Girl, wonder

For last year's "TWoP Staff Special Achievement Awards," I gave the show I was recapping this award:

The Women In Refrigerators Award
Not that CSI doesn't kill people of all genders with impunity, but this season was pretty heavy on the lady victims dying in horrible ways for stupid reasons: appearance-obsessed matrons who drink their own pee, adulterous women killed by jealous stepdaughters, serial killers raping people with soft-drink bottles prior to killing them, mail-order brides stuffed in suitcases...the list goes on. We're awaiting the appearance of an actual woman-in-refrigerator victim next season. -- Sobell

The title comes from Gail Simone's Women In Refrigerators, a site she created when "it occurred to me that it's not that healthy to be a female character in comics." I was struck by the parallels between CSI's M.O. and the comics, and couldn't resist making the connection.

Amusingly, my doing led to extremely short-lived Internet speculation that I might not have actually known the origins of the phrase. That there was even speculation led me to wonder: Is it automatically assumed that I'm unfamiliar with either comics or comics culture because I'm a chick?

I know I've talked about the anecdotal oddities that seem to pop up when you're a chick who reads comics, but this was a new one: someone who just assumed that I wouldn't read them.

That women don't read comics is not an unreasonable assumption. We are typically not in the majority at either comics stores or comics conventions. The argument goes that we may be turned off by our "role models" getting raped, killed, depowered, what-have-you, or maybe we'd read more if all the female characters weren't possessed of gravity-defying garbanzos and bean-sized brains.

I know I've stopped reading specific books because of what I felt to be pervasive misogyny. For example, I am officially Not Reading Squadron Supreme any more because I don't really need to spend money on a comic that suggests the ass-kicking lesbian on the squad is that way because Daddy was abusive and mean boys raped her. The idea of female sexuality existing solely as a reactive response to male action is offensive.

However, I haven't stopped reading comics because of any pervasive misogyny.

In fact, my life-long love affair with comics began with Uncanny X-Men Annual #5. I'm sure if I read it now, I could make an argument for how silly it is that Kitty Pryde holds up the mission while she changes out of a pink costume into her full uniform. I could roll my eyes at how Storm and the Invisible Girl have to dress like harem ladies to infiltrate a Badoon stronghold. Here's the thing: at the end of the day, the women kick ass and take names.

I was nine, and watching Storm and Sprite hang with the boys rocked my world. I was hooked. I haven't stopped reading comics since.  (At left: the gateway drug that started it all. And it's on sale on E-Bay! I may bid ...)

I have seen comics change a lot in the last 25 years, and I'm not just talking about the hairstyles. By the time I was in high school, The New Mutants was up and running, and that was another leap forward. I survived a tedious tenth-grade English class by reading my way through Elfquest's entire run. The Vertigo titles took off while I was in college. And now ... I can only imagine how my teenaged brain would have been blown with Local, Supermarket, Girls, Villains Unlimited, the Secret Six, assorted X-Men titles, Fables, Ex Machina, Y: The Last Man, Birds of Prey or Runaways. Or with some of my past reads: The Witching, Thessaly, Zero Girl, The Authority, Strangers in Paradise, the Nocturnals.

There's a lot of choice on the shelves -- hell, there's even Marvel Romance Redux if you want to be all self-aware and ironic about how comics used to be -- and it's not all about how The Man is keeping The Woman Down.

Is there a problem with gender representation in the spandex set of comics? I've been curious to learn if anyone's ever done a statistical breakdown of violence/depowering/death rates by gender in this genre. For all of the women stuffed in fridges, there are also men blown to kingdom come. Is there a problem with males writing the female depiction in the spandex set of comics? I don't know. I suppose you could fulminate about how Brian K. Vaughn and Bill Willingham have no business writing about chicks, but I notice that Gail Simone and Devin Grayson write male characters, and they're doing fine jobs.

You'll note that I just drew a distinction between comics and the spandex set of comics. I would be happy to argue that what many non-comic readers think of as "comics" -- the DC and Marvel universe heroes -- do not represent mainstream comics so much as they represent merely well-known comics. And I don't think you can accurately and consistently equate "well-known" with "mainstream." Ann Coulter is a well-known conservative; I doubt anyone would call her mainstream.

That a lot of general media comics coverage confuses old or high-profile comics with mainstream comics is no surprise (see  Broadsheet's take on recent comics coverage for a classic example of this). I expect something different and better from a site that says it's "dedicated to females in mainstream comics."

I found Girl Wonder, and was pretty disappointed by what I read. I can't agree with something like this:

But today's fans face a whole new set of stumbling blocks: objectifying, inappropriately sexualised art styles; gruesome deaths designed only to forward a male character's story; and a generally held public opinion that superhero comics are the domain of boys and men and therefore have no need to be female-friendly.

I have not adequately canvassed public opinion, so I can't evaluate whether the asertion that there is indeed a "generally held public opinion that superhero comics are the domain of boys and men and therefore have no need to be female-friendly" is true or false. And when I have no hard proof ... well, I can't buy the argument. Moreover, it's not true in my experience as a reader. There is so much to read out there -- if there's a block to enjoying one comic (ahem, Squadron Supreme), move on to another that's kicking ass (hello, Legion of Superheroes!).

However, I could be looking at this from the perspective of someone who has been reading comics for twenty-five years. I could be looking at this all in a "Look how far we've come" way and a "Look at how many options are available" , as opposed to a "look how far we have to go" way.

Or maybe I just need more convincing arguments than the ones I'm reading now.

Comments

[Roger]

The idea of female sexuality existing solely as a reactive response to male action is offensive.

Yay! Make that either positive or negative response. So why does society (American, anyway) persist so doggedly in this belief? Can't a woman be proud of her own sexuality for its own sake?

But today's fans face a whole new set of stumbling blocks: objectifying, inappropriately sexualised art styles...

This is just patently ludicrous. I'm not a comic reader, but the few I've seen, both past and present, don't seem to have changed that much to me. If anything, much of today's art is better, but it has always been sensationalized. I can assume by the context of the site that they're decrying female objectification, but step back and take an unbiased view. Are the men not objectified and sexualized just as much in these things? I don't know about anybody else, but I don't run into many perfectly triangular torsoed, rippling six-packed and bulging-tricepped men over the course of my day. I'm firmly of the mind that if you set out looking for sexual (or racial, or what-have-you) objectification and injustice, you're going to find it, whether it's really there or not.

The art sells. They're pushing perfection here. These are superheroes (and supervillians). These are not your garden variety, everyday people. They're supposed to be larger than life. That's what draws us to them. So they're over-endowed, so what. It's fantasy. It's exaggeration. And it's held the interest of fans (like Lisa) for decades.

It amuses me a little, and disturbs me a lot, that every time this argument comes up ("Women are being objectified!"), the response of the aggrieved seems to be that women should instead hide their sexuality, hide their differences, become nondescript and indistinguishable from the men. How is this progress? Is this not also measuring women against the barometer of men, as if they're not capable of standing on their own? Perhaps we should make the men look and behave like the women instead. Would that not solve the problem as well? So why is it never proposed? I say, be proud of what you've got, for its own sake, whether you're female or male. Your sexuality doesn't make you better or worse than someone else - it just makes you you.

So a few concerned readers are disturbed by cartoon gazongas and skimpy outfits. Get over yourselves already. How do you think I feel about Mr. Perfectly Ripped posing next to her in the tights and the monstrous codpiece? Actually, I couldn't care less about either of them. I'm not threatened by a comic. It's not real, no one was harmed, and I understand that humans like to exaggerate for effect.

As for the "gateway" arguments that are undoubtedly lurking under the surface here somewhere...please. No sane person is going to be driven to misogyny by a few sensationalist comics. Look to the real problems in the real world before tearing down our entertainment.

Lisa, of course you understand that I'm ranting with you here, not against you. You might find it interesting that I don't read comics - I have just never been that interested in them - but my GF/SO/DP (or whatever we're supposed to be calling each other these days) has been seriously into them for years. So while you might well be a minority, you're definitely not alone.

Ah....thank you. I love a good rant!

[Vasu]

Are the men not objectified and sexualized just as much in these things? I don't know about anybody else, but I don't run into many perfectly triangular torsoed, rippling six-packed and bulging-tricepped men over the course of my day.

Here's the thing, though: those broad chests and insanely bulging arms are meant to show you how powerful the male heroes are. The male figures are idealized, certainly, but they're really not presented as sexual objects. And that power is actually helpful in their heroing, whereas I don't think you could argue that Lady Vixen's chainmail thong and inflatable breasts would help her that much in the field of battle. I'm not saying make them nondescript or unattractive; just that there is a way to present them as attractive, strong women without posing them as pornstars.

I would agree with you that today's art has gotten much, much better in this respect. But there are still a ton of high-profile cases of blatant cheesecake that adds nothing to the story (Supergirl and All-Star Batman, to name a few).

Anyway, I recommend you poke around the site a bit more if you're curious, Roger, as they articulate all this far better than I do. Suffice to say they're not solely concerned with sexualized art.

[Roger]

Interesting rebuttal. To be fair, I was only addressing the issue of the sexualized artwork, not having read enough in depth to know the storylines themselves. (What? I haven't read the things? So what makes me feel qualified to comment?! Well, that has never stopped me before, so here goes nothin'...) So, that said, let's start there and work inward.

It's an interesting point you make about the muscularity of the men. I don't reach the same conclusion as you, though. I go back to my previous argument about exaggerations. As I see it, superheroes are supposed to represent the ideal, or idealized if you will, human forms. They're meant to represent the pinnacle of what society views as "maleness", i.e. bulging pectoral muscles, and "femaleness", i.e. lithe graceful figures and gravity-defying chests. Is this a problem with society's norms? Perhaps. Is it a male-centric view of the "ideal" body? Almost certainly. I don't necessarily see it as sexist, though perhaps misguided.

Now, if all of the women are portrayed as weak-willed, unable to stand on their own, and incomplete without their male counterparts, then I'm with you. That would certainly reflect a problem.

The problem I have with that site is that it suggests, however unintentionally, that the problem is endemic to, and characteristic of, the industry as a whole. I don't want to suggest that I believe there is no sexism in comics - far from it; I'm not that dense - but I do take issue with the idea that the whole industry is at fault. As a counter-example, take a look at (the late lamented) Crossgen comics, which featured several strong, independent female leads.

No, instead I see the problem as stemming from a few bad eggs in the industry - and they're the ones we should be attacking, rather than the industry as a whole. One of the linked blogs in particular takes aim squarely at Frank Miller and Greg Land (and interestingly, Joss Whedon). Now that's an approach I can wholeheartedly condone.

I will agree that the treatment of Stephanie Brown was particularly horrifying. Using her as the poster child for the overall effort just seems a bit misguided to me. It's calling too much attention to the worst of the negatives in the genre, and completely overshadows the ones who get it right. It would be better, in my opinion, to laud those who do a good job of portraying women heroes first, and present the bad examples second. (As ignoring the bad would of course do no good, either.)

I find it interesting that both you and several of the blog entries make comparisons between the portrayals of women in comics and porn. It's been my experience that the women in most porn (again, there are some bad apples) are portrayed in a far more flattering light than the men. Ron Jeremy anyone? To delve perhaps too deeply into my personal life, my girlfriend used to be deadset again porn, because she had bought into the common misconception that all porn was thoroughly misogynistic as well. After finally seeing for herself that that's not the case, she now enjoys the occasional film.

My point here being that, in comics as in porn, the occasional misogynistic entry surely exists, but perhaps we're painting the industry with too broad a brush and sweeping the good away with the bad. I'd focus on those who are creating the objectionable material, rather than on the medium, and be sure to reward those who produce good material. I'd also suggest more women should enter the industry (comics, not porn) and make their influence felt more directly.

[Nate Savage]

boo fucking hoo

[Lisa]

Hey, Nate -- care to clarify that remark?

Or is this some oracular judgment, where we humans are left to ponder what your pronunciation actually meant?

[Roger]

There's one in every crowd...and the internet seems to be full of crowds.