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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stop? Mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From House Towards dot com, Hello and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: This is Molly and I'm Kristin Kristen. We are doing

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Speaker 1: a two part series on female superheroes, which has been

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Speaker 1: a long requested topic. But but the first part is

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Speaker 1: going to talk more specifically about how women are portrayed

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Speaker 1: in superhero comic books. And we have to thank our

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Speaker 1: listener Alex for for this angle because after the Halloween

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Speaker 1: Costume podcast, Alex noticed that all of the female superhero

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Speaker 1: costumes that he was finding on the internet, we're all

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Speaker 1: male costumes, which is the words sassy put in front,

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Speaker 1: so you could be like a sassy Batman, sassy Superman.

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Speaker 1: He was like, this is crazy because there are female superheroes,

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Speaker 1: um and you know I Rebecca was like, yeah, there there,

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Speaker 1: we need to some spotlight on female superheroes. And he said,

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Speaker 1: why don't you start by talking about the women in

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Speaker 1: refrigerators problem? Yes, and women in Refrigerators refers to a

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Speaker 1: Green Lantern comic book storyline from in which the Green

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Speaker 1: Lanterns girlfriend gets strangled and is later discovered inside a refrigerator. Right,

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Speaker 1: and so this comic book writer Gail Simone starts a

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Speaker 1: website called Women in Refrigerators. She makes a list of

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Speaker 1: the women who die these kinds of gruesome, unnecessarily violent deaths,

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Speaker 1: and uh published Drum's website and it kind of set

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Speaker 1: the comic book world of fire if you will, boom pal.

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Speaker 1: She she launched that that punch into the gut of

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Speaker 1: the comic book world. Yeah, people started sort of dog

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Speaker 1: piling on this list, and pretty soon they had an

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Speaker 1: enormous list of characters. Few women character female characters specifically

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Speaker 1: left and right, who yes to die these grewesome kinds

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Speaker 1: of death. And we'll get into this more later. But

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Speaker 1: even when super female superheroes super heroines if you will,

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Speaker 1: are are injured, it takes them longer to recover. They

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Speaker 1: have a harder time um wielding their superpowers. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it is not there is not gender parity and comic books.

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Speaker 1: It's a scary world world out there for the female. Now.

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Speaker 1: The main criticism that people would lodge back at gayl

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Speaker 1: Simone is, hey, the male characters died too, Like in

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Speaker 1: a comic book violence happens. It's unrealistic to assume that

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Speaker 1: a woman is never going to die. And Gayl Simon said, no,

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Speaker 1: I realized that. I mean, death happens in comic books.

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Speaker 1: But when you look at the way that the men

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Speaker 1: diversus the way that the the women die, it's it's again,

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Speaker 1: it's not equal. You know, a male hero when he

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Speaker 1: dies gets to go down fighting. He has, you know,

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Speaker 1: this really long fight scene where looks like he's going

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Speaker 1: to prevail, he might even come back to life later on.

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Speaker 1: And the female superheroes just don't get that. They're usually

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Speaker 1: you know, shot in the back, or you know, they

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Speaker 1: just don't get a chance to fight, or in some

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Speaker 1: ways the death is their fault. Let's take, for example,

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Speaker 1: the case of Stephanie Brown, who served as a Robin

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Speaker 1: figure in a few episodes of Batman, and she was

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Speaker 1: Robin's girlfriend for many years, and eventually when Robin resigns,

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Speaker 1: she becomes sort of the Batman assistant role um. Then

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Speaker 1: in two thousand and four, a supervillain named the Black

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Speaker 1: mask Uh uses a power drill to extensively torture her

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Speaker 1: to death. And this really got a lot of people

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Speaker 1: up in arms because every other Robin gets sort of

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Speaker 1: a tribute in the bat Cave. Uh, and then and

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Speaker 1: and Stephanie didn't get that. The artist who was associated

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Speaker 1: with this said essentially that Stephanie Brown deserved her torture

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Speaker 1: and death because she had failed to obey Batman's orders

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Speaker 1: to stay out of the fight with Black Mask. At

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Speaker 1: one point, he was at a convention, said he didn't

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Speaker 1: really even consider her a Robin fig gear. She was

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Speaker 1: more just, you know, a character who came and went.

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Speaker 1: And there were a lot of just misguided remarks. I

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Speaker 1: don't think that the men who are saying them maybe

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Speaker 1: meant them in this way, but that Stephanie inspired this

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Speaker 1: website girl Wonder dot org uh, women and men who

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Speaker 1: were interested in getting her that full hero tribute and

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Speaker 1: status that she deserved. And the creators and the writer

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Speaker 1: should come back and say, oh, Stephanie's death was a

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Speaker 1: big deal because it had impact on the lives of heroes.

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Speaker 1: That is only going to, you know, inspire Batman to

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Speaker 1: fight harder and longer to bring her to justice. And

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Speaker 1: one woman wrote that that's really upset and because it

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Speaker 1: says that Stephanie herself wasn't a hero, that it was

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Speaker 1: she was just you know, aiding a hero in terms

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Speaker 1: of finding his quest. And I think that's a kind

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Speaker 1: of pretty common criticism of these super girls super women,

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Speaker 1: that they are just inspiration or hindrance to the superheroes

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Speaker 1: and not necessarily heroes themselves. Yeah, and comic book fans

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Speaker 1: really take this portrayal, these portrayals of females in comics

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Speaker 1: very sear viously. For instance, the mission statement of Girl

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Speaker 1: Wonder dot Org is Batman and other superhero stories are

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Speaker 1: the modern ages fables and if we don't stop the

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Speaker 1: spread of this rout now, they will be a reb

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Speaker 1: irrevocably corrupted by it. Stephanie Brown is a symbol of

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Speaker 1: the need for change, and we are going to see

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Speaker 1: that that change begins. And then just to give you

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Speaker 1: um a few names and more of the Stephanie's out there.

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Speaker 1: You know, from the Women in Refrigerators lists that we

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Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, they're more than ninety female characters, including Awkwad Girl,

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Speaker 1: Hawk Woman, Alasta, Girl, Nova, Lady Flash, at least two

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Speaker 1: different supergirls and listeners. If you don't remember any of

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Speaker 1: those characters, it's probably because a lot of them just

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Speaker 1: never came back to life or regain their powers. They

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Speaker 1: just fade, fade into refrigerator land and die, whereas like

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Speaker 1: like you said, the men can come back to life.

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Speaker 1: The men will learn how to use their powers more. Um,

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Speaker 1: they talked about this one back girl who was paralyzed,

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Speaker 1: and everyone else who been paralyzed eventually comes back, this

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Speaker 1: this one never did. And uh, some of the writers themselves,

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Speaker 1: her female talk about the kind of sexism that exists

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Speaker 1: in that world where one you know, male came to

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Speaker 1: this female writer and said, we need, we need a

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Speaker 1: rape to happen, We need, we need something really bad

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Speaker 1: to happen to a woman because that's going to spur

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Speaker 1: our hero on and what this Watchdot group Girl Wonder

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Speaker 1: wants to do is to prevent that and to show

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Speaker 1: kids of both genders that the girl doesn't have to

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Speaker 1: be the victim or just the sidekick, that the girl

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Speaker 1: can be the hero who has equal powers on her own.

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Speaker 1: So why don't we throw out a few numbers of

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Speaker 1: how well women are represented in comic books. Obviously, comic

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Speaker 1: book readership excuse mail. So it does make sense that

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Speaker 1: there are more male superheroes. But there was a study

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Speaker 1: that we found analyzing women's representations in comic books, and

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Speaker 1: the author found that women comprise an average oft of

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Speaker 1: characters overall, and women are main characters in comic books

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Speaker 1: sixty six percent of the time that they appear. So obviously,

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Speaker 1: comic book heroes much more likely to be male than female,

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Speaker 1: and the female heroes that do exist, this study found

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Speaker 1: are likely to have gigantic breasts, um be wearing skimpy clothing.

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Speaker 1: And uh. They also talk about something called the porn face,

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Speaker 1: which is that every time a woman is drawn, she's

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Speaker 1: got this really, you know, it's a face. It looks

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Speaker 1: like she's having sex, not necessarily fighting crime. Now, as

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Speaker 1: you said, Kristen, comic book readership, excuse mail. Uh, and

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Speaker 1: sometimes you only hear about these women who are reading

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Speaker 1: comics when when you're talking about something like women in

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Speaker 1: refrigerators or the death of a female character. And so

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Speaker 1: people are wondering, you know, if this is, if this

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Speaker 1: is entertainment for boys, do we really need to make

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Speaker 1: it as as equal as some of these these women

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Speaker 1: wanted to be. Shouldn't this just be something that's escapist

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Speaker 1: for little boys learning about fantasy and um, and you know,

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Speaker 1: when you think about it, when you think about playing

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Speaker 1: when you're little, it is more likely that the boys

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Speaker 1: are playing superheroes and the girls are playing something like Princess.

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Speaker 1: I mean, what the question then becomes is do you know,

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Speaker 1: obviously we don't want to teach boys some lesson that

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Speaker 1: girls are always victims, but do you have to have

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Speaker 1: this equality that some of the groups want. And there's

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Speaker 1: a pretty interesting uh study by the American Psychological Association.

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Speaker 1: They found that seeing these over hyped images masculinity that

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Speaker 1: the superheroes present can actually be quite damaging to these

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Speaker 1: little boys. And these psychologists indeed found that boys do

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Speaker 1: seem better adjusted when they resist those macho images that

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Speaker 1: are presented in comic books and other types of popular

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Speaker 1: media specifically aimed at that demographic. And they found that

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Speaker 1: when those boys could resist being tough and emotionally unavailable

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Speaker 1: and attached from their friends as they age into adolescence,

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Speaker 1: they reported more um psycholog better psychological health than the

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Speaker 1: other ones. And those characteristics, you know, detached from friends,

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Speaker 1: aloof it's it's like Batman. And so they're saying that

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Speaker 1: the only images of masculine that these little boys are

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Speaker 1: presented with are these very um aloof masculinities that show

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Speaker 1: women as victims. Going back to the study that evaluated

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Speaker 1: the different women's portrayals and comic books, you know, the

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Speaker 1: women are often shown is not having real jobs, or

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Speaker 1: if they have jobs, there in pink collar jobs, or

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Speaker 1: they're not in full control of their powers. They need

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Speaker 1: someone to teach them how to use their powers, whereas

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Speaker 1: the male superheroes usually come to the world fully formed,

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Speaker 1: ready to beat up bad guys, and if they experience

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Speaker 1: any conflict with it, that's, you know, it's a side plot,

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Speaker 1: it's not the main plot. Now, I do think we

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Speaker 1: have to take that psychological study with a little bit

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Speaker 1: of a grain of salt, because it does remind me

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Speaker 1: of our discussion on how Disney princesses affect young girls

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Speaker 1: ideas of what it means to be a woman and

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Speaker 1: to be feminine in our role in society. And while yes,

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Speaker 1: I do think that these um kind of fantasy media

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Speaker 1: images that kid um grow up with have an impact,

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Speaker 1: but it's one one, only one piece of the puzzle.

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Speaker 1: But you still can't deny the fact that when you

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Speaker 1: get into comic books, and especially superhero comic books. What

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Speaker 1: we're talking about specifically in the episode, women fall into

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Speaker 1: one of two camps. The good Girls are the bad girls,

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Speaker 1: and and they all kind of have the same measurements,

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Speaker 1: like you said, like they all have long hair and

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Speaker 1: impossible curves and generally wear skimpy clothes. But yeah, they

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Speaker 1: they either become fen Fotels or they're sassy. Yes. As

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Speaker 1: one writer put it, the difference between the good Girls

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Speaker 1: and the Bad Girls is whether you've got spunk or

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Speaker 1: whether you're mad as hell. And the good Girls have

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Speaker 1: spunk and the bad girls are mad, and good girl

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Speaker 1: art goes back to World War Two. At the same time,

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Speaker 1: You've got a lot of pin up traditional photos like that,

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Speaker 1: lots of cheesecake photos, and the good Girls are very

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Speaker 1: much in that model. Their adventure adventurous is their heroine

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Speaker 1: sidekicks or girls who just naturally fall into and escape

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Speaker 1: from trouble. So some examples of some old school Good

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Speaker 1: Girls superheroes include Sheina, Queen of the Jungle, senor Rita Rio,

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Speaker 1: Queen of Spies, Flamingo, the Gypsy Gal, Flying Jenny, and

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Speaker 1: sky Girl, and then Mist of the Moon and Phantom

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Speaker 1: Lady and Lady Look So as you can tell. I mean,

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Speaker 1: they're they're kind of these kitchy little heroes, but we

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Speaker 1: don't see those anymore. They're this, uh, this starkly found

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Speaker 1: that's comparing good girl art to bad girl art talks

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Speaker 1: about how now, starting in the nineties, we have bad

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Speaker 1: girl art, which is girls who you know, are they're

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Speaker 1: still in the superhero role as those go girls superheroes

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Speaker 1: that Kristen named are, but they tend to wear less clothes,

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Speaker 1: more espexually provocative clothes, and have, like I said, more

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Speaker 1: of an attitude. They're more from the dark side. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and their dark side generally comes from a history of

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Speaker 1: a use. So again, you know, it's hard to find

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Speaker 1: a woman in these comics who hasn't been beaten up,

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Speaker 1: killed violently, or just drawn with nothing on, or you know,

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Speaker 1: who serves as a hindrance for the superheroes. So that's

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Speaker 1: sort of the argument of the first part of the

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Speaker 1: podcast is if you're reading a comic book, just any

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Speaker 1: comic book at all, with a superhero in it, what

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Speaker 1: are you going to see when you look at these women?

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Speaker 1: You're gonna see victims and uh. In the next part

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Speaker 1: of the podcast, we're going to talk about what women

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Speaker 1: have taken on that hero role and how they've done it.

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Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about one very important comic

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Speaker 1: book hero who we have not mentioned at all in

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Speaker 1: part one, but who has very interesting history, and that

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Speaker 1: is Surprise Wonder Woman. So the first episode, like we said,

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Speaker 1: is to get you grounded in this This woman is

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Speaker 1: victims role. That the women are refrigerators site kind of

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Speaker 1: proclaimed and which some comic book writers have come back

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Speaker 1: and said, you know, this changed the way I wrote comics.

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Speaker 1: Um looking for our ways to fit women into comic books.

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Speaker 1: And I think in the next episode we'll take a

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Speaker 1: look at how well that's worked out. So in the meantime,

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Speaker 1: why don't we read a couple of emails from listeners.

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Speaker 1: I have two really quick ones about the Halloween Costume podcast.

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Speaker 1: First up from Aaron, she writes, I'm not a sci

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Speaker 1: fi geek, but my next costumes, Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica

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Speaker 1: and Kaylie from Firefly, are both fairly easy, not slutty,

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Speaker 1: and strong, excellent characters. And then I have one from Jazz,

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Speaker 1: who writes, I wanted to let you know that a

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Speaker 1: little boy costumes aren't so great either. As a mom

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Speaker 1: of two little boys, I really hate the foam muscles

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Speaker 1: and body shapes that are built into little boys costumes.

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Speaker 1: I feel it promotes a concept of an unattainable body type,

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Speaker 1: much like the often criticized sexy girls costumes. Even toddler

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Speaker 1: costumes from my two year old have fake muscles build

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Speaker 1: into them. And she sent us a link of some

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Speaker 1: of the costumes available and they are there. Musley, All right, well,

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Speaker 1: I've got one more Halloween email here, and this is

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Speaker 1: from Katie, who was sending us a report from her

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Speaker 1: second grade classes fall party where all the kids came

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Speaker 1: dressed up in costumes. Because we talked a lot about

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Speaker 1: that um study Molly that looked at how Halloween costumes

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Speaker 1: are marketed and designed differently for boys and girls. So

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Speaker 1: Katie says, I found it interesting that many costumes aimed

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Speaker 1: at boys are really a little more than fancy one

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Speaker 1: piece pajamas and perhaps a mask. Feminine costumes tend to

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Speaker 1: be much more elaborate, with sleeves long enough to make

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Speaker 1: writing or eating lunch difficult, long skirts, wigs, veils, hats,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. The parents of my students were careful to

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Speaker 1: counter anything revealing and their daughter's costumes with pants and

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Speaker 1: shirts underneath. A necessity is it's getting cold here. One

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Speaker 1: of my little girls had a v neck dress on

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Speaker 1: as part of her vampire costume, and as they were

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Speaker 1: leaving my room to participate in activity, she commented to

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Speaker 1: me that she felt very nervous because it came down

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Speaker 1: to here. I didn't find the neckline revealing at all,

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Speaker 1: but I thought it was very interesting that she was

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Speaker 1: uncomfortable enough to express it. I hope my report from

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Speaker 1: the midst of Halloween in second grade gives you more

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Speaker 1: insight into kids costumes. So thank you Katie for writing in,

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Speaker 1: and as always, you can write too to Mom's Stuff

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Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. You can also check

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Speaker 1: out our Facebook page and like us over there. It

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Speaker 1: is Stuff I've Never Told You on Facebook pretty self explanatory.

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Speaker 1: Then you can also follow us on Twitter. We are

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Speaker 1: at mom Stuff Podcasts, and then finally you can check

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Speaker 1: out what we're doing during the week on our blog

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Speaker 1: It's Stuff Mom Never Told You and it's how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com for more on this and thousands of

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Speaker 1: other topics. Because at how stuff works dot com the

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