Girl-Wonder.org, feminism in fandom and the depressingly inevitable backlash against it...

I think we discussed in in the "sexism and superheros" thread, but let me restate my points:

1) Even with the muscular superheroes, men are still objectified less than women. That was proven quite effectively in the thread which had the satiric response images to that Wonder Woman cover by Frank Miller.

2) Even if men are/would be objectified and/or abused in comics, that isn't the same as women being objectified/abused, because of the unequal power relations between the genders. It's the same reason why, for example, discrimination and racial jokes towards the whites isn't the same as towards the blacks.

Summa summarum: the men who cry "But we're being exploited too!" can't really see the bigger picture.

Tuomas obv. completely right, which is why I skipped over that crappy argument with mocking capital letters.

COMIX FANBOIZ IN ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT AND ADOLESCENT POWER FANTASY SHOCKAH!

There, see how I managed to bring it all back to Hal Jordan?

ALTERNATE RESPONSE: You could probably bang your head into any Snoop-yr-mama (read: n3ws@r@m@) thread and find FANBOYZ making lots of NOIZE about HOTT CHIXX or SUM SHIT.

(This is not some veiled / blatant stab @ the happy fun time Noize Bored, BTW.)

ahem

click the "What we want and why we want it" link

"Comics have been around since before WW2, and they seem to still be doing fine without women buyers. Your arguement that they should change their business to suit people who are not interested in their product is idiotic. It's the equivilent of me demanding dress makers produce dresses men would like because some men are cross-dressers. Girls who read comics are a tiny fringe group and there is no reason to attempt to appease them. The type of crap women like in comics is already produced by Japan and has a female fan base, and to be perfectly honest I don't want DC and Marvel to start making their comics anything like that. So stop your bitching and just be glad we don't take away your right to vote."
-/b/

I don't get this sentence... If by "providing a space" you mean identification, that's almost the opposite to objectification, isn't it?

A lot of the problem of course is writers (being predominantly male) not knowing what to do with their female characters, or how to write viewpoint for those characters. Good writers don't have this problem, though the company might. In a lot of ways Simone has made interesting commentary on this issue just by writing interesting comics. Equally She-Hulk in Slott's hands has gone from an over-exaggerated party girl (her one note atriubute in Avengers for the last ten years or so) to a character who is probably more interesting in her alter-ego, you know the one that is not all curvaceous and busty. And the key to writing all of these characters is identifying and writing their flaws - and making them realistically stand for the character and not as a type or archetype.

(That by the way will always be Wonder Woman's problem!)

Is this true? I haven't read "War Games", a friend who has disputes it.

Other than that, lots of girls WANT to be interested in superhero comics, or maybe even ARE interested, but you can only put up with not having ANY relatable/realistic/non-sex-kitten female characters before you just get bored with it. As was said above, the industry is really shooting itself in the foot with its lack of desire to pursue the female comics fan--women are among the biggest consumers of manga in Japan and America--proof that, given stories/characters they're interested in (which DOESN'T mean "not superheroes"--magical girls anyone?), women will read comics.

But overall (and I'm saying this as a dedicated feminist), I question the true severity of the sexism problem in comics--sure, there are pockets of extreme misogyny/sexism (Dave Sim, what happened to girl Robin, Frank Miller, the 90s) but there are also people interested in creating strong female characters (Joss Whedon is a prime example, also Ultimate Spider-Man, etc.) working in the industry--and there have been women editors at Marvel since the 80s. I feel that, overall, comics are just as bad as Hollywood movies or television, but because comics are a niche culture, the feeling of women being "left out" is more pronounced. While I agree that acts of sexism/misogyny should be spoken out against, I do question the importance of this fight when we are still losing in so many other areas.

Well, yeah, by that same token, as such a niche culture, these women who are speaking out about feeling "left out" can make their voices of protest heard better than, I don't know, a website demanding more recognition for Renee Russo in the Lethal Weapon mythos or whatever.

xpost

http://innerbrat.livejournal.com/277507.html

Even if they didn't use the word violated, the sexual subtext would remain, since the power drill can be phallic.

Second, asking them to take on all of Culture instead of silly old funny books is a pretty tall order! Trying to make change is perhaps more realistic when you start with comics, which are a part of Culture. (Which tangentially reminds me of the debate about ILC's GROUND SMASHING DEBUT -- i.e. Comics is part of Everything, so why make a new board?)

I'm not asking them to take on all of culture--I'm asking why nitpick about a small aspect of culture when we are still losing the battle for equal pay, equal societal treatment, reproductive rights, etc. Particularly when that aspect of culture isn't any worse than other, more prominent aspects. And either way this particular movement suffers from the same lack of coherency and unity that the rest of the current feminist movement does, and makes it easy for us to be dismissed as "overreactive, shrieking harpies" by those who are of the predisposition to do that. From the little I've seen, the site does not provide enough of a unified front and message to combat the problems that arise when one chooses to make An Issue out of something--not just well-thought-out counterarguments, but incessant trolling and baiting.

I think there is a problem with the way women are presented in comics. But I also think that is important that those who choose to fight for change take the time to present a coherent and unified argument--otherwise, no real progress will be made.

1. licking asshole
2.

Blount's solution for evil titty cartoons

yeah the fact that there are 1:15 or something females to males applying for those jobs or even entering the schools totally has nothing to do with it being a highly unstable and non-financially rewarding profession

"Bad art" = the last refuge label for a moron with no real information about sexist hiring or prevalence of "obscenity" or any real argument but plenty of "bluster."

Mmmkay?

so you're really not going to answer or address a single one of anyone's questions or points???

so you're really not going to answer or address a single one of anyone's questions or points???

so you're really not going to answer or address a single one of anyone's questions or points???

so you're really not going to answer or address a single one of anyone's questions or points???

so you're really not going to answer or address a single one of anyone's questions or points???

The GirlWonder lolcat thread is full of win and awesome: http://girl-wonder.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1800&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

I mean, really, how you gonna hate on this?

http://home.comcast.net/~psiradish/macro/cir.jpg

awesome!

This thread is banned from my work computer. What gives me the fears is that I suspect the word 'feminism' in the title is forbidden by the filter.

Jesus, I completely forgot about this thread. What a bizarre insight it turned out to be. I suppose my current take on the issue would be that it's one more symptom of comics completely losing the plot in general across the board on all issues.

sounds right

So, question: was the scenery *really* any more encouraging when ILC started to bloom, or is this forum just the story of like eight or so guys collectively going "hey, remember comics? Let's look if they're cool these days" and quickly coming to the conclusion that no, they're not?

(I'm always sort of out of these discussions cuz I don't follow the current spandex stuff *at all*, I just go into the comic shop and buy random cool trades.)

ILC seems like the story of eight guys, but it certainly informs MY viewpoint of the comics industry: and yeah, things really seem bad in this front lately.

If anything, the issue's definitely more front-and-center (at least on the internet, which seems to drive a fair share of comic-related discourse) - there's been the Heroes for Hire cover fiasco, and that Mary-Jane statue issue (and, more tellingly, the lackluster-to-offensive responses from Marvel in regards to these things). Of course, DC also got in the mix w/ that horrendous JLA Michael Turner cover (w/ Power Girl's ginormous chest).

The fact that the two largest publishers in the industry (plying their trade in a particular tight-fitting niche) are straight-up ignorant on this sort of shit is the most damning thing - there are a slew of lower-profile publishers / creators exhibiting a more informed perspective on this stuff, but their "good works" (scare-quoted because this should be the status quo) are subsumed whenever Catwoman is forced to unzip her bodysuit and bend over with a "what me, modest?" look on her face.

(Hi, I just restated obvious stuff!)

(And possibly oversimplified things, to boot! Because there's a line between sexual expression and sexual exploitation that seems to move at will to favor whatever argument the creators / critics are posing, meaning that the offensive H2H cover (featuring captive women in various states of undress and distress) and the MJ statue (which is a oversexed version of a pretty harmless cheesecake illustration) are both tarred by the same brush.)

Comparing when I started posting on ILC to now, I really can't tell if "comics" have gotten worse or if I've just lost interest/been occupied with other things.