Male Roles Vs. Female Roles in Fiction: Discussion/Analysis/Troperwank

Not (a) crime. But depending on the circumstances, it becomes glaringly stupid.

Final Girls movie, for example. I liked the movie a lot and would recommend it, but boy... does the main protagonist have magical hair.

At the very least, I was just pointing out how stupid it is.

If I actually think it's a crime, I wouldn't just say it's stupid but also harmfully sexist though thankfully not at the same levels as skin whiteners, tanning, breast enhancements, too high heels. Unless overexcessive shampoo chemicals bleaches into the skin cells or blood streams, you'll probably just end up with brittle-weak hair (that shampoo companies insist needs more chemicals).

1-2 years ago, during a family party, we had a laugh when we compared our feet. The gals had harder feet compared to the guys.

IMHO, long hair is no worse than capes, and we have plenty of both males and females wearing capes. I'm all for gender equality.

I have more issues with things such as high heels (wearing them makes the feet hurt - good luck with that when in combat). Someone mentioned it's not misogynist, just a fashion statement (a point of view that was not elaborated on, and which I don't quite understand). My brain says "if that logic holds up, I change my stance from 'less female characters should wear high heels' to 'more males should wear high heels'". There's even historical precedence!

I think there should just be plain less high heels. They often don't look good in the first place, and that's not even considering their combat capabilities. Of all the characters I've ever written or roleplayed, this in the latter category, only one has ever worn high heels, and that was for the explicit purpose of making walking harder.

I don't mind long hair unless you go for actual realism. AoT isn't even close to that kind of realism. Not that I'd watch it anyway, though. Until you get to very long hair, it doesn't impact you much more than any clothes that an opponent can grab. And even if it's very long, grabbing is the main issue, and things like not wearing helmets are far worse.

I always thought high heels looked stupid, I never got why people think they're sexy.

Society tends to discriminate vs the too short and too tall, the too short part was fixable with high heels. Then High Heels became standard then a fetish.

Corsets kinda were the same way, since overweight was a no no, then got taken to the extreme and started to shape ideals even more for Men AND Women till they died out.

Funny how society discriminates short men and tall women, while restricting the height-enhancing high heels to women.

Backwards-ass idiocy.

Curved feet?

I'm glad to see other people feel the same way I do about high heels, considering how many high heels appear on nearly every female character.

I was reading up on how comic book female characters often get impossible poses as if their bodies were made of rubber, then came across this◊.

I suppose it's acceptable if all sexes are affected by anatomy problems?

edited 14th Oct '15 8:52:15 AM by hellomoto

Platform style shoes for men did float in and out of style back in the 1900s IIRC as well as lifts and such.

But really any short guy would have to compensate via even more massive amounts of wealth or fame than a normal guy to even be invited to a party. Ladies however were forced to go and look appropriate, too tall just didn't get you married.

The worst parts would be the attempts at bone lengthening and shortening surgeries which are EXTREMELY painful, those are well kinda common even now.

edited 14th Oct '15 9:06:30 AM by Memers

My understanding of the fetishization of high heels is that they restrict a woman's ability to walk in such a fashion that it accentuates the curves of her legs and ass. That it's not the shoes themselves that are attractive, but the way women have to walk to avoid breaking their ankles.

That's just what I've gathered from talking to folks, though. I don't really get it either. <.<

Personally, my experience with asking women why they like high heels is that they like being slightly taller, and in average, women are shorter. My problem with heels is when they are used in impossibly physically straining situations.

edited 14th Oct '15 12:49:50 PM by Aszur

You know, these sorts of talks are always funny to me. Because I like women that are taller than me, but high heels has been a turn-off for quite a while now.

edited 14th Oct '15 1:04:50 PM by SaintDeltora

You should tell em some fancy platform shoes are where it is at, less murder and deformation of the feet.

As a semi-short male I admit to wearing the not-so-extreme kind on more than one occasion to avoid Tiny Guy, Huge Girl.

Considering I dated a girl who was 6'2 while I was 5'4 I thought they were needed, she wore heels often too. Sure it was nice and all since if I looked straight ahead I just saw boobs but damn murder on the neck and her bending down to kiss me got giggles from other people.

@Tobias- I think that's part of it. Also, as with footbinding, historically it fit into this idea of showing that you were wealthy enough to not have to work, because you literally couldn't work (nor move under your own volition).

Personally I am a man in the sense that I could not tell you the difference between a sneaker shoe, a high heel, and bunny flippers if my life depended on it. To me, it is divided in the simian "me like" or "me no like" sort of differences.

If you need someone to pinpoint you the fine details of fashion, I need to point out my mother once described my dressing as "A lockbox" because "only I knew the combination".

If you need someone to primally grunt and go "ook ook", I am your guy. Not so much for the finer differences between footwear or leisure or formal styles.

The difference is that platform shoes make you look taller, but high heels make your legs look longer. If you just want to be less short, then platform shoes will do if for you. If you're trying to involve Shes Got Legs, then not so much.

Walking with platform shoes is walking a little bit higher above the ground than with normal shoes.

Walking with high heels is closer to walking on the balls of your feet (although not exactly). Doing that, you naturally walk in a slightly different way, using the leg and hip muscles differently, which is what's perceived as sexier. If you step down with the heel first with some high heel shoes and put weight on it, there may be breaking. Hopefully the shoe's heel rather than your ankle.

Visually, high heel shoes are often open at the front, which with the lesser angle between the foot and the leg along with the ankle being higher than usual relative to the toes gives an impression that the leg is a little longer.

It will depend on the situation.

For example, Jurassic World was just stupid about high heels whereas imo - Mission Impossible Rogue Nation did OK. Why? Because Rogue Nation had their main female take them off when she had to fight or run.

I also remember a movie or 2 wherein the girls broke off the heels when they had to run.

I suppose I should be thankful that Western media has somewhat evolved from relying on breasts as the main source of female fan service (unlike anime).

Eh? They are there. Sailor Mars and Jupiter wear em in combat since the 90s. They just don't need em to invoke Shes Got Legs since they just need to draw legs. Just look at Sailor Moon Crystal, everyone's got She Got Unrealistically Long Ass Legs even the ones who don't wear high heals.

And really aside from Breast Cancer most boobs won't really kill you, High Heels are legit dangerous in many ways, especially if you don't naturally walk like an AT-ST.

edited 14th Oct '15 10:57:32 PM by Memers

I never got into Sailor Moon (or Dragon Ball for that matter). I tried to several times, but neither held my interest long enough.

As for boobs, health-wise it's a bad thing to add to the pressure on women to get breast enhancements. Muscles can be acquired through exercise and healthy eating. Not so with breasts.

Though generally, these days - I just laugh off Japan's sexism. At least it's contributing significantly to their declining population rate.

Their birthrate is the same as Italy's and Germany's.

And on actual people things like a boob job is a complete no no in Japan, you will not find fake breasts there even in porn. Small breasts are considered an ideal element of a Yamato Nadeshiko (the so called ideal Japanese woman.) body along with pale skin and black hair.

Plastic surgery wise they have an obsession with making things smaller such as thinning the face, nose and calf or Blepharoplasty to make your eyes look more western.

edited 14th Oct '15 11:45:22 PM by Memers

Just going to hope that it's mainly their rich people who go for those.

Over here, we've enough problems with poor women giving themselves skin cancer/diseases through cheap-bootleg skin whiteners. I pretty much blame upper class Chinese for this trend.

In Jurassic World, if the female lead had taken off her heels, she would have been trekking through the jungle in her bare feet. I'm not sure if that's actually better.

Personally, though, I almost never pay attention to people's feet, whether in fiction or in Real Life. So unless specific attention is drawn to someone's footwear, I'm probably not going to notice what kind of shoe they're wearing (this especially holds true for people in movies/television, since most of the time, their feet will be cut off by the bottom of the screen, anyway).

I prefer breaking off the heels to taking the shoes off. And I also prefer finding another set of more appropriate shoes.

That's why I just said that Rogue Nation was OK.

For Jurassic World, she should had found alternative footwear before that scene wherein she was leading the T-Rex with a flare.

Flawless White skin is a beauty standard in Japan too, there is an old Japanese proverb "white skin covers the seven flaws" referring to that, and Bihaku (skin whiting products) is big business. There a counter push via the Gyaru subculture Ganguro though which get their skin as dark as possible, although that appears to be dying a slow death.

Blepharoplasty is most common in Taiwan and South Korea.

It's to change from an single lid eye to a double lid [1]◊it is believed that it makes your eyes bigger, more attentive and emotional which is good for acting in addition to looking more western. It can be natural though and Anime Eyes are an extension of that. Unfortunately it's the belief that you are not really bankable as a star with a single lid eyelid, especially internationally, and sadly it seems to be backed up by numbers.

Jackie Chan had the surgery done just before he started acting [2]◊ along with many idols.

edited 15th Oct '15 1:43:41 AM by Memers