doughtier:

* which isn’t the problem. Gon is simple minded, so it’s not so unexpected that his first thought is about kite. my problem is, gon is complaining and apologizing for kite being a girl! Everything should be fine, since thei’re all alive, but all he is worrying about, is kite was reborn with the wrong gender! While reading this scene I got really offended by gon being that mysoginistic. I was hoping your point of view could maybe calm me a bit.

There are three levels to consider for what Gon says to Ging about Kite:
– Narrative level (aka Togashi)
– Translated narrative level (aka word usage of the translator)
– In-story level (aka Gon himself)

– Togashi-wise, we’ve been continually shown that we shouldn’t underestimated the little girls. Or the big girls. Or any sort of girls. Togashi has consistently subverted the ‘little cute girls’ trope with Canary, Biscuit, Komugi and Alluka (to name a few) in vastly different ways. I’m leaning towards saying that the problem with that line isn’t with Togashi; Togashi isn’t the sort to do things like this without ‘calling himself out’ on them within the narrative.

– Translation-wise, I wish I knew what the original text said, and whether it has the same patronising, insulting connotations as ‘little girl’ does in English. That’s not to say I don’t think there’s a Japanese equivalent to this, but maybe that was the best translation possible, in spite of the negative connotations ‘little girl’ has in English. If there’s a Japanese speaker with the raw manga, please help me out put this niggling suspicion to rest. 🙂

– Gon-wise … oh boy. There are several levels here, too, and I suspect the reasoning for Gon’s “little girl” comment is a mix of all three Gon-levels, but I can’t tell which one has the most influence on him uttering it. They are:

** contrast; human!Kite is very, very tall and lean, and knowledgeful. Chimera!Kite is short and stocky (something Gon can’t know yet) and *young*. This sort of contrast could be what Gon’s got stuck in his mind after waking up. Which leads me to …

** confusion; Gon’s spent a long time unconscious and uncomminicative. Even after being healed by Nanika, it’s very likely he was disoriented and not at his best. Add that to the shock of finally meeting Ging, and there’s a good recipe for him saying something tactless. And sometimes, tactlessness isn’t the result of being a misogynist (or any other -ist): sometimes you just forget a word and pick the next best thing, or mess up your sentence structure. If you pay attention to people’s speech, it’s not all that rare. It’s possible to say something -istic without being that; there’s a distinction, albiet it’s rather difficult to spot at times. (When in doubt, check how a person reacts to being called out.)

** Gon actually being misogynistic; this is the third time Gon has expressed something like this. The first time was in Whale Island when he told Killua he was his first friend his age (because the only other kid his age on the island was a girl); the second time was when he and Killua tried ditching Biscuit because she couldn’t possibly be useful. On that I’d like to say that Gon is somewhere between 12-14 in the series, and it’s the tailend of the ‘girls have cooties’ stage, especially considering how little contact he’s had with kids his age. He doesn’t at all treat older women like this, even though he does seem to have some difficulty connecting to women as well as accepting them as role models (Killua is better in this regard than him).

Does that make Gon misogynistic? I’m not so sure. Occasionally displaying sexist behaviours, yes, definitely. Misogynistic? Hmm. Personally, I wouldn’t go as far as calling him that.

(That said, there are a thousand different distinctions between sexism and misogyny, and it’s entirely possible others’ definitions to them don’t match up with mine.)