Sometimes..traditional in Super Sentai that need to be broken down.

cypsiman2 said:

It's actually kind of annoying, as Shinkenger did have an episode that suffered greatly from sexism; it's the one where Takeru is divying up the auxiliary Origami mechs, and Chiaki is shocked that he doesn't get the third one despite consistently being the worst at Mojikara, and all throughout they act like Mako is just a temporary placeholder while Chiaki gets his **** together, even though there's no good reason why this should be. Mako wanting to be a housewife after saving the world from evil? Not sexist, that was her choice in her life path, and the only way one could construe it as being bad is if one construed being feminine as bad, and that to me seems far more sexist than anything else.

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Personally, that's one of the beef I had with Shinkenger, to have Mako giving up that Kabuto disc to Chiaki. I don't think it's sexist, but I think they definitely played some favoritism toward Chiaki. Btw, Takeru wanted to give the disc to Mako, and he never told Mako to give away her disc.

cypsiman2 said:

It's actually kind of annoying, as Shinkenger did have an episode that suffered greatly from sexism; it's the one where Takeru is divying up the auxiliary Origami mechs, and Chiaki is shocked that he doesn't get the third one despite consistently being the worst at Mojikara, and all throughout they act like Mako is just a temporary placeholder while Chiaki gets his **** together, even though there's no good reason why this should be. Mako wanting to be a housewife after saving the world from evil? Not sexist, that was her choice in her life path, and the only way one could construe it as being bad is if one construed being feminine as bad, and that to me seems far more sexist than anything else.

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There is no such thing as "femininity." The whole idea of what is "feminine" (that women love children and want to be housewives, are demure, quiet, like to cook and clean, etc.) is imposed by men onto women. If that weren't so, characters like Mako wouldn't exist.

On the other hand, Mako is a competent fighter and has a personality. By far the worst offenders in that department were MagiBlue and Ptera Ranger

lazycoconut said:

There is no such thing as "femininity." The whole idea of what is "feminine" (that women love children and want to be housewives, are demure, quiet, like to cook and clean, etc.) is imposed by men onto women. If that weren't so, characters like Mako wouldn't exist.

On the other hand, Mako is a competent fighter and has a personality. By far the worst offenders in that department were MagiBlue and Ptera Ranger

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Okay, before it was just subtext, so I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. But now that you've expressed your warped notions about gender in blunt, direct terms, all doubt has been banished from my mind. Masculinity is not the default state of the human condition, femininity is not weakness, and that is all I'm going to say to you.

Like I said: not a feminist. You're arguing with someone who just wants to call all her personal preferences "feminism" so she can defend them as deeply-held personal beliefs.

That's just a waste of time... especially if you actually care about feminism.

Lynxara said:

Like I said: not a feminist. You're arguing with someone who just wants to call all her personal preferences "feminism" so she can defend them as deeply-held personal beliefs.

That's just a waste of time... especially if you actually care about feminism.

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It is indeed bizarre to see someone calling femininity a weak lie, while declaring themselves a feminist for it. I mean, it's one thing to be critical of how a society constructs gender, but this is plainly not that.

To me it just looks like old-fashioned penis envy. There's no reason to resent the entire concept of femininity unless you're laboring under the Victorian assumption that women are merely "broken men" who could be "restored" if they adopted traditionally masculine behavior.

These ideas are so completely pre-modern that they're utterly removed from the actual concerns of virtually any school of modern feminist thought. There's not even a connection between ideas like this and the goals of older first or second-generation feminism.

It's just someone's personal preferences expressed as an absolute moral value to try and prevent people from debating or discussing them.

Well, getting back to a topic of substance...

FieryRed said:

Personally, that's one of the beef I had with Shinkenger, to have Mako giving up that Kabuto disc to Chiaki. I don't think it's sexist, but I think they definitely played some favoritism toward Chiaki. Btw, Takeru wanted to give the disc to Mako, and he never told Mako to give away her disc.

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Well, it's sexist in that the only reason anyone in the show acted like Chiaki should have gotten or deserved to have the Kabuto disc was because he was a boy and Mako was a girl. Because at that point and for a long time thereafter, Chiaki was pretty much bottom-rung of the Shinkengers. And while it has been a while since I watched it, the subtext of "Mako's just a placeholder until Chiaki mans up" was pretty damn thick, you could cut it with a knife.

Besides, in the end all the guys end up with multiple mechs while the girls only have their starters. Fortunately, Mako and Kotoha were still badass and well characterized, so it wasn't all bad. Just, you know, some bad.

The thing where Mako and Kotoha never got auxiliary Origami reeked of being a decision driven by Bandai. It's clear in retrospect that Bandai forced a lot of toy-driven stuff into Shinkenger that didn't make a lot of sense and was often just ignored as much as possible by the people working on the show.

Lynxara said:

To me it just looks like old-fashioned penis envy. There's no reason to resent the entire concept of femininity unless you're laboring under the Victorian assumption that women are merely "broken men" who could be "restored" if they adopted traditionally masculine behavior.

These ideas are so completely pre-modern that they're utterly removed from the actual concerns of virtually any school of modern feminist thought. There's not even a connection between ideas like this and the goals of older first or second-generation feminism.

It's just someone's personal preferences expressed as an absolute moral value to try and prevent people from debating or discussing them.

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One of the times I agree with you totally.

Lynxara said:

The thing where Mako and Kotoha never got auxiliary Origami reeked of being a decision driven by Bandai. It's clear in retrospect that Bandai forced a lot of toy-driven stuff into Shinkenger that didn't make a lot of sense and was often just ignored as much as possible by the people working on the show.

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Heh, that kind of makes the part of the final battle where Dokouku keeps blowing away all the auxiliary Origami until only the basic Shinken-Oh remained more than just a reference to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, doesn't it?