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heartless guttersnipe (parsimonia) wrote in scans_daily,

Kind of tangential and all over the place, but...
Diana, on the other hand, explicitly draws strength from community.

You know, there are many reasons why that aspect of Wonder Woman can cause discomfort, I realize. Not only the political/cultural differences between modern Western society and Amazon culture, but as you mentioned somewhere else in the thread, it goes against the ideas of individualism, independence and answering to no one but yourself.

On top of that, everyone has the mental baggage of Marston's bondage and submission themes, and general confusion over just what feminism is exactly. But she has the burden of being the big-name female superhero, so she's got to be feminist and represent feminism, otherwise it's sexist. And perhaps because feminism, and the feminism that most of us know, is rooted in modern Western culture, it's hard to separate feminism from the ideas of individualism, independence and answering to no one but yourself.

If Diana is all about community, then submitting to her mother or her sisters or the gods, any instance when she does what someone else asks, there's an argument somewhere in there about that submission being anti-feminist.

The problem with DC's Trinity is that Wonder Woman automatically becomes The Girl, and by extension represents all girls and women. So anything she says or does or anything that happens to her is automatically subject to so much more scrutiny that doing something her Zeus or Superman or whoever asks of her is arguably a Big Deal.

I can't help but picture Wonder Woman as Atlas, with the world on her shoulders. She carries such a burden, because she's almost always the only one seen and assumed to be carrying it.

(My solution of course is to promote Oracle to being up there with, and equally important and influential as, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. More choices in heroes and heroic styles, and do away with Wonder Woman being forever stuck with being The Girl and the only one who can represent feminism. Of course, there's no reason why Clark and Bruce can't be feminists, but having another woman up there allows for variety in feminism and femininity as well.)

(And really, I'd argue that putting community first above individualism is often beneficial to everyone and promotes equality and thus can be seen as more feminist. E.g. public healthcare.)