Get Your Rifles, Boys & Girls - It's Hunting Season

[redbrunja]

autoschismatic  has an amazing and absolutely dead-on article about Kishimoto and his kunoichi and the problems therein. This has also brought all the misogynics to the yard.

Basically, they're saying, 'so what if Kishimoto is sexist? It's just shonen manga, it's made for boys anyway (implication: it doesn't matter if boys are taught that women are less than), you're just thinking too hard about this.'

As I'm sure you can all imagine, I look that as meekly as Maka would, because everyone knows that girls can't be kickass in shonen manga lololol.

Comments

[goldengrimoire.livejournal.com]

Yes, many of the posts there make me cringe.

While it's valid to say that yes, part of the reason that Naruto is the way it is is because it's a Shounen Jump manga, written by a Japanese guy who is surrounded by a culture that tends to be more openly sexist than we are here in the West, that's just an attempt at an explanation as to why it is the way it is. It doesn't make any sexism or misogyny in the manga OK and I think that distinction escapes some of the people posting there.

It's a shame, because really, Kishimoto does have some good female characters, they just don't get nearly enough screentime. Sakura feels like a bit of a deliberate attempt to combat the weak shounen heroine stereotype, because she starts out as the typical weak link of the team but is *actually bothered by it* and works to improve herself. She just gets sidelined way too much.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

*nods*

Exactly. Saying it's a product of a sexist culture (which it is) doesn't mean that it can't or shouldn't be better.