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

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom Never told you?

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Speaker 1: From House top Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristen Christ and

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Speaker 1: this is part two of our Female Superheroes podcast. Indeed

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Speaker 1: it is. And um, I thought i'd cheer with you.

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Speaker 1: One of my most embarrassing moments. Oh, thank god, Yes, small,

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Speaker 1: it's embarrassing moments. I've been waiting for so long, you know,

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Speaker 1: And I don't get embarrassed that often, but this was

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Speaker 1: probably the worst time I've ever fell embarrassed. And maybe

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Speaker 1: it'll be nothing to you guys, but I was pretty embarrassed.

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Speaker 1: So I'm five, and I think Nickelodeon used to run

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Speaker 1: reruns of the old wonder Woman show with Linda Carter

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Speaker 1: from the seventies, and so one time when I was

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Speaker 1: out on the playground, I was kind of pretending to

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Speaker 1: be a wonder Woman in my head, like I wasn't

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Speaker 1: playing superheroes with anyone else, you know, I don't remember

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Speaker 1: what I was doing, but all of a sudden, I

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Speaker 1: was like, Okay, it's time to turn to Wonder Woman,

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Speaker 1: and uh in the show, she would do that by

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Speaker 1: spinning around really fast. So I went under this like

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Speaker 1: enclosed slide area where I thought I had some privacy,

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Speaker 1: and I started my spin and I was spinning. I mean,

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Speaker 1: in my head, I was I was converting into to

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Speaker 1: a powerful, powerful superhero when two boys walked in while

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Speaker 1: in the middle of my spinning, and it just I mean,

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Speaker 1: if girls spend all the time. I don't know why

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Speaker 1: I was so embarrassed, but I felt like they could

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Speaker 1: see into my soul and know that I was trying

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Speaker 1: to turn into Wonder Woman and that they were just

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Speaker 1: mocking me in their heads. No words were exchanged because

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Speaker 1: I ran out very quickly. Oh they didn't even they

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Speaker 1: didn't even directly make fun of you. I don't think

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Speaker 1: they haven't got the chance, because as soon as I

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Speaker 1: saw them, I was like, ah, so they might not

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Speaker 1: have even noticed you spinning. There was there was some

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Speaker 1: noticing of spinning, because I who knows how long I

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Speaker 1: spun with them standing there. Yeah, that's true. It is

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Speaker 1: easy to get swept away. But the fact that I

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Speaker 1: was just spinning around and circled by myself under slide

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Speaker 1: and and got caught in the act really embarrassed me

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Speaker 1: for a long time. I think I stopped playing superheroes

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Speaker 1: after that. Well, Molly, I think that now is time

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Speaker 1: to heal those emotional scarves by you know, really talking

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Speaker 1: about Wonder Woman and all of the positive things that

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Speaker 1: she does represent. Because you know what, Molly, even though

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Speaker 1: you didn't turn to Wonder Woman that day, you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe maybe there still a chance. Yes, which is why

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Speaker 1: I want, I want you to do something. I'm kids, Yes,

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm going to just spin myself around the chair

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Speaker 1: and my voice will come around the microphone every every

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Speaker 1: few words. Um, but yes. The second half of our

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Speaker 1: Female Superhero podcast deals with the female superheroes themselves. In

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Speaker 1: part one, we kind of talked about how women in

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Speaker 1: superhero comics don't usually farewell. No, they tendn't die. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they often meet untimely deaths, and a lot of times

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Speaker 1: when there's a lot of violence involved, it's a lot

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Speaker 1: of very sexualized violence becauseies women are are generally not

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Speaker 1: wearing many clothes to begin with, and they have very

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Speaker 1: pin uppy types of figures. So all in all, not

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Speaker 1: not that great of a life for comic book superheroes.

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Speaker 1: But at the same time, there are some standout names

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Speaker 1: that we really didn't talk about in the last episode

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Speaker 1: that we need to shine a light on, most notably

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Speaker 1: wonder Woman, because Wonder Woman was really the face of

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Speaker 1: second way feminism when she debuted on the cover of

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Speaker 1: the very first edition of Miss magazine. Um and we

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Speaker 1: think of her as really embodying you know, uh, strength

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Speaker 1: and power. And there's this long awaited wonder Woman movie

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Speaker 1: that that everyone's hoping for. But I think that it's

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Speaker 1: interesting because in when when something like a female superhero

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Speaker 1: dies and expectedly all these female comic book readers coming

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Speaker 1: out of the woodwork and say, I finally had someone

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Speaker 1: to relate to in this comic and then you killed her.

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Speaker 1: And I think it'd be interesting to see what longstanding

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Speaker 1: female heroes we have in comics, And of course wonder

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Speaker 1: Woman is the most notable. Yeah, I mean, wonder Woman's

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Speaker 1: really kind of it, and she was created specifically to

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Speaker 1: appeal to girls and to serve as a positive role model.

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Speaker 1: Because in the last episode we made the point that

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Speaker 1: since comic book readership is largely male, it does make

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Speaker 1: sense that a lot of the superheroes are these male

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Speaker 1: figures that they can idealize. But a psychologist named William

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Speaker 1: Marson said, you know what, little girls needed a hero too, right,

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Speaker 1: So he created her in nine and Morrison is quite

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Speaker 1: a character he is. He called himself a feminist, but

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Speaker 1: it's not a definition of feminism that I tend to

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Speaker 1: agree with, because it's all about how women are not

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Speaker 1: just equal but superior to men, and um, we're all

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Speaker 1: about advocating gender equality, I think with our forms of feminism, Christen,

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Speaker 1: but he's like, no, I'm going to teach the world

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Speaker 1: that eventually our country is going to turn back into

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Speaker 1: a matriarchy or women have all the power and men

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Speaker 1: do their bidding right. And this whole power dynamic comes

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Speaker 1: through a lot in early Wonder Woman comics, and I

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Speaker 1: didn't really think about it at all until, um, until

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Speaker 1: I started reading about how Marston in his personal life

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Speaker 1: was very, very intrigued by uh, submission, domination types of

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Speaker 1: sexual activities. He was actually in a polyamorous relationship and

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Speaker 1: had um to two wives, and within the context of

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Speaker 1: that relationship, he was also very interested in sexual bondage,

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Speaker 1: and so he instill a lot of that imagery into

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Speaker 1: the Wonder Woman comics, and so what do you know.

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Speaker 1: Wonder Woman has a truth lasso that she ties men

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Speaker 1: up with. Wonder Woman herself often gets tied up. Uh

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Speaker 1: you guys, can you know take it to mayor Well,

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Speaker 1: you know it's interesting in that laughs makes men tell

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Speaker 1: the truth. And everyone was like, oh, man, what a

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Speaker 1: great weapon for a woman to be able to get

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Speaker 1: a man to tell the truth. Interesting factoid about Old Marson,

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Speaker 1: He invented the modern day lie detector test, So I

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Speaker 1: mean he is very interested in truth and ways of

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Speaker 1: tying you up to get to the truth. So right

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Speaker 1: around when Wonder Woman is invented, there's also the rise

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Speaker 1: of other types of super heroines that are collectively known

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Speaker 1: as the Debutantes. For instance, we have the Phantom Lady,

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Speaker 1: who came on the scene in the late forties, and

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Speaker 1: she's sort of like a female Batman. She's wealthy, but

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Speaker 1: she doesn't have that much to do, so she fights

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Speaker 1: crime and her spare time. Uh. And you also have

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Speaker 1: other characters like Missmask or the Red Tornado or the

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Speaker 1: Spider Widow. Spider Wodo was kind of interesting because she

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Speaker 1: didn't really even like fighting crime. She was just wealthy

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Speaker 1: and bore and only did it if she really had to.

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Speaker 1: It was kind of forced upon her to fight crime.

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Speaker 1: So and the information about these early superheroes comes from

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Speaker 1: Mike Madrid who wrote a book called The Supergirl's Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy,

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Speaker 1: and the History of the Comic Book Heroines, and he

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Speaker 1: said that these early comic book heroines, he he equated

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Speaker 1: them to Paris Hilton. He said, essentially in their daily

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Speaker 1: lives and you know, they are rich, They've got lots

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Speaker 1: of money. He said that they would kind of be

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Speaker 1: painted as really shallow and ditzy, and you would never

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Speaker 1: guess that they were the ones who fought crime. But

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Speaker 1: he said that he kind of fought that they were

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Speaker 1: early feminists in a gender equality sense because, uh, when

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Speaker 1: they put on their costmo around their mask, that was

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Speaker 1: when they got to be truly free and truly equal

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Speaker 1: to the crime fighting men. And it was in their

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Speaker 1: daily lives that they had a lot of obstacles against them,

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Speaker 1: not you know, when they were facing bad guys. And

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Speaker 1: he said that, you know, it was fun because they're

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Speaker 1: really brainy and witty and funny and um, then it

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Speaker 1: was when they had to go back into their normal

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Speaker 1: lives they were sort of the uninteresting stay at home

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Speaker 1: boring types, right, And originally Wonder Woman wasn't even drawn

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Speaker 1: as a sexy character. Sure she wore the hot pants

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Speaker 1: and tube top basically, but she she was no She

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Speaker 1: was no Shena, Queen of the Jungle or a Phantom Lady.

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Speaker 1: You know, we were other other super heroines associated with

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Speaker 1: these good girl characters that we talked about in the

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Speaker 1: last podcast, and that was because she was meant to

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Speaker 1: appeal to girls. But then after World War Two there's

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Speaker 1: kind of this decline with the role of females in

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Speaker 1: comic books, and since Wonder Woman was meant to appeal

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Speaker 1: to girls, she wasn't drawn like other good girl characters

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Speaker 1: we talked about in the last episode, like Shena, Queen

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Speaker 1: of the Jungle or Phantom Lady, who were very voluptuous.

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Speaker 1: Even though a Wonder Woman did wear hot pants and

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Speaker 1: a tube top, she was intentionally drawn as not as overtly.

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Speaker 1: See now, let's talk a little bit about Wonder Woman's

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Speaker 1: origins because this is part of what changes over the years.

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Speaker 1: And while she was drun for little girls, we did

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Speaker 1: read one article the notes that even though she was

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Speaker 1: drunk for little girls, about nine of one woman's total

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Speaker 1: readership has always been male, so I think that might

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Speaker 1: play a factor. And when she gets watered down, but

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Speaker 1: we'll we'll decide for ourselves. This time goes on. She

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Speaker 1: first appears in ninety one, and she was an Amazon

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Speaker 1: princess from the immortal race of female warriors from Greek mythology.

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Speaker 1: She lived on an island where men could never set foot.

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Speaker 1: And the whole reason she comes to our country is

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Speaker 1: because some man lands nearby. So she's going to take

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Speaker 1: him back to America. And while she's there, she's gonna

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Speaker 1: teach some some lessons about female empowerment. Uh, since she

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Speaker 1: did have this, you know, enlightened upbringing with no men.

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Speaker 1: So the early episodes with One Woman are all about

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Speaker 1: the Amazonian history, the unique super superpowers, and um, there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of like we mentioned before, the bondage and

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Speaker 1: there's a lot of um as one one psychologist put it,

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Speaker 1: lesbian under tones. And that's when we started getting hild

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Speaker 1: because this psychologist comes along and writes an article called

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Speaker 1: Seduction of the Innocent. Yeah, with this paper, he was

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Speaker 1: basically saying that Wonder Woman was a terrible influence on

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Speaker 1: children and that she needed to be toned down, and

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Speaker 1: Wonder Woman a k a. Diana Prince was toned down.

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Speaker 1: She was lassoed, if you will. By the Comics Code

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Speaker 1: of nineteen fifty five. It said, hey, you know what,

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Speaker 1: all of this, this bondage imagery, all of these somewhat

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Speaker 1: would they perceived to be lesbian undertones. Gotta go, Gotta go,

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Speaker 1: because not only are the girls getting the wrong message,

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Speaker 1: the psychologist Frederick Wortham thought that the boys were getting

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Speaker 1: the wrong message too. He said that boys found Wonder

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Speaker 1: Woman terrifying, and we can't have a terrifying female figure

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Speaker 1: on the loose. She's just too strong. She's just too strong.

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Speaker 1: She'll lasso us and and take away all our powers.

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Speaker 1: So from then on we see women. They have to

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Speaker 1: draw more realistically according to the Comics Code. But all

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Speaker 1: the you know, aside from Wonder Woman, who does get

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Speaker 1: significantly watered down, they don't really introduce any more new

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Speaker 1: strong characters. They've got Catwoman, but she's sort of, you know,

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Speaker 1: more of a bad person who just Batman kind of

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Speaker 1: likes her, but she's kind of wishy washy. And Supergirl,

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Speaker 1: who's a female version of Superman, but she was more

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Speaker 1: of his assistant and helper than equal um. Alasta Girl

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Speaker 1: gets a lot of credit because she was the strongest

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Speaker 1: member of the Doom Patrol, but you know, they're always

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Speaker 1: part of these teams, and sometimes when a female hero

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Speaker 1: was put on a team, she's the weakest member of

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Speaker 1: the team. But Alasta Girl was not, though she was

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Speaker 1: one of the standout characters because she often saved the day.

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Speaker 1: She could turn into this giant elastic giant, giant elastic giant.

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Speaker 1: Yeah and uh, and she could hulk smash all of

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Speaker 1: this stuff. It's pretty She was pretty cool and she

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Speaker 1: has a pretty cool outfit. I gotta say, are now

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Speaker 1: in the seventies when we've got second way feminism. Some

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Speaker 1: of the writers try to incorporate these ideas into their

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Speaker 1: their female heroes, but it really just kind of makes

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Speaker 1: the female hero stock characters who run around saying this

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Speaker 1: is really blatant, like female power, things that are kind

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Speaker 1: of insulting. I think when you look back on them

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Speaker 1: in hindsight, they make them very uninteresting characters because they're

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Speaker 1: never finding crime. There's always saying platitudes about about equality,

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Speaker 1: and I think that one good example of that would

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Speaker 1: have been Power Girl, who was created in response to

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Speaker 1: second way of feminism in a way, she was meant

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Speaker 1: to embody um those negative stereotypes of feminists at the

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Speaker 1: time as militant, strident, and angry. So she just didn't

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Speaker 1: really sit too well with fans. And then uh Matt Madrid,

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Speaker 1: who you know, who wrote the book he referenced Um

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Speaker 1: points out Black Widow as a great example though, of

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Speaker 1: that kind of empowered woman in the seventies. She was

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Speaker 1: a jet set or, she was rich, she was a

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Speaker 1: crime fighter. She wasn't anyone's girlfriend, but she did have

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Speaker 1: Now at the same time, like you said, nineteen seventy two,

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Speaker 1: we've got one woman on the first cover of Miss

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Speaker 1: magazine and a lot of bears. Give Choya sign him

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Speaker 1: this credit for bringing back Wonder Woman to her full powers,

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Speaker 1: because in all the makeover she underwent, she kind of

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Speaker 1: became more like a female James Bond. She was maud.

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Speaker 1: So she gets recreated in the second wave of feminism,

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Speaker 1: but a lot of her story is significantly watered down.

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Speaker 1: She's not usually from the Amazon Island anymore, her weapons

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Speaker 1: don't necessarily mean what they meant, and I mean the

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Speaker 1: last I just became something to catch men with, not

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Speaker 1: necessarily a way to make them tell the truth. And

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Speaker 1: so I think it's interesting how Wonder Woman kind of

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Speaker 1: got coopted, but a lot of the most out there

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Speaker 1: aspects of her story don't come with her in this recreation.

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Speaker 1: So in thinking about the evolution of Wonder Woman and

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Speaker 1: how she started out and all of the makeovers that

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Speaker 1: she god, I mean, she she just recently got a

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Speaker 1: new outfit that is a little more um modest. She's

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Speaker 1: wearing pants now she wearing pants, um. So I guess

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Speaker 1: it just brings up the question of since Wonder Woman

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Speaker 1: is the most prominent female superhero, the most long lasting,

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Speaker 1: I mean, we have more recent um female superheroes that

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Speaker 1: have come up, such as the Bad Girls of the

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Speaker 1: nineties that we talked about in the first, um, the

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Speaker 1: preceding episode, and then we also have comics such as

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Speaker 1: Birds of Prey that feature all female cats. But wonder

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Speaker 1: Woman to me really embodies, uh, you know, the history

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Speaker 1: of women's superheroes, and it really brings up the question of, well,

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Speaker 1: what do we want from a female superhero and should

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Speaker 1: we even be concerned about how women are portrayed in comics?

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Speaker 1: I mean, if these are just fantasy outlets directly marketed

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Speaker 1: to little boys, you know, should we as women be

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Speaker 1: that concerned about it? Like what to see from a superhero?

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Speaker 1: And even though this isn't specifically comic book oriented, there

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Speaker 1: was a really interesting article about the Powerpuff Girls and

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Speaker 1: the success that they were having in terms of being

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Speaker 1: popular with both genders, these little girls who fight crime.

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Speaker 1: But but the writer Heather have have r Levski makes

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Speaker 1: the point that can we only accept a strong female,

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Speaker 1: you know, superhero when she's five and really cute? And

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Speaker 1: another article made the point that but when from Sex

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Speaker 1: in the City, are more are our superhero outlets because

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Speaker 1: they live in kind of a fantasy world. I mean,

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Speaker 1: there's no way Carrie could afford that apartment, and their

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Speaker 1: issues of fighting crime or more issues of you know,

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Speaker 1: Canni woman still be sexy when she's over forty, you

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Speaker 1: know Canni women find husband, and all these writers are

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Speaker 1: making the point that maybe we don't need a superhero

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Speaker 1: that fights crime. Maybe are maybe our obstacles are different

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Speaker 1: than that. And I think one thing we have to

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Speaker 1: acknowledged to and we're comparing male and female superheroes, is that, yes,

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Speaker 1: a lot of the females who end up in mix

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Speaker 1: are hyper sexual lives. They have enormous breasts and tiny

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Speaker 1: waists and legs for days. At the same time, a

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Speaker 1: lot of the male superheroes are these hyper masculine figures

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Speaker 1: who have rippling muscles and you know, just overt kind

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Speaker 1: of sexual appeal to women. So are those portrayals of

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Speaker 1: male superheroes as kind of deluded as the female superheroes

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Speaker 1: they're fighting with? But if we're gonna have the most

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Speaker 1: deluded version of a female superhero who can make you

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Speaker 1: feel excited to pick up a comic with her adventures

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Speaker 1: in it, Like, just off the top of your head, Christen,

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Speaker 1: what would she be like? Well, sause for me would

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Speaker 1: be you, it would be it would be me. I

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Speaker 1: was gonna say that too. Um. And you know, there

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Speaker 1: was some evidence that girls are age and younger like

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Speaker 1: real life superheroes better. Um, there's this new series of

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Speaker 1: comic books that features them in like Hillary Clinton and

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Speaker 1: Sarah Palin, women who you know in our real lives

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Speaker 1: are out there making a difference. Do we look as

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Speaker 1: women towards real life superheroes or is there someone in

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Speaker 1: that fantasy world who could fit our mold. Well, I

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Speaker 1: think that's the question that we will have to turn

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Speaker 1: over to our listeners because you know what, Molly, I'll

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Speaker 1: be honest with you, I don't know the answer exactly.

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Speaker 1: I don't either, So that's why we want to hear

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Speaker 1: from you on what the perfect female superhero would look like,

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Speaker 1: whether we still need superheroes, whether it's just a difference

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Speaker 1: of boys like superheroes and girls like something else. And

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Speaker 1: we should also ask for examples of great female characters

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Speaker 1: in comics, because I know that we talked a lot

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Speaker 1: about Wonder Woman and throughout some other names, but there

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Speaker 1: are scores of women in comics that we didn't bring up.

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Speaker 1: So we were pretty focused on superheroes. But we know

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Speaker 1: actually that we have listeners out there who do their

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Speaker 1: own comics. We'd love to hear from all of you

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Speaker 1: guys and broaden this comics conversation up with your help,

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Speaker 1: So right to us it's mom stuff at how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com, and share it with other listeners on Facebook.

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Speaker 1: But in the meantime, let's read an email. I have

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Speaker 1: one here from our listener Alexa, who writes, I'm fourteen

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Speaker 1: years old and this year for Halloween, I am as

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Speaker 1: Velma from the Scooby Doo cartoons, but I was looking

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Speaker 1: for the perfect Velma clothing items. My own mother even

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Speaker 1: suggested a fairly low cut armed shirt so that I

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Speaker 1: could be sexy Velma. I had to point out for

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Speaker 1: her that Velma doesn't care about looking sexy and that

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Speaker 1: she was always my favorite on the show because she

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Speaker 1: is comfortable with herself, including her flaws. And it's smart

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Speaker 1: because after all, that's how she always solved the mystery.

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Speaker 1: And Alexa did send us the most adorable photo of

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Speaker 1: herself as Velma. It was pretty pretty great costume, it

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Speaker 1: was really great. Um So again, if you'd like to

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Speaker 1: email us, send us photos of you dressed up like

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Speaker 1: your favorite superhero. I'd love to see that. It's Mom's

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Speaker 1: Stuff at how Stuffworks dot com Again. You can like

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Speaker 1: or you can follow us on Twitter at Mom's Stuff Podcast,

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Speaker 1: And then, of course you can always head over to

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Speaker 1: our blog It's Stuff Mom Never told You and It's

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