vibranthorrormechanism

[vibranthorrormechanism]

Discussing Jojolion's Women

This is a lengthy rant about the way that Araki wrote women in jojolion, and the personal issues I take with each of them.

This is EXTREMELY long. Spoiler warning for the entirety of jojo part 8.

I've sorted each of the female characters into 2 categories, relevant and irrelevant. This sorting system is based off of whether they have an active role in the story. If they are in the irrelevant category, it is because they served no significant purpose in the story whatsoever - or, if they were involved in a story point, they were only present for 2-4 chapters and then not present again.

Relevant - the core 3

Yasuho: Yasuho is a well-written character. She has her own feelings, thoughts, and skills. She proves herself to be a powerful and determined ally to Josuke and overall, plays a very significant part in the story.

However, Yasuho also is sexually assaulted a number of times in Jojolion. She is groped by Tsurugi, harassed continuously by Joshu throughout the entire part, and almost raped by Joshu after a misunderstanding. She's sexually assaulted by the people she turns to for help after being the victim of a different attempted sexual assault. She is the victim of a stand attack in which we see numerous panty shots of a rock human trying to "enter her body" through her panties. Even in a life or death situation, Joshu continues to pressure her with sexual advances. Significant consequences are never shown.

Holy: The entire plot revolves around Holy. She is the entire drive for the story and Josuke's actions as the protagonist. However, she spends the entire part in the hospital, and very little time outside of her coma. She primarily exists to give Josuke a goal to work for. Holy is only relevant in her relation to Josuke.

Kaato: Kaato is relevant, but I cannot argue that she's independent. She primarily exists as a backstory character for Jobin that shaped who he is today and influenced his moral values, which solidified him into the antagonist we got in jojolion.

Whenever she is present, she is being spoken down to, but remains unshaken and sassy and demands that her family tolerate her presence, even if they don't want to. This serves as further evidence of the fact that she was the reason Jobin is so assertive and maintains his carefree but selfish attitude. She is primarily in the story in order to show us how Jobin became the way he is.

Then, when she finally has an opportunity to take action, she sacrifices herself for her grandson's sake, again being used as a narrative tool.

Relevant but wasted

Kei: Kei is relevant but only briefly, and after being gone for most of the part, she abruptly dies in order to further the plot. She is introduced, then is missing most of the part, only visible in the background and usually having no dialogue whatsoever. Then, once the situation calls for it during the Wonder of U arc, Kei returns at the request of Josuke, only to immediately die after using her stand to injure WoU.

Mitsuba: Mitsuba is written quite well, with a consistent and interesting personality. She is shown to be extremely loyal to her family, even going so far as to be an accomplice in Yasuho's attempted murder alongside Jobin. Overall, I have the least amount of problems with the way she was portrayed out of almost all the women; however, the fact that she was essentially a footnote for most of the story, only known as "Jobin's wife", really knocks her down a peg in quality of representation. In fact, her first significant appearance wasn't until Chapter 77, despite being present in the entire first portion of the story.

Irrelevant

Hato: Hato is given very little screen time. When she is shown, it is typically her interacting with Joshu in a short comedy relief scene. (ie. shaving together, getting licked using Nut King Call).

Daiya: Daiya is given very little screen time. When she is shown, it is typically her interacting with Josuke and fawning over him.

Suzuyo Hirose: Very little screen time or character development.

Karera: Very little screen time or character development. When she is shown, it is for Josuke to learn more about his past. She is not present again afterwards.

Maako: Maako is quite literally only present in 3 chapters and she's dead in one of them.

Unnamed characters

According to the jojo wiki, there are a large number of unnamed characters in Jojolion (66). Out of these unnamed characters, 23 of them are female and 36 are male; the remaining are either mixed gender groups that the jojopedia has counted as 1 character; or, they are nonhuman/nongendered. This means that only 35% of extras in jojolion are women.

That isn't necessarily damning; however, if we examine the roles those women play in the story, it's a bit worse. Out of these 23 women:

2 are stated to be the girlfriends of named male characters.

1 is stated to be the crush/romantic interest of a named male character.

1 is shown only in a sexual context with a named male character.

2 are nurses, one of which is speculated to be involved with BDSM by a named male character, who comments on the unattractiveness of her sexual preferences. The other nurse character has a brief interaction with named male characters.

7 are known only by their role as a mother, daughter, or grandmother.

1 is a side character that is explicitly identified by her huge boobs which are mentioned as her defining trait multiple times.

So only 35% of unnamed background characters in jojolion are female, and out of those, 61% are defined purely by their relation to a male character, their sexuality/attractiveness, or their role in a family unit as a mother or daughter (ie. "Johnny's daughter", "Mother at the fountain").

Major female character count

Apart from the unnamed characters, here are the character counts for major named characters:

Female: 14

Male: 23

Nonhuman or nongendered: 6

Total: 43

2 are only present in flashbacks; of these women, 1 is lacking any info about her apart from her marriage to Johnny Joestar.

1 has no name but is known as kidnapped girl, only significant in that she was a kidnapping victim.

For 5, being mothers are their defining character trait (Kaato, Holy, Kiyomi, Suzuyo, Mitsuba).

Kei, Karera, Yasuho, Daiya, Hato, Maako - issues discussed above.

Conclusion

Jojolion is one of my favorite pieces of fiction. I truly do believe that it's an incredible story, but I've been left to stew with my feelings about it and I now realize that I am truly disappointed with how female characters were written throughout this part.

Is it a step up from most of the other jojo parts in its treatment of women? Absolutely. Do I appreciate the fact that it has female characters that it treats as normal humans? Yes, I do. In jojolion, women are really people.

But do I think that women characters could have been portrayed better in this story? Yes, 1000%.

The sheer amount of women characters that are defined only by their relationship to far more developed, relevant male characters is astounding. Even the most central female characters, who have the most personality and screen time, are only present or relevant when directly connected to men. Or, in Yasuho's case, are abused narratively over and over, experiencing an excessive amount of sexual assaults that are never elaborated on.

This is a perfect example of storytelling that prioritizes men, and despite having fully fleshed out women characters, still uses them primarily to advance the stories or development of men.

Thanks for reading.