Grell always gets really angry when people hit face, her retort everytime being along the lines of "how dare you hit a lady in the face!"(not how dare you hit me) I realise that this might be to provide her with opportunities to proclaim her identity as a woman, but I feel like there are better ways to do this than by perpetuating the idea that all women(and not just Grell) by virtue of being women are supposed to care more than men about how their faces look. What is your opinion on this?
That is a good point you bring up! ... but alas, as Grell was designed with the purpose to be comic relief (more specifically, the butt of the joke) I am fairly sure Yana did not insert the ‘how dare you hit a lady in the face” as a way to proclaim her identity. A much better way to do so was already done in her saying “I am an actress”, just... also a tad sad that it was paired with such a nightmare inducing imagery.
As for the perpetuation of the stereotype of women caring more about their face than other people do... well, in Japan it is not really a ‘stereotype’.
Obviously women are not born to care more, but everyone socialised as a woman would be subjected to the constant (peer) pressure to care about their physical appearance. The end goal of womanhood is to attract a man, marry said man and get sons, after all.
In Japan a woman doesn’t necessarily care about her face as much as she cares that other people care... do you know what I mean? Japan is so obsessed with the appearance of women that there are company rules that oblige women to wear high heels (which then sparked the KuToo movement.) In Japan it is almost considered ‘rude’ for adult women to not wear make-up in public. Not wearing make-up in public is a sign that this woman is unwilling to be a responsible adult, or that she can’t distinguish ‘public’ from ‘private’.
The issue you bring up is an incredibly big one and too complex still.
It is a long-standing joke that people who are very vain are apparently very funny, and especially when a male-coded person does it, it is “HILARIOUS”. Grell too was not supposed to fulfill any other purpose than being HILARIOUS. At the beginning Grell really fit the queer comic relief like a hand in a custom-made glove...
Of course transwomen are not lesser women, but before transwomen can be considered as “““normal””” as ciswomen are, I am afraid that they cannot be much help in challenging social expectations for womanhood. If a transwoman doesn’t care about her face, “then it’s because he’s actually a man” or because “she’s weird anyway.”
What I am trying to say is that before a transwoman can be considered effective in challenging any female stereotype, a transwoman first needs to not be considered a joke... and we’re not there yet... Japan certainly isn’t!
