@Monkey:
Why don't I just let One Piece do the talking for me because Oda made the argument himself like fifteen years ago.
The only thing I find weird is the bizarre lack of empathy in people who don't get this.
If not yourself, put Zoro or Sanji or some such into the position of Tashigi there and what do you think they'd feel about being treated with baby-gloves.
It's not the harm, its the baby-handling. There is a lack of a certain respect in that as pertains to literal combatants and whatnot.
Well, yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you here. If we're talking about a capable female warrior like Tashigi, of course it's disrespectful to not treat her like your equal just because she has a different gender. In fact, you even kinda went and proved my point for me: It seems unfair to me judge Oda's view on the treatment of women on Zeff's opinions in this current chapter, when Oda has featured characters like Tashigi in the past who had a completely different view on things. Oda's story may feature certain patterns that include sidelining or stereotyping female characters (and I'm not at all arguing that these don't exist), that provide a more fitting way of gauging his worldview. But the author does not necessarily share the viewpoints of his characters. Neither Zeff nor Sanji are Oda's spokesmen.
And many men are weaker than other men. And women weaker than other women.
Which is all entirely moot and meaningless in the context of a comic book where everyone and their mother is benching skyscrapers and ignoring the laws of physics left and right.
I find it REAL bizarre how people can readily accept superpowers, super strength, supernatural psychic style willpower, clouds that hold land, magic fruits, living islands and so on and so on….
….and the moment people start talking about physical strength between genders people become stark realists looking for steady consistent scientific depictions.
What on earth is up with that, because its fundamentally crazy.
Which is why I wasn't talking about One Piece in this part of my response? I was talking in real-world terms here, of course I can accept super-powered female characters in a comic filled with super-strong people…I mean, we've already seen plenty of them in the story. I didn't mean to say that Oda has to adhere to real-life biological facts in his story, he can do whatever the hell he wants. But depicting men and women as having a general biological difference in strength would not be completely insane or unheard of. I don't look for a steady consistent scientific depiction of this in a manga about, as you aptly put, a rubber pirate, but it's not like Oda is forbidden from portraying something realistically either, if he chooses to do so.
They might just?
I'm pretty partial to letting people just help as they feel they can and not just insta-cutting folks out of things like that.
They might just think I'm sexist? Well, if they did, I'd hope they'd tell me In that case, of course they could feel free to help, it's not like I would forbid that. If someone would be offended by being treated as physically weaker, that is their fair right. But not every man and definitely not every woman agrees with your opinion on things here. I know plenty of women who would even be offended and think of me as rude if I asked them instead of guys to carry something heavy. It's just…expected to rather ask men to do something like that. I'm not saying that this is better or worse, I'm saying things aren't as absolute and black and white as you depict them here.
Yeah so, remember the rubber pirate comic book?
You mean the one I wasn't even talking about at this point? Yeah, I think I do.
I didn't bring up the braindead non-argument of cultural relativism, that was someone else. Cultural relativism is dumb and irrelevant. I don't give a fig where someone lives.
I don't believe in cultural relativism either, I just wanted to clarify that I don't live in a place where women are thought of as lesser beings or any such crap, that's all.
In cases of mortal combat? Yeah huh.
I wasn't talking about mortal combat, in fact I even made a comment earlier in my post that such a situation would of course be an exception. However, if you want to talk about One Piece in particular, in this chapter, Zeff's speech and his rule about not hitting women had nothing to do with mortal combat either. Sanji may have interpreted it as thus, but Zeff didn't talk about life-or-death situations at all. So if you agree with me that hitting a woman is alright in mortal combat, why get upset about a speech that does not explicitly contradict your viewpoint?
That's the real response to the non-combat situation. Which is, how is it ok to go around punching anybody.
Among men I'm sure if you thought about it there would be some men where that would be in awful social taste as well. And really in general if the puncher was a big bruiser, that's someone who is abusing weaker people in almost every situation like that.
Well yeah, that's why I said that it's a weird right to argue about anyway. Who in real life context would want the right to be punched and kicked "like a man"? It only makes sense in the crazy world of One Piece. So if the issue of women deserving the right to be punched and kicked doesn't even relate to the real world in any way, why would anyone get upset about it? It's really weird to me that people are making such a big deal out of something like this.
That IS the can of worms. That's the conversation here.
It's not, this chapter wasn't even about that. The thing that made several people angry here is Zeff's belief that hitting women, in a normal situation, is wrong. This, first of all, from a character who thinks that kicking a little boy to teach him how to cook is absolutely ok, which already shows that good old Zeff may have a bit of a twisted view on things. But even ignoring that, it's really not that offensive a statement. Maybe Zeff stated things a little overdramatically, but it's not that big a deal…many, many people, me included, would have moral qualms about hitting women.
I don't know, I just have a problem with equating "being fine with hitting a woman" to "being a big supporter of feminism":blink:It's usually the other way around.
That attitude has slipped from Sanji to other characters in recent times.
You're talking about the Zoro and Monet fight, I presume? Yeah, that was badly handled by Oda, I agree. But in the same arc, Oda also featured Franky beating up Baby 5 without hesitation.
And frankly Oda definitely has a blind spot to gender stuff.
Yet in the beginning of your response, you cited an early chapter of One Piece where Oda seemed to regard female fighters with respect. So, do you think Oda has become worse in this regard over the years? Honest question.
I do agree with your assessment; I just don't think this chapter in particular gave any reason to be upset about Oda and his gender roles, and frankly, I do think that some fans are a little quick to jump on Oda when this topic rears its ugly head. He may have a blind spot when it comes to gender roles, but he still has a fair number of strong female characters.