One thing I have become aware of over years of studying Japanese culture and literature is that women are discriminated against in many ways in Japan. The question that I posed to myself last week was if anime perpetuates these ideas, merely transmits them, or opposes them. The answer is probably a mixture of all three.

First, for the unfamiliar reader, I will quickly outline a few ways in which women are discriminated against in Japan. For one, according to a friend of mine who attended public school in Japan, names are called for attendance in alphabetical order, first all the boys, then all the girls. It is still the case that in big cities like Tokyo, with crowded train systems, it's OK to molest (called chikan) women on the subway. In the workplace, even if women get equal jobs with men, they are still required to do more of the cleaning, pour tea and coffee, and do the photocopying and the like for the men (in most offices). (A Chinese friend of mine experienced this first-hand in Tokyo last summer because she looks Japanese -- it was devastating to someone unused to Japan). The ideal sex object in Japan still seems to be high school girls; they are constantly (I can give examples) approached by middle-aged men if walking around alone. In addition, about half the host mothers I stayed with (only about 5 families though) had an inferiority complex about themselves. Sometimes I could hear them crying in their (separate from their husband's) rooms about it.

In anime, for one thing, the obsession with high school (younger girls) is evident. One of the effects this has in society is to not only force these younger girls into the adult world quicker then men (who are expected to study and get into a good college), but afterwards, they have a sense that they have passed their prime. At least that's how it seems to me (i.e. this high school thing is my opinion). Just look at all the anime focusing on high school/junior high-aged girls (Escaflowne, Kimagure Orange Road, Nadia, Marmalade Boy, Yat Anshin, Sailor Moon, Slam Dunk, Ranma ½, and the list continues). It's also horrible when anime like Gunbuster has (sabisu) close-ups of women's body parts in explicit ways. This just tends to increase the objectification of women.

Making women the super powerful heroes in anime makes them inaccessible to men (like in Slayers, Sailor Moon, Bubblegum Crisis....), further making them like objects or idols rather than people. Other times, we get main characters like Miki in Marmalade Boy who seem incompetent, also making it easier to put women on a lower scale than men. But I like Escaflowne because the heroine of this piece is at least on an equal footing with the other characters. She may not have a guymelef, but her powers are just as impressive. On the other hand, it also plays out the Japanese stereotype of women having mystical powers and being possessed by demons (mono no ke). In this mindset, it becomes easy to discriminate against women. They become either superhuman (like Lina Inverse) or just objects.

On the other hand, it can be argued that these same methods of making women super powerful or magical should make the discrimination more obvious to the viewer, thus putting a stop to it. By making a woman an idol, it makes men and women look up to her, and thus it should give women a higher status in society rather than a lower status; at least theoretically. Unfortunately, though a little progress is made every year in Japan, it is going really, really slowly. Japan is decades behind the US and Europe in women's rights issues.

As my final conclusion, I see no evidence that CJAS members are excessively sexist or male chauvinist. Thus, I must conclude that the final effect of any show depends entirely on the viewer's perspective. Media cannot influence our minds either way if we don't want it to. But anime is a good medium to study Japan and its society, since it is made mostly by the Japanese (and the Koreans {read the credits carefully}) and reflects that (those) culture(s).