【Manga】Being Criticized for Valuing Individuality: “You’re Not Acting Like an Adult”
Have you ever come across “insecurity advertisements”?
These are ads that feature female protagonists who are rejected by lovers or turned down by the opposite sex due to their appearance, such as
“not removing body hair,”
“not being slim enough,”
“having skin issues,” or
“having curly hair.”
Such ads have been flooding the internet for quite a while.
In the society we live in, people are judged based on their appearance and behavior according to whether they are “liked by the opposite sex.” This trend can make life difficult for those who don’t fit into this standard.
The “insecurity advertisements” that manipulate with messages like “You won’t be liked by the opposite sex unless you achieve a specific appearance!” also contribute to strengthening this kind of societal norm.
In this manga, we will explore the societal aspect that confines people’s appearance and the culture of judging based on whether they are “liked by the opposite sex.” We will delve into the background of the underlying norm that suggests “everyone should engage in heterosexual relationships.”
A Society that Judges Based on “Being Liked by the Opposite Sex”
As mentioned earlier, in our society, there’s a strong tendency to judge someone’s appearance, particularly women’s, based on whether they are “liked by the opposite sex.”
Acts like making fun of someone’s appearance and behavior with comments like “You won’t find a husband looking like that” seem to have decreased compared to the past.
However, if you observe closely, you can notice how subtly the idea of “managing one’s appearance for the sake of heterosexual attraction” is ingrained in our lives as an unquestioned virtue.
For instance, consider the “insecurity advertisements” as discussed earlier.
The protagonist, rejected by the opposite sex due to their appearance, undergoes a remarkable transformation using recommendations from a friend like a hair removal salon, diet products, and beauty goods. In the end, they capture the heart of a ”handsome” individual, turn the tables on their surroundings, and the story concludes with a triumphant turn of events, followed by prominent information on how to purchase the promoted products.
Advertisements like these present a clear success story narrative:
- (1) Comparison with others
- (2) Acknowledgement of flaws, a sense of defeat
- (3) (Achieving through purchase) Instant turnaround
- (4) (Achieving a boyfriend) Happy ending
By conveying such straightforward success narratives, these advertisements reinforce the idea that “women should enhance their appearance to succeed in heterosexual relationships,” thus driving women towards consumption behaviors.
This technique, which introduces men who judge women’s attractiveness based on appearance, effectively encouraging “self-management” with quotation marks, is frequently used in the advertising industry.
Marketing professionals and advertising agencies often think, “Creating such ads will make them sell,” which reflects how deeply this society is centered around heteronormativity and how male perspectives hold power.
Through the repeated use of these harmful depictions, the notion of “how things should be” based on heteronormativity has been reinforced time and again.
However, even in such circumstances, there are examples where voices against harmful insecurity advertisements have led to changes in media standards.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, an online petition titled “[YouTube Ads] Ads that criticize body hair, body types, etc., commonly seen on YouTube – why don’t we stop them?” was launched on change.org. This petition led to widespread recognition of the term “insecurity advertisements” and The environment for considering it a social issue has been developed, with coverage in various media outlets. (As of now, this petition has gathered around 50,000 signatures!)
In response to this movement, in June 2020, Yahoo! announced that it would prohibit advertisements that blatantly express insecurities. They stated the following:
“We have a variety of characteristics, and physical characteristics are one of them. We think having a diversity of characteristics and knowing each other’s characters are important. We believe that using physical characteristics as inferiority complexes causes discrimination, and we must eliminate it.
Therefore, we will strengthen our review of these expressions and will not deliver ads that contain these expressions.” (Quoted from Yahoo! Reviews on expressions related to inferiority complex)
We don’t know when the reproduction of “how things should be” through harmful ads will be stopped, but looking at examples like this, it feels like little by little, through the voices of those who speak out, we are moving closer to achieving that goal.
The Idea of “Getting Married Makes You a Grown-Up“
As mentioned in the manga, the idea of families where “men work and women do housework and childcare” was considered normal, and during a time when gender wage gaps were even worse than they are today, behaving in a “feminine” manner to find a partner who could support their lives was seen as a “smart” survival strategy for women.
However, even in the modern era, where dual-income households are common and gender wage gaps are recognized as a problem that needs improvement, the notion that “women should aim to be liked by men in order to get married” and that “those who don’t act that way aren’t fully grown up” seems to persist strongly.
Looking back, from a young age when we hardly understood what love or gender meant, we have been exposed to the norm of marriage, where marrying the opposite sex is seen as a sign of maturity and happiness, and the idea that “everyone should get married.”
For example, princesses who are chosen by wealthy princes and become happy by getting married, or anime and manga targeted at girls where romance takes up most of the story and always ends with a marriage. In these stories, unmarried adult women are often depicted as cunning and mean, as stepmothers or witches, portraying them as pitiful and villainous single individuals. (For more on this, refer to Minako Saito’s book “Kouittenron: Anime・Denki・Tokusatu no Hiroin Zou” (The Theory of the Sole Heroine: Heroine Images in Anime, Biography, and SFX Movies.))
The norm that “everyone should be married and happy” also implies the idea that “something is wrong if you can’t get married.”
This kind of thinking places pressure on men as well, with expectations like “A man should shoulder the responsibility of a family” or “A man must ‘get’ a woman and build a home to be considered a complete person.”
Consequently, people who choose not to live according to these “norms” are often labeled as “a poor thing” or “strange.”
However, in reality, it’s not the fact that they can’t get married that causes suffering for these individuals, but rather the people and society that label them as “a poor thing” simply because they can’t get married.
“Defining Who I Am” Is Up to Me
Living a life where you’re constantly judged based on the gender assigned to you at birth, and where you’re only allowed to behave in ways that please others, can be confining.
Also, when arguing, “What’s wrong with being unique!” we would also want to say, “You don’t have to actually ‘be’ unique.”
In the age of social media and in a globalized society, many people are burdened with the constant comparison to others and the feeling that they need to be “someone.”
Amidst this, there’s a trend of mocking mainstream fashion as “cookie-cutter” and making fun of clothing or behavior that’s considered “attractive” or “popular” as “trying too hard” or “acting cutesy.”
The focus should not be on determining the value of specific styles, but rather on improving the atmosphere where others impose a heterosexual-centric perspective on someone’s appearance and make comments as if it’s normal.
By eliminating the atmosphere where it’s acceptable to criticize or mock someone’s appearance, we can create a society where everyone can live comfortably.
We hope for an environment where each person can live in a way that suits them the best, freely exploring their own expressions and fluidly embracing their identity.
(Translation: Jennifer Martin)