Batgirl and Superheroines

Speaking of girls and superheroes, this summer at San Diego Comic-Con, a girl dressed as Batgirl took DC comics head honchos off guard when she asked, during a panel about the Justice League, why there aren't more women helming comics at DC.

From the article:

"When I got up to ask the question, I was feeling almost *bewildered*, which is why it came out as, "Where are the women?" This line got cheered. Johns responded that DC had more iconic female characters than anyone else, and also said that he loved Mera, who was a great character and ‘right there next to Aquaman'. The first woman Johns mentioned in response to my question wasn't Wonder Woman, it was a character defined by her relationship to one of the male superheroes.

I responded to that, thinking out loud and noting that a lot of their female heroes are associated with another hero. For example, BatGIRL/Batman, SuperGIRL/Superman, Wonder GIRL…Wonder WOMAN, who I said was the only REALLY iconic DC female hero I could think of off the top of my head.

The audience didn't like that. They immediately began yelling at me, shouting out their favorite female heroes, Huntress, Starfire, etc. In terms of iconic status, are Huntress and Starfire on the same level as Wonder Woman? I certainly hadn't heard of them before I got into comics.

The room became extraordinarily hostile to me very, very quickly. People started booing and yelling at me to sit down. I shrugged and said, "Well, now I'm going to get yelled at." I wasn't upset so much as I was *confused*. Didn't these people want to see more kick-ass women?"

The thing is, as the article points out, this isn't a controversial position at all. Why would people respond so hostilely to this?

Women who enjoy comics often remark on how they feel uncomfortable around other comics fans, i.e. men. We are objectified, looked down upon by "real" fans, and generally made to feel uncomfortable. Images of women in mainstream comics are not friendly. Covers feature women in impossibly contorted positions meant to showcase their breasts and rears. Superheroine outfits are skimpy and revealing. Women are treated as second-class citizens in the comics world. So why on earth would DC, or any other publisher, expect women to buy their comics?

And the thing is, DC expects us to be okay with that. When Batgirl asked her question at Comic-Con, the response was more or less, "Why can't you be happy with what you have?" Why aren't we happy with the status quo? There's one woman creator out of 100 creators working on DC's new "52" line. Isn't that enough? Geez, women, what more do you want?

From this article, also regarding this year's Comic-Con:

"At one panel, a female questioner was demanded to answer who the women writers and artists were that DC wasn't hiring. It was said, to applause, that DC hire the best writers and artists they can, no doubt referencing the popular belief that female fans wish to see less talented women writers hired at the cost of more talented men. In actual fact, we want the same thing: for DC to truly hire the best writers and artists they can, to fully open their doors to pitches and submissions. It's no secret that DC are very narrow with their creator choices; the entirety of the new 52 was done without pitches.

With the new line, DC have dropped from having 12.5% of their creators being women, to only 1.9%. This isn't about artificial quotas or petulant foot stomping, this is about a drastic cut in the number of women behind DC characters and a worry of what this might mean for the future of DC comics."

When approached with the question of the percentage of women writers, this is how the exchange went:

“Why did you go from 12% in women [creators] to 1% on your creative teams?”

To which DiDio replied in a startlingly aggressive tone, “What do those numbers mean to you? What do they mean to you? Who should we be hiring? Tell me right now. Who should we be hiring right now? Tell me.”

It's startling that DC would outright dismiss half its customer base just like that. DiDio asked Batgirl to name women who should be hired by DC, but what he doesn't understand is that DC is not a female-friendly place right now. It's cyclical. Women like comics, but feel uncomfortable in their enjoyment because of how women are sexualized and objectified, and how we're left out of the creation of the stories we love.

So why is this important? Think about how many superhero movies have come out in the last several years. Women go to see these movies. Remember, women are half the movie-going audience, and that includes superhero movies. But women aren't represented well in these films. I enjoy them a lot, but I'm not going to pretend that they're perfect. Try these films against the Bechdel test and see how many pass.

Women should feel free to enjoy what they enjoy. I shouldn't feel uncomfortable going into a comic store because it is full of men who either leer at me or treat me like I don't know what I'm there for. And both of those things have happened to me. It is rare that I encounter a male who is willing to engage me in my love of comics and have a real discussion about them, talking to me like a person, instead of talking down to me because I'm female.