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Roderick

Feminism

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Edit: I want to add that I know comics are generally targeted at younger people, even though plenty of adults read them. When I say that the dialogue is childish, I don't mean that it's written so that a child will understand it, I mean that it has a very immature outlook of feminism/gender that I think even most children would have a better understanding of.

Comics are incredibly diverse these days, maybe that's true for Disney/DC but I don't think encompassing comics like that is really doing the medium justice.

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To be fair to Marvel, I presented those panels out of context (although I think the context was she's foiling a robbery and this is their first time meeting).  And the story and character are still new so maybe they're going somewhere with it.  But then again it could just be a one off thing that never gets referenced again and the character basically ends up as an attempt to cash in on a hot topic.

 

Thor in particular is an interesting story because it could be told with anyone in the "new Thor" roll. The first Thor movie had a bit about him not being worthy to lift the hammer anymore, and I think it's happened a few times in the character's past, though I don't think anyone has specifically become Thor, rather than just lifting the hammer and using it briefly in his stead. In some ways it's good that the "this could be any character" slot was filled by a woman this time, regardless of the reasoning. It's irritating if it's done for the press, but if it happens enough it becomes a habit I guess? 

 

As an aside to this, a couple of other characters have used the hammer in the past (though none on a seemingly permanent basis except for perhaps Beta Ray Bill).  One of particular relevance to this discussion is Storm of the X-Men

 

thor-storm.png

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I just don't like the idea of supporting feminism being boiled down to what you buy, but maybe I'm over exaggerating how dire the situation is. Everything is a commodity, even values.

 

In America, that's the only language we have that anyone in power cares about.

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Surface level good token representation is so irritating, it's essentially just for good PR these days. If you want to be optimistic, it's good that social justice is a viable market, but it's not worthwhile to see a Marvel comic gender swap a single character and make no other changes. Why not gender swap a bunch so that the gender numbers are actually more accurate to real life. Then rewrite some characters and give them interesting arcs that aren't sexist but maybe pertain to not being a dude?

 

Oh right, for all the reasons that that's counterproductive to their entire business as well as the fact that they don't actually care to make a real effort at all.

 

Not saying that they can't do better, but Marvel's actually done a lot in the past few years to make their line-up more diverse. Captain Marvel is a woman, Ms. Marvel is Muslim, Captain America is black, Ultimate Spider-Man is Hispanic, and the current line-up up the X-Men is all women.

 

That's not to say that checking boxes is the way to better representation, and I'm certain a lot of this has to do with simply profit seeking, but there's a lot of really interesting stuff going on in comics right now - even mainstream superhero comics - and it's way over-simplifying to paint them with such a broad brush.

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I just don't like the idea of supporting feminism being boiled down to what you buy, but maybe I'm over exaggerating how dire the situation is. Everything is a commodity, even values.

 

Hmm why is that bad though?  Resource distribution is very critical and should be closely related to non-monetary values like ethics or rights (or another way to put it is, I don't think anything is truly outside the scope of material goods).

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Hmm why is that bad though?  Resource distribution is very critical and should be closely related to non-monetary values like ethics or rights (or another way to put it is, I don't think anything is truly outside the scope of material goods).

 

The obvious problem is that it makes an individual's ability to support something directly proportional to their buying power. To be cynical, maybe that's accurate, but it's sure not something to like.

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That's definitely part of it, but I think more broadly it allows individuals to deflect examining their own pernicious sexism. If someone believes that buying this comic makes you a support of feminism, I could imagine them being more resistant to subtler criticisms of their own sexism. Kind of like of how the "but many of my best friends are black" people don't think of themselves as racist but with a credit card instead.

 

Edit: I suppose it sounds like I'm really unsupportive of lady Thor. As SAM keeps patiently pointing out, it's still entirely possible that this storyline will go in an interesting direction that makes the gender choice meaningful. The little I've seen has made me really skeptical, however.

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Not saying that they can't do better, but Marvel's actually done a lot in the past few years to make their line-up more diverse. Captain Marvel is a woman, Ms. Marvel is Muslim, Captain America is black, Ultimate Spider-Man is Hispanic, and the current line-up up the X-Men is all women.

 

That's not to say that checking boxes is the way to better representation, and I'm certain a lot of this has to do with simply profit seeking, but there's a lot of really interesting stuff going on in comics right now - even mainstream superhero comics - and it's way over-simplifying to paint them with such a broad brush.

I don't know much about superhero comics so it was a more broad point, but it's a bad solution to only have the front and centre characters being diversified. You need to have a good distribution at all levels. Genuinely, most media should have a fifty fifty gender split but it's a rare occurence.

 

That said, I had heard about the X-Men one and I do really like that, it actually feels closer to what I'm talking about. Buuut again, it's not much of a solution if the representation of the women is overly narrow like with their physical appearance and sexualisation.

 

I'm not saying that there's no value to making the changes but it's worth thinking about what they're not doing right as well as what they are.

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This provokes the same kind of reaction as when Sports Illustrated featured a plus-sized swim suit model. It's a good thing being done for mainly gross reasons and it makes me feel incredibly skeptical.

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That seems like jumping to conclusions to me. You're assuming that this is a simple gender swap, but Marvel has a long history of featuring interesting women in their comics (and certainly a long history of treating them poorly too). I don't think anybody should get a pat on the back for simply switching the gender of a character, but I don't think they should be immediately derided for it either.

 

To SuperBiasedMan, I agree with all those points, but those criticisms should be specific, not based on general assumptions about what comics - or, more specifically, superhero comics - are.

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I don't know much about superhero comics so it was a more broad point, but it's a bad solution to only have the front and centre characters being diversified. You need to have a good distribution at all levels. Genuinely, most media should have a fifty fifty gender split but it's a rare occurence.

 

(mild spoilers for multiple years old comic stuff)

 

My perception as someone relatively new to the comics (subscribed to Marvel Unlimited a couple months ago, have been making my way through several modern stories 2000-forward including the Avengers) is that women and minorities are being treated well. I'm sure there was a time where it was a white boys club particularly in the incarnation that the MCU is portraying, but some of my favorite stuff to read lately has been really forward thinking. I have enjoyed reading the Ms. Marvel series, where she's done plenty of hero stuff worth noting but still grapples with being insignificant compared to the other AAA (mostly male) heroes. She eventually learns that she doesn't have to be Tony Stark's lieutenant or take charge of the Avengers to matter, she just has to do her own thing on her own terms.

 

Luke Cage is one of the most prominent members of The New Avengers and he's a black man who was wrongly imprisoned for dealing drugs but still fights the good fight. Plus, he's married to Jessica Jones who is a badass private investigator superhero. Mockingbird is Hawkeye's girlfriend who was believed dead, to which I was kinda like "ugggh" but then she had an amazing scene where all of the powered heroes are disabled and she's the only Avengers member left standing since she's a SHIELD agent gone hero. She uses Bucky/Captain America's Luger and Shield to great effect to fight off some serious baddies and save the whole team.

 

Excuse my going off on a huge tangent there, but while the balance of the Avengers wasn't 50:50 during the part of the run I've been reading over the past few months my point is that Marvel is going to great lengths to not only "gender swap" big heroes but also give some lower tier heroes a deserved step up through a lot of extra time on the page. I don't feel like these moves are token, they seem to be a genuine attempt to shine some light on characters who are super cool and got short shrift as compared to the really bankable household name heroes.

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The obvious problem is that it makes an individual's ability to support something directly proportional to their buying power. To be cynical, maybe that's accurate, but it's sure not something to like.

 

What is there to dislike about that though?  It's literally just "more resource you have, more things you can do" because... that's what resources are.  It enable us to do stuff proportionate to their amount.  Unless you are disliking hugely disproportionate resource distribution aspect (which is what I'm guessing here) then I can see why but that seems like a separate issue.

 

Actually I would even say that the whole reason why hugely disproportionate resource distribution is unlikable is precisely because of how much buying power actually matters.

 

That's definitely part of it, but I think more broadly it allows individuals to deflect examining their own pernicious sexism. If someone believes that buying this comic makes you a support of feminism, I could imagine them being more resistant to subtler criticisms of their own sexism. Kind of like of how the "but many of my best friends are black" people don't think of themselves as racist but with a credit card instead.

 

Edit: I suppose it sounds like I'm really unsupportive of lady Thor. As SAM keeps patiently pointing out, it's still entirely possible that this storyline will go in an interesting direction that makes the gender choice meaningful. The little I've seen has made me really skeptical, however.

 

That's valid concern, but on a flip side is people paying pure lip service while directing their resources elsewhere, and in some extreme cases, actually funding stuff that's harmful which is far worse than people who are lending material support but have some dense aspects.  Like everything we do, we can support or oppose things through multiple levels (and sometimes be hypocrites and oppose/support the same thing but on different layer) so why not embrace a culture of material support to a causes you like (while promoting the subtler matters as well, like two are not mutually exclusive is what I'm saying)?

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The obvious problem is that it makes an individual's ability to support something directly proportional to their buying power. To be cynical, maybe that's accurate, but it's sure not something to like.

 

What is there to dislike about that though?  It's literally just "more resource you have, more things you can do" because... that's what resources are.  It enable us to do stuff proportionate to their amount.  Unless you are disliking hugely disproportionate resource distribution aspect (which is what I'm guessing here) then I can see why but that seems like a separate issue.

 

It's not just the distribution of resources. The idea of using purchasing power to direct the world towards the framework we choose is, while realistic, kinda gross to me. It's essentially saying "We can buy feminism". Average out the distribution of resources and it's still "We can vote on feminism". I don't like the idea of a system where important things like that simply reflect the majority opinion.

 

Edited for clarity.

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It's okay to be skeptical - promoting or touting feminism as a commodity is also why I hate those Dove ads. It's not really reflective of radical politics, it's just companies. That being said - I do like representative media, then again, it isn't really diversity in media if you don't also hire more diverse people so they can benefit from all of this money going into these industries. There's no ethical consumption in capitalism, but the least you can do is pay people who aren't white dudes, basically.

Edit:

Genuinely, most media should have a fifty fifty gender split but it's a rare occurence.

There's more than two genders.  :P

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On that note, I'll take a break from defending Marvel (which I really don't want to do too strongly anyway), and point to some super awesome, ongoing, feminist-oriented comics that have women at the helm, namely Bitch Planet and Lumberjanes. What I love about these two in particular is how diametrically opposed they are in tone: one is a dark and darkly funny dystopia about an all-female prison planet and the other is about girl scouts chasing around mythological creatures. Both are great, both are headed by women (Lumberjanes' creative team is entirely women, I believe, while Bitch Planet has a mixed team, but is written by a woman) and both wear their feminism on their sleeves. It's pretty great.

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I can understand the skepticism, after all we are talking about the medium that spawned the women in refrigerators trope (granted that was DC and not Marvel but it was a common practice everywhere).  But I agree with JonCole and tberton.  Comics are trying to move more toward diversity, both in gender and race.  It's a slow change naturally, but I think a radical swing is unlikely to happen, as much as we would all like to see that.  I admit I'm somewhat ignorant about how they actually use those changes though, because despite how much of a comic book geek I sound like, I don't actually read them.

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It's not just the distribution of resources. The idea of using purchasing power to direct the world towards the framework we choose is, while realistic, kinda gross to me. It's essentially saying "We can buy feminism". Average out the distribution of resources and it's still "We can vote on feminism". I don't like the idea of a system where important things like that simply reflect the majority opinion.

 

Edited for clarity.

 

Interesting, I can't quite grasp my mind around that (like, I see this phenomenon (entities with ability and the will to carry out X will achieve X) as natural reality, beyond ethical criticism (that isn't to say that said entities are beyond ethics, as I think their will is viewable through scope of ethics)) but thanks nontheless for trying to explain yourself to me.

 

About comics more broadly, I think webcomics and its large indie scene in general has lot more content catering to female audience (which is weird to say, like is it cool to push this gender specific content instead of trying to erode the difference?), or any other relatively niche comic interest for that matter.

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Interesting, I can't quite grasp my mind around that (like, I see this phenomenon (entities with ability and the will to carry out X will achieve X) as natural reality, beyond ethical criticism (that isn't to say that said entities are beyond ethics, as I think their will is viewable through scope of ethics)) but thanks nontheless for trying to explain yourself to me.

 

I sort of agree. That's how the world works, and not just because that's the lousy reality we're stuck with, but because how else could it possibly work? That said, I wish the world didn't work that way. It's a system in which murder, or, say, the Jim Crow laws, become legal if supported by popular opinion. In a magically perfect, probably impossible world, we would have a system where unambiguously bad stuff like that couldn't become accepted. Theoretically the US legal system is sort of doing that: It wouldn't be impossible to legalize murder, but there are checks and balances that mean it would take more than simply a majority of the vote.

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As far as I understand it, Thor is on the goofy end of the superhero spectrum. Having a character announce that they're a misogynist so they can get beaten up is the kind of tone they're shooting for.

 

Businesses do wield huge influence, though, and they have an alarmingly good record at forcing changes in the world. We might not care for it but we can't expect to solve all the world's problems in one fell swoop. All we can do, really, is to make things better and hopefully push things to the point where it isn't such a wicked problem.

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@Ninety-Three, yeah that really clears things, now I get where you are coming from.  Again, all that explanations are much appreciated.

 

No problem. I enjoy talking through this kind of thing, as it usually forces me to think about and figure out exactly why I feel the way I do. Call it a philosophical version of rubber duck debugging.

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Businesses do wield huge influence, though, and they have an alarmingly good record at forcing changes in the world. We might not care for it but we can't expect to solve all the world's problems in one fell swoop. All we can do, really, is to make things better and hopefully push things to the point where it isn't such a wicked problem.

 

Business are interested in continuing their business and also making a profit. If there are changes, they are usually not in the social interest but rather the interest of the business. They are not and should not be the arbitors of social change. 

 

I don't know, I just find your thoughts really simplistic like - well if you don't like it, oh well! Can't solve everything at once! 

I personally feel that making things better means working towards resisting capitalism but that's me. 

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Comics are trying to move more toward diversity, both in gender and race.  It's a slow change naturally, but I think a radical swing is unlikely to happen, as much as we would all like to see that.

 

Headline: "DC Comics Announces New Diverse Lineup to 'Make Room for More Types of Storytelling, More Fans'.”

 

I appreciate the efforts that Marvel (and now DC apparently) have been going for, even if they don't fix that I find most of their work fundamentally crummy.

 

I'm definitely sick of the two steps forward, one step back approach, though.

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Business are interested in continuing their business and also making a profit. If there are changes, they are usually not in the social interest but rather the interest of the business. They are not and should not be the arbitors of social change. 

 

I don't know, I just find your thoughts really simplistic like - well if you don't like it, oh well! Can't solve everything at once! 

 

'Should not' I understand, but 'are not'? Uber runs rampant through the transport industry, almost certainly making it more expensive for people on fixed and limited incomes - who use taxis most - and taking away taxis in favour of rich fuckwits. Apple has, almost singlehandedly, transformed the way we sit down with others, as long as you stretch the definition of 'with' to also mean 'in close proximity to but ignoring'. Facebook killed off the school reunion. Twitter's fucked with news, and in Australia and elsewhere, with politics. And that's just in the last ten years! There's countless examples of businesses deciding that it's cheaper to warp society to fulfil their financial goals, or even actively setting out to change society by selling lots and lots of their product (e.g. Microsoft, General Electric/Westinghouse, even something like Goldieblox), that to discount business' ability to change the world to suit its ends seems churlish.

 

They're not the only ones capable of doing so, of course.

 

But even putting aside capitalism as an agent for change, it's also worth considering how poorly organisations deliberately set up to improve society tend to do, as their idealism often gets in the way of acknowledging that their solution doesn't scale, is only relevant for their pilot area, or that their solution introduces a host of other problems. Humanitarian work, particularly in the poorest nations, has had to shift rapidly and become more localised as they've grown more aware of their failings, and at least part of that is due to the failures to make that work at scale. Of course, doing so leads to a smattering of humanitarian organisations as healthcare providers, with no ability to co-ordinate, sucking the oxygen out of any efforts to repair the existing healthcare system.

 

This is why I referred to the kind of problems we're talking about as 'wicked' problems, which is a social policy term for problems that are not clearly defined and don't have easy solutions that are clearly win-win. Social injustice is a wicked problem, for instance, as is climate change.

 

Given that corporations are capable of bending the world to their will, for any of these wicked problems we care about, they're going to throw their weight around in the direction that will make them the most money. Getting an outcome we want is going to be much easier if corporations throw their weight in a direction we prefer, even if it's not perfect, even if it could be better, because things are hard enough as they are without trying to dismantle capitalism at the same time.

 

(My perspective on capitalism might be a bit different because I don't live in a capitalism-riven society like America. I imagine it'd be a little more pressing for Americans.)

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I have so very many thoughts about Thor as a woman.

 

First off, I will admit that many of these feelings are conflicting and contradictory, but I will attempt to unpack them with some semblance of grace.

 

Ok, here goes:

 

At first blush, I like things like this. I love woman characters that are strong and tough and physically capable in the most traditionally masculine ways. I love Aeryn Sun from Farscape, Tasha Yar from TNG, Buffy, B'Elanna Torres from ST: Voyager, Starbuck from BSG, Vasquez from Aliens and yes, I know my examples are limited to a certain sci-fi nerd-vernacular from my younger days. (I'm a nerd and these were my touchstones :)

 

I grew up fantasizing that I - tiny little white girl Danielle - could grow up to be a BAD ASS LADY who could physically master her world and hold her own with big, gruff dudes. And Klingons. Definitely with Klingons.

 

So much of this is tied up, for me, in a psychological need to feel strong/tough/capable, and not weak/vulnerable/hurt.

 

So, I love that for ten seconds, in the back of my head just as I step into the real-life boxing ring, I get to pretend I'm Aeryn Sun, or whatever fictional badass character. Or Rhonda Rousey. She's real, at least.

 

And I love combat sports. I love the intensity of competing in them. I suppose I can't be a 100% non-violent person because of that. But I certainly don't think that actual violence solves anything, or should ever be practiced without express consent. I wish the world we lived in glamorized the hard work of training and the purity in competing, not in the money shot of someone getting their face caved in. 

 

I also know that this is a big commercial property, and nothing marvel does - or will ever do - is because someone feels it is the right thing to do. Things get done because they are the commercially smart thing to do. The degree to which this reality is depressing drives me to go back to the boxing gym to punch things.

 

So, I'm conflicted. But, with all mainstream things that may actually have a drop of merit to them, I withhold total judgement because there will undoubtedly be little girls growing up that will see a strong, badass lady in a piece of mainstream media, and they will find some kind of comfort and happiness engaging with that fiction. 

 

TLDR: I like tough women with traditionally masculine kinds of power, capitalism is a depressing reality, and I hope 7-year-old little girls will get something positive from reading about a woman Thor.

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