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nge acknowledges that gender is not fully biological (or, minimally, doesnt fully commit to biology). i noticed during my last rewatch that misato+asuka contribute significantly to shaping shinji's relationship to masculinity. there are so many examples of this
if NGE premised gender as fully determined by reproductive capacity (re: biology) as implied by MAGI/Naoko, then i dont think it would spend much time reinforcing shinji's gender trouble. it would come "naturally" to shinji n not as a "learned" or a performed phenomena
so shinji experiences gender anxiety conditioned by misato/asuka & mediated thru, imo, gendo (QM+i talk abt the importance of gendo's "gaze" in signalling Things). there's also this interesting cap in EoE that a lot of tumblr users used 2 talk abt, where shinji "has" rei's body.
gendo is like The Patriarchal Force in this show. shinji 'tries on' being a man thru his father's glasses (to see rei, naked, no less!), & then shinji, during instrumentality, conceives it w rei's body. similarly, he projects Gender onto rei, too? Idk i just remembered this scene
notably rebuild!shinji struggles less w this, & i think asuka foregoes gendered jabs in favor of more racial ones. shinji doesnt seem bothered by this convo btwn kaji, toji, and asuka abt cooking as women's work, and basically laughs it off and offers more food. v cute
rebuild!shinji also seems less consumed by the ~male gaze, most Obvious in ~this~ broken parallel. so i do think its fair 2 say his Rebuild arc is less concerned w struggles w patriarchy+"becoming a man". rebuild overall is pretty ambivalent to gender (and psychoanalysis).
anyway! gender in nge is like. actually problematic, but i also think the show is Trying 2 problematize it. so while limited, i dont think nge completely fails w gender even tho the limitations (from the prev thread) Are there heh! just means theres more to unpack
