Well, the argument being made by feminists like Anita Sarkeesian and her defenders is that idealized women appeal to men, and that idealized men are also a male empowerment fantasy. Basically the ripped Chippendale guy doesn't count because somehow despite all of the money spent on things like the actual Chippendales and man-porn directed at women that women don't find that appealing and thus it doesn't draw them in the same way. Likewise we're supposed to accept that women for whatever reason don't dream about, or find attraction in, a physical ideal of their own gender. Basically that supposedly all women want portrayals that match the average everywhere since they are all grounded entirely in reality.... in short it's complete BS and basically used to try and sell arguments intended to get attention. At the end of the day women creating fantasy create the same kinds of ideal protagonists that you see in video games and the like, and the hyper-sexy action girl has the same kind of appeal as the studdly action dude. Basically members of the same gender want to be them, members of the opposite gender want to be with them.Spartan448 said:
As a general rule one thing you'll notice is that those who complain about the objectification of women tend to be women who are unattractive, or guys who are lonely or have an unattractive girl in their life (whatever they might say to them). Exceptions of course exist, and the majority of people of normal or below average looks generally don't care either (and in part are content with the escapism present in fantasy). Basically the rank and file of the movements against fantasy art and the like are a bunch of very bitter, angry, people who feel they have been cheated in life by not having won the genetic lottery. Sometime take a careful look at the people your argueing with, and when your dealing with the exceptions that exist what kinds of gains they get from the position. For example Anita Sarkeesian herself isn't exactly ugly, but she's also someone who is riding a platform to fame and notoriety, and generally doesn't engage on her own behalf.
You go to cons and stuff, or just browse the internet, and you'll see pictures of tons of cute girls dressing up as a lot of these fantasy characters and such, and having fun doing it. You'll see not-so cute ones doing it for fun as well of course. Obviously women do not hate these characters or feel objectified, nobody is exactly pointing guns at them and say "yeeeesss, dress up like Harley Quinn and put videos of yourself doing sexy poses on the interwebs....", while one can point to the whole "fake geek girl" thing (which is another entire issue) I very much doubt groups like "Team Unicorn" have some pimp in the background directing them with a baseball bat during their videos. I also doubt Ubisoft had to resort to human trafficking to recruit The Frag Dolls.
Basically there is no issue, there is just a lot of bitter people who want to make an issue, and those who realize they can exploit those bitter people to their own ends.
When it comes to Japan it's a mixture of things, as I've said before Japan is largely a mirror of American culture minus the PC crap we let taint everything here, especially nowadays. A few years ago though you could say it was more overtly barbaric still, but as a general rule it's started to change itself to be more intentionally acceptable, hence why it can be argued by some that "Anime" is technically dead because the sort of borked mentality that created it is gone, or at least not allowed to express itself to the same extent it used to be. Basically where something like "Rapelay" used to be par for the course, it's become a bit more underground even there than it is now. Japan is a bit more open with porn, but at the same time the US isn't exactly lacking in it either. I mean if you have the money and desire you can get some dude to back a whole UPS truck full of porn up to your house if you want to. What's more driving cross country I noticed a surprising number of adult stores which actually got me to do some checking. Ironically it seems the coasts (east and west) with a huge PC-liberal community seem to be more prudish with such things (going by numbers which probably indicates consumption) the more conservative states who make moral arguments but are against this kind of legislation and forcing social agendas with the law seem to have more of them. I'm not a big porn consumer though so it's not like my research has been exhaustive. The point being that while Japan might have more sexual merchandise out in the open, I don't think there is that big a difference, especially seeing as your talking a multi-billion dollar industry in the US alone.
Interestingly I think one of the things with Japan is that on a lot of levels World War II hit a reset button for it, and gave it a chance to try and redefine what it wanted to be, which has been embraced with mixed degrees of enthusiasm. When it comes to gender politics in the relatively civilized world I think the big countries to actually keep an eye on are Russia, China, and India. While those countries have paid lip service to civilizing, your dealing with deeply engrained cultures with set gender roles that go back thousands of years (compared to how the US say set it's basic policies that lead to gender equality not even 300 years ago), as a result they play the whole "progressive society" card but in practice tend to wind up with very unfriendly environments where women are still expected to largely complement men, and having a woman is a sort of entitlement for a guy and a privilege for her. Hence why you still see a lot of human trafficking problems in those countries, shocking caste revelations (like how the servant of an Indian ambassador was being treated), and can even find girls willing to marry dudes they never met complete with a pre-nuptial even just to get out of the country (mail order bride modern equivalent). Those are the nations to watch, the Middle East is technically worse, but it doesn't even make pretensions of being progressive for the most part so it's on the table a lot more. Of course this has little to do with anything.
R, since I believe I spelled out pretty well why Terry Pratchett wouldn't fit the criteria. Of course then again nobody does, which is sort of my point. 
