I personally HATE harem but I love OP MC's which kind of doesn't workk together because those two tropes seemingly always go hand in hand. Harems are degrading because they give everyone the impression that women can't do more but to fall in love with a strong guy and simp- they are degrated for their looks and monst of the time in webtoons that include harem thhey also make jokes of women who arent your typical beauty standart. They don't depict womena as sluts but they do show that alot of men just (the authors) don't understand that women are human too and that women very much are capable and don't only care for love etc. Now you could question yourself- Why are there so many harems if everyone seems to hate them? Easy Answer- Most of these stories aare targeted for a straight male audience and while I do agree that not all men are thirty mfs like that (I myself have a brother who HATES harems) alot of them are because if nobody read those harems, they wouldn't be made the truth is many many many men love these harems and love to self insert themselfes into these characters which is why we have so much of these uneccesary harems with god awfully written women. The problem we have is misogony, too few female authors in the fantasy/isekai/shonen genre and too few men who want to learn about women or who understnad that women are compley humans too who aren't all about romance, boobs, crying and simping for an mc. AMEN.
100%
Do you find harem stories degrading ?
I personally find them disgusting cuz they show both the genders in a bad light. They show women as 'sluts' without any self respect and show men as 'pigs' without any self control and commitment when in reality there's only a small percent (I personally feel like 5%) who are like this in real life.