Superhero
comics
have been around for more than 70 year. Women adventurers
started to don costumes soon after Superman showed
how fun—and lucrative—it could be. Mike Madrid
describes the history
of these heroines
in The Supergirls.
Comic book publishers
have often followed fads and borrowed ideas and genres from other media. Even
though superheroes originated in comic books, they still often reflected the
prevailing views of their times and sometimes lagged other media in responding
to changes in culture.
This is particularly true for the depiction of superheroines.
Madrid shows how the ups and downs of women in American culture
were reflected in the lives of their colorful, pulp
counterparts. This follows a roughly decade by decade structure beginning in
the 1940s when Wonder Woman
appeared to fight oppressors
and teach the world about the superiority of love, and the 2000s when
relatively mature and complex female characters started to become more common.
It’s interesting to me that the World War II-era
superheroines were tougher, more independent and more feminist than most the
female characters in the decades that followed. Wonder Woman had an openly
feminist agenda and aimed to teach girls to be women who could be strong and
gracious, though the comic also reflected some the more peculiar perspectives
of their creator and writer William
Marston Moulton.
Until recently, women in comics had to be something. The had to be
object lessons, girlfriends, hangers on, helpers, cheerleaders, career women,
glamorous vixens, virgins, princesses,
husband hunters or whatever else a woman was supposed to be in that era.
It took a long time for comics to come around to a woman being a person. Still
super-powered and still a woman, but fundamentally a person.
As I read this book, I also thought about my profession. I’ve worked as
an engineer
for more than 20 years. Women are much more common in engineering than they
once were, but there is still a push to attract women to the field. I think we
sometimes get derailed by trying to prove that girls can like STEM (science,
technology,
engineering and math)
as much as boy can. Of course, they can.
We should also think that the appeal of engineering may be in other thing, for
both boys and girls. I was interested in technology as a kid (and enjoyed
reading the adventures of Iron Man and Mister
Fantastic), but I was also interested in justice, health,
economic
mobility, and the potential of water, power and mobility to
make people’s lives better. I’m not that interested in technology for its own
sake, but I’m very interested in how technology can lead to solutions that make
people healthier, richer, more connected and happier. I think that is something
that could be appealing to many girls, especially to girls who read comics.
If you’re interested in this book, you may also be interested in.
Madrid, Mike. The Supergirls:
Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines. Exterminating
Angels Press, 2009.
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