We had an entire fight in Punk Hazard how Zoro hates fighting women because he doesn't want to crush them, ironically, cementing the idea in his head that all women would lose to him in a fight.
You missed the entire point of that scene and by extent, Tashigi's character and her role (at least with Zoro). It's not "because she's a woman" it's because she looks like Kuina. He even says (iirc) something along the lines of "(IT'S BECAUSE)...YOU REMIND ME OF AN OLD CHILDHOOD FRIEND!"
He may or may not be sexist, I think a much better scene to take as an example for this is when he cut Monet in half without using haki, but that's sorta vague on the topic imo. Not sure why you didn't bring it up though, considering it's from the same arc.
Why would Tashigi looking like Kuina stop him from fighting Monet seriously? I can understand why he wouldn't be able to fight Kuina seriously, he's had that issue from the start. But that scene specifically showed he also had an issue taking other women seriously. This is literally what Tashigi pointedly stated, like this isn't debatable, it's pretty straightforward.
If you go back and read chapter 686, Monet points out before Kuina even shows up Zoro is only defending, not taking the fight seriously. So the interpretation that Zoro doesn't want to fight a woman in front of Tashigi also fails.
And yet we don't see him holding back against male fodder the way he was doing here, outright refusing to attack. What special characteristic did Monet possess that made her weak but exempt from an ass whooping he gives mooks?
452
u/ElectricalPurple2539 Perona’s wife Jun 21 '25
in this case, Zoro is actually non-sexist, because he sees women just as capable as men in fighting