Women Up!

Although many of us have admitted to reading comics, whether it be in the sunday paper or a classic DC comic book, the targeted audiences for these comics are mainly young boys. This led to the development and wide range of boy characters. Women would appear shortly, but even then they would be fetishized and placed as the damsel in distress. The implication became clear: as is being able to last one round during sex, comic books were strictly a “man” thing.

However, since 2008, the gender gap between readers has slimmed, and the demand for women characters has grown. DC has slowly given female characters like Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn a larger spotlight. Two of Marvel’s top characters are now Jessica Jones and the Black Widow. This gives us female readers hope that our girls are going to get what they deserve.

It's important to have women characters in comic books, especially with young readers. Young girls can now be empowered while reading comics, playing the roles of their favorite characters rather than having to settle for the damsel.

Yet, even with the appearance of female characters, there are still things that irk us readers. For example, the costumes. Yeah it's all fun to dress up like one of the characters and look super good, but their costumes lead to them being objectified. Hardly are their skills recognized over their breasts, or how slim they look. The only time a woman was drawn “realistically” was in issue #41 of Marvel, where Wonder Woman was pictured with only her face and hands bare. Sweet! An actual, realistic image of a woman! How hard is it to do that?

Getting into representation, there a few women of color in comic books. Luckily, Marvel’s next headlining character, Ms. Marvel, is a Pakistani-American Muslim. The first women of color seen in Marvel was Monica Rambeau, an African-American policewoman, then deemed Captain Marvel. In their movies, there has been one women of color with a name and speaking role: Dr. Helen Cho. Dr. Cho makes her appearance in Avengers: Age of Ultron. Clearly, not only is the lack of strong female roles an issue, but so is diversity.

There have been some, if few, pick ups from the issue of lack of women throughout comics. With the growing population of female readers (yeah, read that and weep, misogynistic readers: WOMEN CAN LIKE COMICS!) the demand for women characters has grown; us girls need our strong female roles to cheer on. And just admit it, leading women characters are badass. Let's get to it, comics! Women up!