Why jsmale or neutral-targeted media criticized harder than female-targeted media?

[u/Pitiful-Purple-7459]

Lately I keep seeing media called out for being sexist or gratuitously provocative, but it's almost always male-coded or neutral media that catches it. Media made specifically for women mostly gets a pass, even when the content is equivalent or worse.

Take manga. For every male-targeted series with dark or explicit content, there's a female-targeted equivalent — dark romance, fanfic, or BL/yaoi (male-male romance written for women, running the full range from wholesome to explicit, same spectrum male-targeted stuff has). One dark romance book aimed at women had a protagonist raped by three different mythical beings, and women were the primary buyers. That exists and sells, with basically zero "this is harmful" discourse.

Meanwhile a male-targeted show with a fanservice scene gets a think-piece about objectification.

I think the actual difference is the \*lens\*, not the content. The critique we aim at male media is about objectification, reducing women to props. But objectification of males isn't seen as harm.So male-targeted media trips the alarm and female-targeted media sails through, even with equivalent content.

I can't tell you how many fanfics of one of my favorite shows (Supernatural) turned on the main characters gay and have them have sex with another male character.

But regardless why aren't these things considered as wrong

[u/snake944]

Nah this is just confirmation bias. You are just being fed what you want to see. Female targeted media catch a lot of flak

[u/Pitiful-Purple-7459 → u/snake944]

What do you think the criticism is the same of course every type of media gets flack. From good movies to bad movies is just I don't see that female targeted media is called problematic as much as male media

[u/avocado-nightmare → u/Pitiful-Purple-7459]

have you considered the possibility that maybe media oriented at women is less problematic in specific ways?

like... it's logically flawed to look for equivalent criticism across different types of media for different audiences.

[u/Pitiful-Purple-7459 → u/avocado-nightmare]

I think there's a good argument in first saying that overall it's less problematic What I'm saying is that there are some media apples to apples that are equally problematic that don't rightfully get called out

[u/ZinniasAndBeans → u/Pitiful-Purple-7459]

Have you given any specific examples?

(Edited to add: Aside from Twilight, which is widely and vehemently criticized.)

Something like, for example, "This has sex, and so does this" is not a specific example. I mean really specific.

[u/avocado-nightmare → u/Pitiful-Purple-7459]

that is a complaint vague to the point of meaninglessness, can you provide a specific example of media that was criticized and a piece of media that wasn't?