HW1: Background of the Survey

My topic sounds easy but finding articles about gender role reversals is quite hard. Throughout the time of my research, I was able to gather information about it but choosing the relevant ones’ is a bit confusing. As gender role reversals are gradually becoming rampant, more facts can also be observed. Our knowledge of the roles of men and women are shaped by the changes in our environment. In the modern era, there are some men who idolize certain performers like Lady Gaga. These men idolize Lady Gaga in the way she performs. On the other hand, there are women who idolize basketball player such as Lebron James and can even play better than men. In a family setting, some wives become the breadwinner while husbands stay at home. Although they portray the opposite, they are still masculine and feminine because for me the measure of being a real man and a woman is not from what he/she likes or what her hobbies are for as long as they know their responsibilities. The anime which features gender role reversals opens people to the idea that men and women in anime and in reality are similar nowadays. It gives an overview of the challenges and some conflicts that a certain individual might face. As a researcher, I wanted to know other favorable attributes of anime and clarify what I recently find out.

In order to get the information that I need, I am going to interview some adult males and females since they know more of our tradition. For adults, they will be asked about cartoons that they have watch before or famous during their time. Based from those cartoons, I will ask whether they agree or not and how does it affect them and their knowledge of our tradition. I am also going to conduct an interview to some anime fans since these people are of my generation, they know more of what is happening in the anime culture and that they are more vulnerable to the change that is happening to our society nowadays. For this anime fans, they will be asked about their opinions on gender role reversals whether they accept it or not and how it affects them. By asking all of these questions, I will be able to compare the adults view and the geeks view on my research to come up with a final conclusion.

Through the responses that will be gathered out of interview questions, I can be able to figure out that anime contributes to the changes that is happening right now in our society and that it opens as into a new idea of the status of men and women and that these new ideas are already accepted in our society. Some of these new ideas are that men nowadays are allowed to cry if situation requires, women can also be now the breadwinner of the family, and others. Some effects are that the changes featured in anime towards gender roles empower the role of women in the society. It also cause changes in the personality and somewhat destroys the “machismo” image of man.