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Wonder Woman Gets a Woman's Point-of-View
theodp writes "Traditionally, comics have been by, for and about men. But more and more women are breaking into the traditional boys' club. Beginning with Wonder Woman #14, the superhero's tale is being told by Gail Simone. It's a break from nearly 66 years of being written for the most part by men. '[Her work as a blogger] led to a writing job for the all-female comic 'Birds of Prey' for DC--which became a short-lived, live-action TV series--and in turn won her the "Wonder Woman" job. Simone says she sees a change since she wrote her refrigerator rant 10 years ago. 'At that time, the trend was towards grim stories where female characters were killed,' she says. 'We only had a handful of female characters to look up to. Today we're not seeing those stories so much.'"
as long as the new Wonder Woman has big boobies and wears a skimpy patriotic bikini.
*blinks*
what?
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
How is the comics business doing? Still trying to be hip and edgy, but saddled with a failing business model?
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
Women can't be true villains.
They are just naive and confused, and thus easily wander astray!
It is only men that have the higher brain capacity to be evil.
Women, being the weaker sex, need to be protected by staying in a safe place. Preferably the kitchen. And since they are in there, they can make me a sammich. :p
This was sarcasm, for the humor-impaired.
I like slashdot, but it says something that when someone defends an innocent woman against a baseless attack by insulting the poster, this post gets moderated better. One gets tired claiming every little expect ion when responding to a troll, and for the record one might note that . Then this guy jumps in and says 'really, I've seen one', I wasn't talking about unicorns, I was talking of a fringe woman's political movement and took a good guess that the OP has never met a real one, and certainly not well enough to understand her issues. Talk radio is full of blow hards who use such talk for their own advantage, and one doesn't have to go any father than this story to see it's affect.
Usually Slashdot is much more reasonable, but apparently not when it comes to a woman's right not be randomly insulted. I know that in the end you were just trying to be nice. But trust me, you scared her, and she blurted out the first excuse that came to mind, the other girl recognized it, and was likely pissed that you didn't see it.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
On the flip side, remember that most oppression comes from within oneself. Most of the rest comes from within one's peer group. Ever watch how women treat each other? My wife is a very strong intelligent woman, but a little overweight. Who do you think gives her more shit about that? Who do you think puts her down more, men or women? Men love the shape of her body, she's got nice curves. Women try to 'put her in her place.'
Maybe if feminists spent as much energy stamping out women's oppression among women as they do blaming men, we wouldn't be at this impasse.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
You know, it's really depressing how these forums can expose just how nonchalant most guys still are about sexism. And no, I'm not a woman, or a "bra burning fem-nazi". For the sake of brevity (and because there's no arguing with outright bigotry) I'm going to ignore all the infantile sexist jokes that inevitably come up when a story like this gets posted. But for those of you who mean well but assume that being a woman in our society is all cake and soap operas, I sincerely hope you end up taking some kind of Womens' Studies course sometime so that hopefully you end up getting a badly-needed dose of context.
If you're a man consuming images in our culture, it's incredibly easy not to notice all the little (and not so little) ways that women are denigrated, from the classic "school crossing" icon of a dude firmly holding the arm of a younger girl, to female roles in Hollywood movies that serve little purpose other than to gratify both the male lead and the male audience member. This is because when the images in question are directed toward you, as they typically are, you will tend to accept images of women represented for male consumption because you haven't been given an alternative context, and more to the point, it gets you off. Nobody is asking you to feel ashamed for going to the movies (or at least I'm not) but it never hurts to be more aware of the ways this kind of stuff gets encoded in the media we encounter. Nor is it a bad idea to try to put yourself in a woman's shoes and try to imagine how irritating it can get when you're surrounded by images of women in the classic Western stereotype: irrational, passive, scheming, slutty or virtuous (or frigid) with no room in between, frivolous, etc. Claiming that some women in real life live up to their media representations is a cop out. That is, unless you are foolish enough to believe that your own identity is something whole and untainted by contemporary mythology, as though your mannerisms and fashion choices and social tendencies are obvious universalities of masculinity and not deeply performative amalgams of everything you have ever seen "normal" men do. Take the blinders off, people. We're all products of our culture. If this woman wants to tell the story of Wonder Woman from a female perspective, something that frankly should have already happened by now, great. You don't have to buy it. But don't doubt that there are nerdy comic-loving girls out there who would love to see a classic super hero shown from a perspective they can more readily relate to. You don't have to be a super-aggro-bitch (or a woman) to be a feminist.