Cosplay Gender Inequality

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Gender Inequality in Cosplay
Introduction
Cosplay, the combination of the words “costume” and “play,” has become a pop culture phenomenon in the fandom culture. Cosplay is a performance art where participants dress up as specific characters from a television show, franchise, or, most commonly, an anime. Cosplay typically occurs at conventions, such as Animazement in Raleigh, North Carolina or the San Diego Comic-Con. The role gender plays in discrimination of costumes is startling. Costumes that reveal more skin than a classic shirt and shorts combo can be too sexual for some cosplayers preferences, going as far as to call the people wearing them derogatory names. Other gender discrimination is how a cosplayer might act; for example, a cosplayer …show more content…

It began with the first commenter stating that the female cosplayer, who was discussed in the article containing these comments, was seeking attention with her “overly sexual” Cosplay and presented herself “as a slut.” Another user responded to the comment by saying she was taking the discussion too far and was too quick to judge. Further along in the comments, a male commenter lamented the lack of male cosplayer representation within the article. A variety of commenters retaliated by saying men did not deal with the same amount of criticism due to “male …show more content…

I recognize that both genders are affected when cosplaying and I do see an uneven representation of gender in the Cosplay community. Perhaps it is not gender inequality and representation, but a show of society’s acceptance of dressing up in both genders, as one commenter suggested. American society, to my understanding from observation, views females as the more playful gender and males as the serious ones. To see a female in costume would be considered attractive or cute while a male in costume would be questioned as to

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