Wonder Woman may honestly be my favorite fictional character ever, and I like to show it. In my dorm room here, I have my Wonder Woman water bottle, cup, little plush thing that sits on my desk, and Pop! Figure bobble head. In my room back home, I have a few other bobble heads and a t-shirt I bought when I was ten but refuse to throw out.
However, along with being my favorite character, Wonder Woman is also probably one of the most identifiable feminist characters to ever exist. Raised by women on island far removed from our world, she came to “Man’s World” to enact justice and empower women. Her history as a feminist icon is so ingrained in her character that separating her from feminism should be impossible. It shouldn’t be able to be done. But has that stopped DC from trying?
No, of course not.
Enter David and Meredith Finch, a married artist/writer duo who picked up the Wonder Woman ongoing comic series after artist Cliff Chang and the rest of his creative team finished their run. (While Chang’s role did change a fundamental part of Wonder Woman’s history, it was really enjoyable. I recommend it.)
When asked about what it meant to them to be working on such an iconic character, the pair released this statement “We want her to be a strong — I don’t want to say feminist, but a strong character. Beautiful, but strong.”
While there is a sort of backlash against women who say they aren’t feminists, I can understand why a woman wouldn’t want to call herself that. Mainstream feminism often has a difficult time addressing the needs of women of color, LGBTQAI+ women, and poor women.
However, that’s not what’s happening here. Wonder Woman is a feminist character, and she is strong. But what the Finches don’t understand is that her strength doesn’t invalidate her feminism, and her feminism is more than just strength. At its very core, feminism is a movement to allow women to make their own choices. Staying at home to tend to children can be just as feminist as being president of a Fortune 500 company. Wearing dresses or high heels or modest clothing or skimpy clothing can all be feminist. Feminist actions are those women chose themselves, which make them the happiest they can be, that allow them to express their personhood.
Moreover there is no reason that when you think of such a storied character that you should think of the way she looks. You wouldn’t sit here and describe Batman as “hot, but a good detective.” Nor would you say that Captain America has “a great butt, but also a sense for justice.”
Why? Because their attractiveness has nothing to do with their talents. On a deeper, more cultural level, it also sounds silly to talk about men in that way. Yet, we don’t think twice about talking about real life women in that way. Whether a woman is an award winning actress or a presidential candidate or a CEO, we still ask her about her diet, who picks out her outfit, how she manages to take care of her children. Rarely do we give her the privilege of letting her speak about her work, or even better, letting her work speak for her. We as a society have a preoccupation about the looks and other superficial characteristics of strong women.
We owe them better. We need to allow them all to be wonder women.
To read a review of the Finches’ run on Wonder Woman, go here. To read about Wonder Woman’s feminist roots, go here. Finally, to read short comic where Wonder Woman takes two little girls out to lunch, go here.
(Same. Copyright DC Comics)
Yardyn Shraga says
“We need to allow them all to be wonder women.” DEEP! And true.
I really like the world we live in sometimes, but other times it’s just such a shame that beauty is such a defining standard. I also really agree that feminism comes in all shapes and sizes. I find it ridiculous that people have said they can’t be a feminist because they love men (????). I think your post this week was spot on. I also scoffed about Captain America’s butt, so thanks!