Poll: Sexism and Japan

[Notshauna]

I really struggle to see the narrative of "Naked virtual women are bad!".

It's essentially just titillation, it's not supposed to be some deep commentary on women or anything like that. It's basically just nearly-softcore erotic material.

I don't think people playing these games actually think women are even remotely like that. And I suppose those that do, likely have a lot more wrong with them than anything that can be caused by playing a video game.

It is basically like saying that porn affects people's opinions of the gender they take interest in.


If a game were to release which featured men in a sexualised nature, I would not feel this "Oppresses" men or threatened in any way. No more than I feel this by a woman going to the store and being a 12" "Massager".

So, yeah, I really can't see the issue here, it's just games catering to a market, and people standing around saying "That's problematic" without ever explaining why.

Though, to come back to the question of Japan, I guess I just assumed it was a cultural thing. I never considered it a problem that needed further study.

It's not that super sexualized female characters existing is a bad thing, it's just that it's just so common. The only issue is that these hyper sexualized female characters are rarely given any agency, and that's exactly why I like Bayonetta and groaned at Cia and the reveal of Quiet. Bayonetta is her own woman who makes her own choices and is in control of her own sexuality, Cia isn't modeling for the viewer the designers are choosing to show her as such, Quiet is something....

 

[Casual Shinji]

You know, I think to rationalize this sense I kind of share the fear. It's a pretty irrational fear if I deconstruct it.
There are several reasons people feel that it's unfair to accuse japan of sexism and to defend it.

Here is the hyperbole doomsday scenarios that people dream up may happen.

1) Japan becomes fed up with America pushing more social justice issues in games and more criticism of sexist tropes it their games. They refuse to sale games in America that have those tropes causing the audiences who love games like Dead or Alive to be alienated.

2) Japan listens and changes games. Team Ninja is run out of business and bayonetta's skin tight hair suit becomes hair armor that when she does attack only reveals her face and nothing else. Hideki Kamiya is driven from twitter by feminists.

3) Link becomes a girl. Any famous japanese made male character gets a case of rule 63.

4) Kojima quits video games or decides to make niche' ios games for japan only.

Now that I word this out, I now see how ridiculous some of this stuff sounds.

Yeah, all those fears seem to be grounded in the notion that the presence of sex will one day stop something from selling, which has never happened in the history of ever.

Dispite this surge of criticism against sexualized characters, it still makes up for but a small minority of the overall consuming public. So all the Bayonetta's, Ivy's, and Quiet's are really not going anywhere. At best we'll get a tiny bit of counter characters, but that's it.

 

[Notshauna]

Which makes it all the more amusing to me when I see western people believing Japan is so sexually repressed. We are the ones who are ashamed of busty women, we are the ones who think nude men will turn us gay and attractive underage girls will turn us pedophiliac. And yet we think Japan is the repressed country.

The repression stuff comes from a lot of pre-WWII information and the very low birth rate and general lack of sex in Japan. Japan is odd, from our perspectives, they produced so much same-sex content but tend to either be anti-gay or don't believe in it, they have so much sex in their media yet have a massively decreasing birth rate, are both the highly rigid in terms of gender roles and extremely loose (in different places).

 

[grassgremlin]

These images:

1) come from a movie that in Japan was shown in theatres without age restrictions

2) come from a movie that in Japan was a big-budget title.


Our culture would never do that. If a movie like this was made in our countries, it would be pg-rated and it probablu won't be a big budget title. And you'd probably find a lot of articles disgusted by it.
While Japan finds it entertaining and innocent.

These images distracted me with all the perfect man ass on display.
I'm not sure if I should be offended on turned on.

 

[lowtech redneck]

You know, this (women in media) isn't pedophilia or genital mutilation, but I am always curious as to how far the moral relativism goes.

Those are specific issues of so-called 'negative rights', an entirely different category than vague notions of cultural sexism, not simply one end of a sliding scale. A better slippery slope moral relativism argument would be the frequent pandering to lolocons in Japanese anime and manga, versus the sexualized imagery of fake high-schools versus adult characters.

 

[Casual Shinji]

An example to undeniably demonstrate my point:

*image snip*

These images:

1) come from a movie that in Japan was shown in theatres without age restrictions

2) come from a movie that in Japan was a big-budget title.


Our culture would never do that. If a movie like this was made in our countries, it would be pg-rated and it probablu won't be a big budget title. And you'd probably find a lot of articles disgusted by it.
While Japan finds it entertaining and innocent.

Yeah sorry, but this seems less like 'See how sexually liberated we are' and more like 'So wrong that it's (supposed to be) funny'. I think you'll see there's plenty of American comedies all about toilet humor and 'Oh no they didn't' type situations as well -- Transformers 2 had a full frontal shot of John Turturro's jock, and The Hangover had a naked Ken Jeong jump out of a trunk. All awkward naked man shenanigans for comedic purposes, and these images don't appear to be any different.

 

[wulf3n]

Anyway, I stopped taking this video seriously when Quiet was shown as an example of Japan being just so a-okay with sexuality. In stead of her being just, you know, designed to sell to boys and men who wanna see naughty bits.

Uhhh.... that's kinda the point.

Being okay with sexuality is about being ok with a character designed to to sell boys and men who wanna see naughty bits.

 

[softclocks]

More modernly, women can now hold office and have equal rights to employment, and Prime Minister Abe has attempted to appoint more women to the cabinet. Which has actually been a failure considering that his commerce secretary recently resigned in disgrace after accusations of misappropriating public funds for things like spas and make-up. . .

This is somewhat incorrect.

When the ratified the "Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women" in 1985, they later promulgated the "Equal Employment Opportunity Law" as one of the many policies that were supposed to help usher in American neo-liberalism in Japan. This was a rescaling of the result-oriented "Equal Employment Law" that many known Japanese feminist groups had fought for. This law for equality of opportunity was accompanied by the Worker Dispatching Law which made it easier for private institutions to hire temporary staffing. This effectively reintroduced the career and non-career tracks (Which ironically was a large part of Japanese education before being revised postWW2), where women are put into the temporary staffing track with absolutely NO career outlook, opportunity for advancement or labor rights. This only helped a very small percentage of women who came from rich families and could compete on equal footing with the male elite.

In exchange for these two laws, that helped set back the women's cause by decades, female workers also had to give up rights from the Basic Labor Law, which gave them paid menstrual leave, restricted overtime and so on. Even in the early 2000s they were still fighting the fallout of these two terrible laws. In 2001 around 70% of all women leave work for marriage/child rearing and do not return. Worse yet is the fact that only 30% of women were employed as non-regular workers in the 80s, where as it hit over 60% in the early 2000s.

Abe is trying to make this even worse by pushing almost all of Japan's women into temporary staffing, and even tried to pass a law forcing women to stay out of work up til 3 years after they've given birth. He, like many other right-wing leaders, is trying to increase the amount of non-regular employment, further weakening womens chances at equal employment and labor rights.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

Japan is far less sexist than Christian cultures. I used the word "Christian" instead than "Western" because the different perception of sexuality stems mostly from the effect of centuries of Christian religion - which Japan never had.

No. See my first post on page 1. That is a common misconception. That narrative has been somewhat common, but I honestly have no idea where it comes from. The repression of women was vastly worse under the pre-Christian Romans and Greeks than it ever was is the post-Christian eras. Though, post-Constantine, things only improved very slowly. Around 600 a.d., what was left of the Celtic traditions began to be transcribed in Ireland -roughly 150 years after St. Patrick- and their laws were more-or-less on par with our late 19th century laws. This is important, as Ireland is one of the few cultures to evade Roman colonization.

So, the sexism and repression of the culture really cannot be blamed on religion, but was an effect of social and political trappings in antiquity, and largely held over by tradition.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Anyway, I stopped taking this video seriously when Quiet was shown as an example of Japan being just so a-okay with sexuality. In stead of her being just, you know, designed to sell to boys and men who wanna see naughty bits.

Uhhh.... that's kinda the point.

Being okay with sexuality is about being ok with a character designed to to sell boys and men who wanna see naughty bits.

Except that those are the only type of female character designs we get out of Japan. The kind that not only make boys and men wanna buy the product itself, but also the meriad of merchandise that have the character plastered all over it in provocative poses, as well as highly detailed figurines.

If a society is so okay with sexuality, the boys and men in it wouldn't feel the need to throw so much cash at products that hold the promise of boobs.

 

[wulf3n]

If a society is so okay with sexuality, the boys and men in it wouldn't feel the need to throw so much cash at products that hold the promise of boobs.

[legitimate question]Why not?[/legitimate question]


I think the opposite is true. The more "shameful" sexuality is seen to be the more reluctant people will be to be seen purchasing said material, out of fear of social persecution. As such sales will suffer as many will turn to more private means of acquisition.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

This is somewhat incorrect.

When the ratified the "Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women" in 1985, they later promulgated the "Equal Employment Opportunity Law" as one of the many policies that were supposed to help usher in American neo-liberalism in Japan. This was a rescaling of the result-oriented "Equal Employment Law" that many known Japanese feminist groups had fought for. This law for equality of opportunity was accompanied by the Worker Dispatching Law which made it easier for private institutions to hire temporary staffing. This effectively reintroduced the career and non-career tracks (Which ironically was a large part of Japanese education before being revised postWW2), where women are put into the temporary staffing track with absolutely NO career outlook, opportunity for advancement or labor rights. This only helped a very small percentage of women who came from rich families and could compete on equal footing with the male elite.

In exchange for these two laws, that helped set back the women's cause by decades, female workers also had to give up rights from the Basic Labor Law, which gave them paid menstrual leave, restricted overtime and so on. Even in the early 2000s they were still fighting the fallout of these two terrible laws. In 2001 around 70% of all women leave work for marriage/child rearing and do not return. Worse yet is the fact that only 30% of women were employed as non-regular workers in the 80s, where as it hit over 60% in the early 2000s.

Abe is trying to make this even worse by pushing almost all of Japan's women into temporary staffing, and even tried to pass a law forcing women to stay out of work up til 3 years after they've given birth. He, like many other right-wing leaders, is trying to increase the amount of non-regular employment, further weakening womens chances at equal employment and labor rights.

Interesting. It is hard to find any trustworthy commentary on Japanese politics in English, so most of what I know is reported by major media, after I weed out the sensationalizing. I was unaware that there was quite that much regression. The '85 act is what I leaned about in college, and the subsequent scaling back is somewhat disturbing, as these problems tend to be systemic and self-perpetuating. I can't imagine that Labor Unions (such as they may be) are happy with the temporary staffing laws, either.

Well, that also sounds like perfectly the wrong thing to do considering the Japanese economy, as well. Pushing roughly half your workforce out is plain stupid, even apart from any moral issues it raises. Japan has some seriously corrupted politics, but the bureaucracy can be just as bad, too. Here's hoping things get better.

 

[softclocks]

Interesting. It is hard to find any trustworthy commentary on Japanese politics in English, so most of what I know is reported by major media, after I weed out the sensationalizing. I was unaware that there was quite that much regression. The '85 act is what I leaned about in college, and the subsequent scaling back is somewhat disturbing, as these problems tend to be systemic and self-perpetuating. I can't imagine that Labor Unions (such as they may be) are happy with the temporary staffing laws, either.

Well, that also sounds like perfectly the wrong thing to do considering the Japanese economy, as well. Pushing roughly half your workforce out is plain stupid, even apart from any moral issues it raises. Japan has some seriously corrupted politics, but the bureaucracy can be just as bad, too. Here's hoping things get better.

There are some prominent Japanese feminists, that have been covering these topics the last 30-40 years, who have had some of their work translated. The most prominent one is probably Ueno Chizuko. She's somewhat controversial but is without doubt Japanese most well known feminist and her body of work is really extensive.

I get what you're saying though, a lot of this stuff can be hard to get a hold of, especially if you don't read/speak Japanese.

 

[Entitled]

Edit: Do you think Tropes vs Women should extend to japan in some manner? Like, have it translate and have game devs in japan pay attention to it?

Definitely not, and I say this as a branded SJW and a supporter of the series.

The thing about Japaneses media, is that it's just totally DIFFERENT from the west.

For pointing that out, I partially respect the video, even if it misses the mark with the generalizations discussed above, and the way it doesn't go much further than just declaring Japan to be "different" and end the discussion there.

Japan does have problems with the role of women, just like any patriarchal culture that reached modernity, but they are not the SAME problems that we have.

For example, there is the notable abundance of female characters. There are entire genres of anime that have no male characters appearing in them, video game protagonists that are female with no particular reason, and Bechdel tests being passed right in the opening scene of everything. Japan just doesn't seem to share our hangup about a female cast inherently making you feminine.

On the other hand, that ratio is largely because of harem anime where the blatant audience avatar is surrounded by character archetypes whose life goal is to bone him, fantasy where women are special leads to deplorable bullshit like Cross Ange, and cutesy all-girl slice-of-life shows have a huge hangup about "innocence", meaning virginity.

For that matter, Japan in general has a huge hangup about virginity. How many of these empowered, sexuality-using heroines are actually having sex? Gaming might be slightly better in tht regard, with it's indies, but in general, western female chracters are a lot more likely to have healthy sexual relationships, where the otaku idols are like untoucable virgin goddesses. Sometimes literally, remember the Kannagi shitstorm about how it's 1000 year old goddess protagonist might have had an ex-boyfriend? Remember when an AKB48 member got her head publically shaved for having sex with a boy?

Japan has no problem with publically showing porn, but how much of that porn is pandering to rape fetishists? Even in the ones that are not featuring an explicit rape situation, but implied consent between a couple, the standard is for the woman to vocally express non-consent to preserve her chaste appearance. Where in the stereotypical western porn, the characters are moaning "Yes, Oh god, yes, yeeees!", in the stereotypical hentai the woman is literally moaning "No, please, not there, no, it's shameful!"

There is a yaoi and yuri genre... that are treated as fetishist material, and outside of them, queer people rarely get an appearance, and if they do, it is as sexual harrassers and outlandish stereotypes of hedonism and in a confusing mix of transgender, transvestite, gay, and bisexual identity.

Japanese media is so alien from ours, that it could appear extremely progressive from one very specific perspective (female ratio, sex positivism, pandering to ALL niches), yet it could appear as brutally regressive from another.

The reality is that it has it's own weird obessions, which are not exactly the same as the ones that western viewers would pay the most attention to, but they might be about equally important.