> I noticed that it was stated that Ranma could be labeled a sexist
> anime here in the US.  Now I don't quite see this.  But I did
> wonder about if I was incorrectly interpeting this, so I got a
> woman to watch and then tell me if she felt it was sexist.  She
> didn't think it was either, and is even a fan of it now.
> 
> I feel that one theme is that you have Ranma who is a macho guy,
> having to cope with being a woman at times, and putting up
> or coping with men (Kunou, Happosai as examples).  And by doing this
> I think it actually lessens sexism tendencies with the viewer.

The first think I'd say is that Japanese society would be seen
by many American observers as "more sexist" than American society.

To a first approximation, I'd say this is true, the sex roles appear
more rigid, with somewhat inequalities of privledge between men
and women. (To a second approximation, I suspect you might find
specific areas where this isn't uniformly true, but I'm not sure
I know enought to say for sure.)

Ranma 1/2, the series, is basically jumping off from the typical
attitudes of Japanese society. It looks to me like Takahashi
is deliberately poking fun at some of these attitudes, as you
suggest, by taking a male character and putting them in female
situtations (and later vis-versa at times), and by carrying
"traditional" situtations like an arranged marriage to absurd
levels.

It is hard to say, however, _what_ the viewpoint of the series is
because it doesn't usually step back and have a narrator say "this
is silly/sexist": instead you hear the viewpoint of characters
like Ranma, Akane, or Nabki ... they are deliberate "types" but
I think on the question of sexism, they are _supposed_ to be
pretty much reflecting the social norms of Tokyo high school kids
of a particular time, and allowing for a little distortion, that
seems fairly realistic. (Since I only have _other_ anime/manga
series to compare with, one may ask what I'm doing talking
about "reality", but anyway...)

An item which might be a "hot button" for some people, is the
nudity that appears: this might fit some people's definitions
of "objectification". There's _some_ of that going on, but there's
also the effects of a culture with a history of _different_
attitudes about sex and nudity than the USA.

To make a fair judgement of Ranma 1/2, you need to compare it
to it's cultural context, not ask "what would it mean if the
events of this story took place in the suburbs of Columbus
Ohio?" (People greet each other "Ohio!" ;)

Seen it that context, Ranma 1/2 seems less sexist than the culture
as a whole, but not so progressive that it's going to win
awards for feminism. I think it, and some other anime, plays with the 
ideas of sex and gender a lot, it's less daring when things get serious.