I wouldn't say that the distinction is any more sexist than saying that the Baby Sitter's Club is geared toward girls, or that Playboy is aimed at men. There are deserters in every camp; if you look at junior high school students, I think you'll find that the Shounen readers tend to be girls, whereas the boys (lately) seem to prefer sports-related comics, which are a separate genre.
Personally, I think that fans abroad misunderstand the labeling of manga and genre. Like in any media, the publisher has a lot more to do with the collection than, say, what genre the magazine spine attributes itself to. In the same way that Pixar has very specific guidelines that it will use to determine which stories they will animate and which they won't, Jump (Naruto, Bleach, D. Grayman), Shounen Sunday (Conan, Inu Yasha) and Young King Ours (Trigun, Hellsing) publish entirely different kinds of stories and have different, eh, what's-it's. Creeds, mottos, whatever. (Jump's motto is to publish hopeful adventure stories about young men. How they ended up with Death Note is entirely beyond me).
no subject
Personally, I think that fans abroad misunderstand the labeling of manga and genre. Like in any media, the publisher has a lot more to do with the collection than, say, what genre the magazine spine attributes itself to. In the same way that Pixar has very specific guidelines that it will use to determine which stories they will animate and which they won't, Jump (Naruto, Bleach, D. Grayman), Shounen Sunday (Conan, Inu Yasha) and Young King Ours (Trigun, Hellsing) publish entirely different kinds of stories and have different, eh, what's-it's. Creeds, mottos, whatever. (Jump's motto is to publish hopeful adventure stories about young men. How they ended up with Death Note is entirely beyond me).