Just earlier today I was reading a new reincarnated-in-and-otome-game ones, where the MC was a chubby follower of the villianess and decided as a child to lose weight. In the second chapter (a bit older and a bit less chubby), the prince confides to her that the commoner heroine is probably actually the true heir, and the prince's father probably killed the former king to gain the throne, and the prince was determined to uncover the truth! The MC wants to help and protect the prince, and finishes the chapter with the thought "That's right, the one thing I can do right now is focus on my diet!"
...
It's not a problem of marriage as a goal in itself.
The problem is that too many manga (or even Western stories for girls/women) have a female MC with a primary or even only goal related to marriage or getting a boyfriend, and too few present a female MC whose primary (or even only) goal is something completely different (such as successful career, saving the world, adventuring or whatever; they exist, but the romance/marriage-focused ones are by far the majority).
Conversely, very few with male MCs have marriage as the ultimate goal (although there are a few more that focus on getting a girlfriend/particular girl, but many of them have their own problematic tendencies tied to male ego, masculinity and representation of women). Male MCs have a very wide range of goals.
It feels like, in this day and age, we should be able to create stories for girls and women that go beyond this.
So, it may be an entertaining story in itself, and marriage itself is not a bad thing, it's just over-represented as the ultimate goal for females, rather than just one option of many.
I hope that made sense!
true, though i would've thought there's already plenty of strong female characters (with the tag meme 'that need no man') in various media in general.
this one in particular (and other similar stories), characters (and the plot) revolve around the love aspect hence the genre of romance, so it's not really a surprise? i wouldn't say it's over-represented since more and more have geared towards otherwise (at least for me).
maybe during the progress of the story, she'd come to develop another goal other than love, specifically with her nobility (and duty to the people, if there is). if not, then it's still fine, provided that the story makes up for it.
I agree.
It's merely that the authors/creators have the option to create any kind of world they wish and it's tiresomely common to create a world that forces the female MC into this role of marriage as her main goal in life. For an author/mangaka/story creator in MODERN times, they are not tied to this kind of world as their only choice for their MC. So, it's not an issue with this manga in particular having marriage as a goal, merely that some of us happen to have come across this one after reading many, many, many with a similar premise. It'd be nice to have more of them create worlds where females have lots of agency and more variety of goals than currently do.
That doesn't mean people shouldn't enjoy this one. It's just good to have more variety on offer for female readers, and to have female readers support those ones wel,l so that the creators are encouraged not to always rehash the type of world with the same kind of role and primary goal - considering women have spent so long in real life struggling for more options.
...That sounds heavy, but I don't mean it like that! I just mean it's the kind of thing to have in the back of one's mind when viewing/reading anything.
Ughhhhhh
The GREAT goal of her is getting MARRIED ??
Seriously?