The impact of "Machismo" in the anime and manga industry.

 Have you ever seen an anime and questioned yourself a scene for having sexist content? Well, I grew up watching this type of content and recently began to question these situations. 

As a woman, I have rarely felt identified with female characters in the anime and manga industry. Honestly, it’s not a novelty to observe “machismo” and sexism in any of the genres of this industry because anime is inherent to Japanese culture. This greatly influences the amount of misogyny present in each chapter of your favorite anime. The scenes of giant breasts, long legs, asses or the permanent harassment of characters such as Meliodas, Hapossai, Roshi and many others normalize aberrant situations of harassment that then — on many occasions — appear in everyday life, because these animations are a reflection of the society.

The big problem that we find in this context is that many fanatical people — otakus — of this content idealize the figure of men and women in anime and don't analyze many negative factors when consuming this content. The problem isn't the behavior of the characters but the degradation of the feminine gender and the idealization of the masculine. In other words all or most of the characters respond to what the man wants without considering the perspective of the woman. The solution to this is not to make anime only for women — although there is a genre only for “us”, which is characterized by highlighting the stereotype of a romantic woman, normalizing toxic relationships, such as Toradora or Ōkami Shōjo to Kuro Ōji — but rather respect, question and be judicious when consuming these contents, in order to avoid contributing to aspects such as hypersexualization, machismo and even pedophilia of women. Let us remember that Women are more than stereotypes, more than merchandise, therefore, we must begin to promote the development of female characters outside the stereotypes and canons imposed by patriarchal society.

- By Claudia Vidal