Dude I'm so serious if I have to see one more person compare Jax to Saionji just bc she's a Bad Person™ I'm genuinely gonna crash out.
Granted I've only seen that happen twice, but as a big fan of both TADC and RGU it's enough to make me want to be annoying af and say something about it. Because at best this sentiment just comes from a poor understanding of the difference between why men engage in acts of misogyny vs. why women engage with it, and at worst it's usually someone who can't even acknowledge that Jax is, canonically, a trans woman.
I'm going to tackle these things in my essay, and furthermore, I will make the argument that there are, in fact, one or two characters from RGU that would make better comparisons to Jax: Nanami and Shiori.
Let's get into it!
First, let's talk about each of their reasons for engaging in misogynistic behavior.
Saionji's misogyny is based on the fact that he is a cis(presumably)het man who has directly benefited from a patriarchal system his whole life, who thinks he's inherently in a higher echelon than women (namely women like Anthy, Wakaba, and Utena to an extent). His actions are also a poor man's emulation of Touga, who is the quintessential, chauvinistic, womanizing "prince"-type of the school, whom he's known and envied his whole life. He duels so he can continue his rivalry with Touga and keep Anthy like a trophy while he remains the victor. Certain episodes (namely Wakaba's episode in the Black Rose Arc) imply that he is capable of humility and kindness; but when given a choice, he ultimately is complacent in Nemuro pushing Wakaba over the edge. This is all so that he can get back into Ohtori--an institution that favors rigid gender constructs-- bc he favors the privileges of being in the student council and answering to The End of the World over being in an equal (or even subservient) dynamic with Wakaba. Even if he manages to escape Ohtori as he's implied to in Adolescence, even if he eases up on the machismo and tries to live a better life as a kinder person, he will still forever carry the benefits and privileges of being a cis man, completely and unquestionably comfortable in his male identity, within a patriarchal society.
Jax's misogyny is an outward projection of her self-hatred as a severely closeted and utterly miserable trans woman (who may or may not also be a lesbian): she targets women (and Zooble) who reflect the parts of herself that she has been ridiculed for--notably by her own parents, who both expected her to play a rigid, hyper-masculinized role throughout her life that does not come naturally to her. She perpetuates the cycle of abuse through her mistreatment of those who possess her same "flaws," but appear to accept themselves and/or are loved as they are anyway. She is given ample opportunities to improve/actualize herself and heal, to be part of a group that we as the audience know would no-doubt accept her, warts and all; but she rejects each chance she gets to improve because doing so would require her to be vulnerable and honest with the people around her about who she is. That honesty put her in danger with her mother before, and she fears being put back into that same spot again if she dares let anyone Know her the way Ribbit once did. That fear and repression drove a wedge between her and Ribbit's friendship, ultimately killing them both and hurting everyone caught in the fallout zone.
Jax couldn't play the prince her parents wanted her to be. She wouldn't let herself be the princess Ribbit recognized her to be. She couldn't even be a witch (the witch, while wild and destructive, revels in her unbound expression of femininity-- something Jax never allowed herself to do). Instead she let her sense of self erode away, until there was nothing left but an animalistic blank slate, a lost soul indistinguishable from the others wasting away in the cellar. Even her "real-world" counterpart Leeroy, being in a much more secure place and state of mind than she was, will have to make a difficult choice of either continuing to masquerade as an identity that is not true to herself and will similarly make her miserable for the sake of her security and safety; or come out and begin her transition-- possibly opening herself up to lost opportunities, estrangement, and mistreatment by means of others' ignorant transmisogyny-- risking much, but all in service of allowing herself to be who she truly is. She has hardships ahead of her no matter what she chooses.
Suffice to say that as a TADC/RGU fan it frustrates me whenever Jax and Saionji are compared to each other like they're a 1:1 case, when maybe the one thing they have in common is engaging in misogyny as a result of insecurity. But here's the difference: Saionji plays his role bc he sees being a womanizing, misogynistic asshole as something aspirational, the "best" version of a man he can be; and he has no reason to ever question a system that puts cishet men like him on the social high shelf and nurtures his narrow mindset. Jax played the role of a brutish cishet man out of delusional belief that in doing so, she could avoid confronting her transfemininity in a meaningful way, and continue to live safely in a world that hates women like her. Instead it opened her up to abuse, drove her out of her home, isolated her from people who loved her, and she suffered till her last, tearful, dying breaths.
All this is to say that I am not trying to coddle Jax, nor minimize the way she abuses others, especially other women like Gangle or Ragatha. A misogynistic asshole is still a misogynistic asshole, even with the acknowledgment that Jax is a woman who has herself experienced misogyny (transmisogyny, to be exact, which has its own unique trappings that I as a cis woman am not qualified to really Get Into). But here's the hot take that might make some of you Jax Haters mad: She may not be 1:1 like Anthy, and she may not be a good person by any stretch of the imagination... but nonetheless, Jax is a Rose Bride, as all women and girls are. A Rose Bride who died trapped in her coffin, nailed shut and covered in chains.
And since we're getting into it, if you're gonna compare Jax to any RGU character, why not compare her to someone like Shiori, or Nanami? Even if the latter two are not trans women like Jax, they are still female characters whose acts of misogynistic cruelty that they unleash onto other girls are a byproduct of the misogynistic cruelty they have faced and internalized themselves. Nanami was raised from a place of privilege (wealth) and despite her strong will, is still quite naive to how the system works. She knows what's expected of her as a girl in this world, and plays along at first bc it's what she thinks would please her beloved big brother. She subjects Anthy to bullying and abuse, and is constantly at odds with Utena, bc she's been conditioned to view girls like them as beneath her. Meanwhile, Shiori messes with Juri because the former's piss-poor self-esteem has warped her perception of the latter's kindness and affections towards her, mistakenly thinking that someone like Juri is only being so loving towards her out of pity, or worse, as a means of messing with her. Shiori acting cruel towards Juri, leveraging Juri's crush on her for her own gain (despite her secretly returning those feelings), is what makes her feel any semblance of power or control in a system designed to make her feel powerless and hate herself. Only it doesn't make her feel better, and in fact only opens her up to be hurt further by people like Ruka.
It's an uncomfortable truth, but unfortunately, not all women who experience misogyny respond by helping other women or pushing back against the patriarchal system-- instead, they become a part of it. They play along with the very system that continuously subjugates and hurts them, in a desperate, self-serving bid for whatever little power or self-assuredness they can get their hands on. They are quick to put down other women who they deem beneath them, women who appear to be doing better than them, and any woman who dares to question or push back against the system that they have been groomed into adopting as indisputable truth... even if that "truth" tells them they don't deserve to be treated with proper respect and dignity, simply for being women. Jax, Nanami, and Shiori have all experienced some flavor of this, and so I think comparing Jax to these two women over Saionji would be much more apt, in my opinion.
None of them are Good People™, but they're not wholly bad either. They are imperfect victims: women who were both brought up and are harmed by a patriarchal society, who then turn around and participate in what aspects of it they're allowed, hurting other women to ease their own internal suffering. They lack self-conviction and the courage to push back, and that isolates them and causes them more pain. And in the cases of Jax and Adolesence-verse Shiori, they don't just suffer for it, they crash and burn.
They are young, imperfect, human girls. Their actions are not condonable, but the context for why the act the way they do is sympathetic, and sometimes relatable depending on who you ask. And they all deserve better and the chance to be better.
