Male gaze.
It seems to me that people immediately shout “male gaze” or sexism when it comes to so many things. Yet we continue to find out that women are the ones doing this.
We see female comic artists or game designers putting characters into sexy clothes. We see female directors suggesting/urging a topless version of a video. We see female cosplayers enjoy dressing up as sexy characters and strutting their stuff.
Why is it that we see men who are ill proportioned, super muscled and super powerful as ‘male power fantasies’, yet people immediately get their back up about sexy female characters?
Maybe we need to start acknowledging that many women like the idea of being sexy, of dressing up sexy or otherwise imagining themselves as sexy. Maybe we need to consider what the ‘female power fantasy’ is and if that coincides with what we often see in comics or video games.
I have some more examples!
Created by Clamp, and all female team of manga-ka: their lead artist, Mokona has expessed in quite a few interviews her love of drawing topless women.
DearS by Peach-pit, a duo of two women
Sailor Moon characters as drawn by Naoko Takeuchi
Terra 3 as drawn by Amanda Conner
Now this is an interesting topic. Someone can bring up the fact that these female artists are pressured to draw women like these by their employers and what not, but it does complicate the issue. If I want to draw a female character topless, does that mean I’m “oppressing” myself?
Also, there’s a difference between a simple, sexy picture and a harmful, misogynistic one. Sexual does not immediately equal that.
Except people have been reblogging and messaging me stating that, yes, this is in fact true. Women want to draw sexy things, nobody is pressuring them to do so. In fact, in comic books, the artists draw what they typically want with discussion of panel layout and actions on panel. Subtle details, like Powergirl’s bust being on prominent display there, would likely be an artist’s decision to include of their own free will.
Likewise, considering that the first artist there, is well known as the artist for Ultimate Spider-Man, tends to add a tiny bit more detail in spandexed men’s crotches (and if you know Spider-Man, god the crotch shots you get). If they were being pressured by the ‘big bad men’ then they wouldn’t do that. The thing is? Guys aren’t really giving a shit if a female artist adds some definition and shading to Spidy’s dick bulge and indulges in her own preferences a bit.
The thing is, I’d argue there are very few 'misogynistic’ pictures. People throw out the terms misogynistic, objectification, male gaze and male power fantasy, when they want to throw buzzwords that they don’t need to back up with an argument.
Bayonetta’s legs being half her mass isn’t misogynistic. Sailor Moon’s tiny skirt isn’t misogynistic. Ivy’s jiggle physics isn’t misogynistic. Powergirl’s boob window isn’t misogynistic.
People need a better rational than “It makes me feel bad” or “I don’t like it” so therefore it is wrong.