-- said:
Let's just agree to keep feminism away from anime....not because it's good or bad, but because it's too divisive.

I'm feeling like we agree on more than we disagree on at this point and it seems silly to muse on about another posters intentions. As far as my last thoughts though culture doesn't necessarily have one side to it. In addition to being densely populated Japan is also extremely conformist, meaning people are just less likely to get involved in other people's business and call out other people's shitty behavior. I'm sure you're aware of the popular phrase "the nail the sticks out shall be hammered down". I don't think this necessarily translates into a sexist or misogynist culture.

Rather its just a symptom of the conformity as my previous point still stands, why would a culture that hates women give them special privileges and access?

I do believe western interventionism is a bigger issue than you make it out to be. This doesn't have to come in the form of a hard change through war and occupation (although in Japan's case it has been occupied by America since WW2 and there are still American army bases in Japan and they are not allowed to have their own formal military), but softer changes and suggestion like the UN only offering aid to certain countries if they adopt more western values. Also as I've stated before I'm not in the business of telling other people how to run their countries or how their culture should change, these things should be done voluntarily and without "incentives".

--ALEX-- said:
This shit's still going?!

Let's just agree to keep feminism away from anime....not because it's good or bad, but because it's too divisive.

Jesus.

TheBrainintheJar said:


I don't see how saying bad things about video games is crying for censorship. Some criticism of feminism is valid, but that one never took hold of me. I never saw a 'censor this!' feminist. No, Anita doesn't count. She's a critic who doesn't ask for it.

--ALEX-- said:
This shit's still going?!

Let's just agree to keep feminism away from anime....not because it's good or bad, but because it's too divisive.

Jesus.

Comic_Sans said:
@LoneWolfUuuh yeah except that Japan is well known for being one of the least equal developed countries, so that shit won't fly with me. Of course the "the nail that sticks out gets hammered down" mentality adds to it as well but claiming that Japan is on the same level as the West when it comes to equality between the sexes is just wrong.I have already explained why that argument doesn't hold water, women only subway cars is not a special privilege but merely an attempt to sweep the problem with train molesters under the rug because it doesn't actually solve the problem.Life consists of favors and returned favors, if a country's leaders don't like the UN's deals then they are free to refuse them and then turn to a different organization that offers deals they find reasonable and thus keep their culture intact from westernization. No, I don't see how basic trading 101 is a problem.

Rotton-Girl said:
What if the author's vision is political?

Nyu said:


I only support censorship of Feminism, cause it's like Racism, you can't be tolerant of racism, because it prevents being tolerant of other peoples.

Bernrika said:


The fact that a literal nazi is writing this is really funny.

Nyu said:


The UN tried to censor anime, "feminists certainly don't want to censor anything", Gaming news outlets like Kotaku and polygon are always asking for censorship, and they get it, like Tracer's appearance getting censored, like Street Fighter getting censored, this happens all the time, Feminists got GTA V censored, by getting it removed from stores in Australia, Anita is asking for censorship, that is the point of her videos, to try and change the things in games that she is criticising.

Or are you just gonna get into semantics, "but that'ssss not reallllyyy censorship".
If so, I'm blocking you and ignoring your posts from now on.

Kuma said:

we already talk about this nyu... the one who refute it also japan feminist... so it was faminist pro cencorship versus feminist againts cencorship...