Wonder Woman Arguement
“NO”
In the writing Wonder Woman, Gloria Steinem states that Wonder Woman is a feminist symbol and promotes feminism among the youth. Mrs. Steinem also states that in other comics, other than Wonder Woman, women are always the ones being saved and rescued which promotes a feeling of female inferiority. These and other sentiments illustrated in Wonder Woman are completely contradictory to my thoughts and beliefs on the comic Wonder Woman. Although Gloria Steinem shows many interesting examples and reasoning for her thesis, I find other contradictory meanings to the same examples. In the following paragraphs I will be proving my theory that Wonder Woman does not promote feminism and other comics are not putting women below men. The first problem I see with the Gloria Steinem’s argument is the age group targeted for the original Wonder Woman comic. I remember as a young kid reading comic books at face value, I did not look into the deeper issues that the comic book might have portrayed such as gender roles. Although I did not spend all of my time reading comic books when I was younger, I did not read them thinking that women were inferior or weaker than men because they were getting rescued. In fact, many times men are the ones getting saved, just as Gloria Steinem pointed out in this example, “Even in comic books, heroes sometimes work in groups or are called upon to protect their own kind…”. This shows that the comics have men getting saved just as well as women. But at the age of many comic book readers it does not matter what gender the hero or the person getting saved is. Normal children at comic book reading ages cannot grasp the deep concept of “feminism” or “gender roles”. These readers simply read comic books for the excitement and interesting aspects that the story line offers. Wonder Woman is not the only comic that features a female superhero or females in a position of power. I went through a long stage when I was younger of being a big fan
In the writing Wonder Woman, Gloria Steinem states that Wonder Woman is a feminist symbol and promotes feminism among the youth. Mrs. Steinem also states that in other comics, other than Wonder Woman, women are always the ones being saved and rescued which promotes a feeling of female inferiority. These and other sentiments illustrated in Wonder Woman are completely contradictory to my thoughts and beliefs on the comic Wonder Woman. Although Gloria Steinem shows many interesting examples and reasoning for her thesis, I find other contradictory meanings to the same examples. In the following paragraphs I will be proving my theory that Wonder Woman does not promote feminism and other comics are not putting women below men. The first problem I see with the Gloria Steinem’s argument is the age group targeted for the original Wonder Woman comic. I remember as a young kid reading comic books at face value, I did not look into the deeper issues that the comic book might have portrayed such as gender roles. Although I did not spend all of my time reading comic books when I was younger, I did not read them thinking that women were inferior or weaker than men because they were getting rescued. In fact, many times men are the ones getting saved, just as Gloria Steinem pointed out in this example, “Even in comic books, heroes sometimes work in groups or are called upon to protect their own kind…”. This shows that the comics have men getting saved just as well as women. But at the age of many comic book readers it does not matter what gender the hero or the person getting saved is. Normal children at comic book reading ages cannot grasp the deep concept of “feminism” or “gender roles”. These readers simply read comic books for the excitement and interesting aspects that the story line offers. Wonder Woman is not the only comic that features a female superhero or females in a position of power. I went through a long stage when I was younger of being a big fan