hey there
I'm writing an English paper where you had to pick some type of literary work to criticize in the school of thought of your choice.
basically this means I'm looking at Death Note from a feminist's perspective (despite the fact that I'm not a feminist.. o_O).
Of course, I'm going to expand this to include looking at sexism in manga in general and in the world today, but especially Japan since that's where manga comes from.

any thoughts?

or if you know of any helpful articles on the subject, could you point it my way?

thanks ^_^

I would say that even if Sexism is an issue in the world of manga is nothing like racism...

http://www.mangapunk.com/articles/women_and_sexism_in_american_and_japanese_comics

dunno maybe that helps

[img]http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs14/f/2007/026/1/1/Into_Werewolf_by_AbyssWolf.gif[/img]

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[color=purple]Google is your friend.[/color]

[img]http://i215.photobucket.com/albums/cc70/blissfull_wulf/sig%20and%20avvie/Newsiggy-3.jpg[/img]

is a very useful tool >_>

anyway maybe she wants our opinion about the issue?

that is why I said I think that sexism in manga is overshadowed by racism

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Quote from blissfull_wulf

[color=purple]Google is your friend.[/color]

been there. =p thanks though

I'm not just looking for links to articles.. I meant just if anyone knew of one.

I'm trying to open up a discussion here.

i'll start i guess. XD
anyone notice little things in Japanese language that might assign gender roles? like how they have different words for "I" depending on gender, which just creates a bigger rift between male & female.

EDIT--
yeah thanks, chaos. =) hmm yeah i've noticed a lot of racism too. like how any time there's a white person in a manga, they have blue eyes.
have any of these mangakas taken an elementary biology course? you can't get blue eyes from being half-white / half-Japanese. -_-

..............

Quote from pearlized

any thoughts?

How broad do you want to go? You can write a book comparing/contrasting the depiction of females in shoujo and shounen manga and the inherent sexim therein. You can broaden it out even more to josei and seinen, and look at the portrayals and target audiences for each demographic and what the portrayals says about the audiences expectations of gender dynamics. (I've found shounens to be way less sexist (for both guys and girls) than shoujos.)

If you want to stick to shounen, you can compare/contrast action-adventure manga with romance manga (i.e. harems), using Death Note and some harem (I vote for one with a decently big cast) as case studies. You can look at what the author is presenting and the social expectations (why do these depictions appeal to boys, why are they acceptable to the kids parents?).

You can also play it straight and stick to the various depictions of the female characters in the novel and the varying degrees of sexism built into those characterizations and how that sexism plays off the stereotypes the characters embody.

There's also a more general feminist critique, which is really about oppressed peoples. So pick any oppressed group in Death Note and write about them. As they're basically the bad guy, and spin something on the Japanese view of criminals. If you want to play with race, clear it with your teacher but it should be game for a feminist critique.

or if you know of any helpful articles on the subject, could you point it my way?

Does your school have access to research databases? plug manga + sexism into any search bar and run with it. Or just japan + sexism.
Otherwise, wiki: japan+sexism is not a source, but the links on the bottom often lead to decent sources. How good do your sources need to be? Peer reviewed, print source, or anything goes? (Mangapunk may be unacceptable because the source is unverifiable.)

Quote from pearlized

yeah thanks, chaos. =) hmm yeah i've noticed a lot of racism too. like how any time there's a white person in a manga, they have blue eyes.
have any of these mangakas taken an elementary biology course? you can't get blue eyes from being half-white / half-Japanese. -_-

Actually, from what I understand elementary biology seriously oversimplifies the genetics of eye color, and it is in fact quite possible for someone who's half white & half Asian to have blue eyes. Contrary to popular belief, it is also possible for two blue-eyed parents to have a brown-eyed child.

While Japan in general is (pretty much indisputably) xenophobic, I wouldn't necessarily read too much into the "blue eyes" thing - quite possibly it's just an easy way to mark a character as being non-Japanese.

"[English] not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary."
-James Nicoll, can.general, March 21, 1992

Hellos, I can explain the culture in most parts of asia being asian myself.

Well.. the things i notice most, is the respect toward the old. It may be because there was never much things such as healthcare and all that etc etc.
but in America, the young ones were paid for of food and living expenses by parents, and then when they grow up, the grown ups have things like retirement, and government funding.

In many parts of asia, I know for sure in korea and south east asia, when we get old, we are raised and paid for by parents and then eventually we pay for our parents to have their time before they pass on. So the parents condition after being old is relative to how he did when he worked, and how his children are doing now. (In korea I saw a passerby carry a homeless to shelter before going to where ever he was headed to, touched me ;-;, but it does happen often, for some reason this one stood out, maybe its cuz he was like a model.)

                       ON WITH THE TOPIX  

Cultural things like this influences feminism alot, because we make everything simpler, we also stick to customs and old rules, females at one time were expected to know all the stereotypical things, and were to support men through any means possible (even pleasuring is supporting) but at the same time are never ever sopposed to lead a household or business or carry on a family legacy/tradition/etc/you know.

But nowadays, technology, and manga played a large part in changing culture. People expressed their views, men depicted their manga having women with power or women lacking those stereotypical skills. Homosexualuality was being expressed and then slowly had a better image.

Basicly, Japan has alot of free reign but many men still have narrow images of women but at the same time many see women as powerful if left to do what they want.

So ya... in japan nowadays, meaning 2008, or at least close, check the dates on your manga, its like 6 years ago on many, its changed alot.
Men don't deny women influence them, but many still try to dominate them.

PS. for all you perverted ones out there, theres shops in japan that sell used women's school uniforms and stuff ^-^, Having less rules and more responsibility really makes the world funner and interesting. Like.. you can act gey around kids and be half-nude, not full, but close enough, and you can play pranks on random people without being sued...

Sighz.. I really want to go back to a rice farm and just eat.. sleep.. and play guitars. The city life in any country is too hard nowadays