The title says it all…we’ve finally got a domain! We’ll be leaving this blog up so any old links can still find their way here, but from now on we’ll be posting at girlsreadcomics.com. Please remember to update your RSS feeds, then come on over and say hello.
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I like to read comics about girl friendships. I’ll admit that as a blanket statement that sounds both absurd and really broad, but it’s the truth. I like to see my favourite female characters, hanging out, being friends or colleagues and pretty much having a good time. I was reading the first issue of Captain America and the Secret Avengers, which featured Natalia Romanova and Sharon Carter being their fabulous selves. There was banter and saving the day and getting dressed up and having just a normal (or as normal as it could be) friendship.
And you know what? I loved it.
I almost didn’t want to finish it because I didn’t know when there might be another chance. It seems like the women in comics (as well as in a lot of other media) are put there for romantic relationships first, everything else second. Female friendships seem to suffer when put next to a romantic relationship (regardless of what sort of romantic pairing it is).
Before I get too deep into this, I suppose that I should state for the record that I am mostly talking about Marvel. My knowledge of DC is largely limited in its scope and so I don’t know enough about it to really say anything other than from my perspective is that it doesn’t seem to be as lacking over there as it is in Marvel. However I am more than willing to be proven wrong which is why I want to state that I view this post as a start of a discussion.
I wonder, am I alone in my wanting for this? I can’t be the only one who gets excited over the prospect of an all-girl team that proves that they are as bad-ass (if not more so) than the boys? I can name a few books that feature such set ups in DC, but when I go to look for something in Marvel I tend to come up wanting. Of course there was Marvel Divas which seemed like an attempt to have Female Heroes (or Antiheroes) join together and bond, but it got sappy and ridiculous in a hurry. It was struck me as less about their friendship and more about their broken love lives with a side of girl bonding. There was the short run of Women of Marvel, which I enjoyed greatly but even that had less to do with friendship and more to do with women doing their own thing. I loved it because I got to see some of my favourite ladies in action, but didn’t really feature that witty-banter-while-we-save-the-day sort of thing that I also love.
Is it too much to ask for? Am I looking in all the wrong places or missing something obvious? I hope I am, but after finishing Captain America and the Secret Avengers #1 all I wanted to do was hunt down Sharon and Natalia hanging out, being fabulous and not worrying what their boyfriends might be up to. I want a title that has Sharon, Natalia and Bobbie Morse hanging out, being the spies and using their sarcasm as weapons.
But I am just one woman, so what do the rest of you think? Is there some insane gap in my knowledge (likely yes there is). What do you all say?
There’s been a lot of buzz on the internet about Teenage Satan lately. From their surprise announcement at Boston Comic Con (and the party of the year, from what I hear), to coverage on Newsarama and iFanboy, there are a lot of people interested in this all-female creator-owned project. I was lucky enough to be able to chat with Marsha Cooke and Stephanie Buscema, two thirds of the creative team behind Teenage Satan.
Who is Teenage Satan?
MC: Teenage Satan, real name Luc Satan, is the 14 year old son of Lucifer and Jezebel Satan. He had been homeschooled up until this point, but it’s time he got some real world experience and start real school in September. He’s a freshman (grade 9).
He’s a mama’s boy, sensitive and caring, and not prepared at all for the trials of high school life.
SB: Teenage Satan (Luc), is a rockin’ little demon, son of Lucifer and Jezebel and the next in line to take over the family business, which is running things down in hell. He’s just starting his new life in public school, after being home schooled by his mom for years. He’s adorable, creepy, awkward and a bit geeky. He’s someone we can all relate to in one way or another.
Who came up the idea? Was it collaborative or was it one of you, and how did you approach the others?
MC: I came up with the initial premise, fleshed it out with Candis, and then we approached Stephanie. Once the three of us were a set team, we put the world together.
SB: Marsha came to me with the idea last year, she gave me a list of characters, settings, and a description of the project. I fell in love with it! I’ve been wanting to get my hands on a project that would allow me endless creative freedom so this was the perfect opportunity. I started sketching and painting what came into my head and the rest is history.
What made you decide on the style? It’s beautiful and retro, and I love it, but was it just a natural fit or did you have other ideas before settling on this?
SB: It just kind of happened. I had a list of the characters from the girls with brief descriptions for each, I just took it and ran with it. Whatever came into my head went right on the paper.
MC: Stephanie’s art has a timeless quality – her monsters are both terrifying and cute at the same time. Her imagination is a natural match for anything Hell themed, which I think (hope) was part of the reason she chose to jump on board.
One of the things I love about this, is that is going to be available as an app and the many facets of it. Was that something you always wanted, or was that something that happened secondarily?
SB: This was all Marsha’s genius! She has some amazing ideas as far as the app goes, I was just blown away when she initially approached me about it. It’s not only a comic, it’s a whole experience. I feel that delivering the content digitally is a great way to get the content in to everyone’s hands. More importantly, it’s a great way to get comics into the hands of teens!
MC: Digital with games was always the goal. I was addicted to Angry Birds, I’ve seen everyone fight for rankings on Bejeweled Blitz. Everyone wants to escape into something fun, even for 2 minutes. With 666oduko, a word jumble or a jigsaw puzzle, you are taken away from your private hell, for a minute of escapist fun. Everything is so serious now, we really want to reinforce the concept of fun – it’s been gone for so long no one remembers fun anymore
Who is your favourite character within in the comic? And who do you think will surprise us?
MC: My favourite character is Jezebel – I love that she’s always happy and helpful. Nick and Nicki’s twisted relationship is going to develop through out the run into something special, but only in a few creepy ways.
For updates, check out the website http://teenagesatan.com/ or follow TeenageSatan666 on twitter! Otherwise, you’ll have to wait with the rest of us until September for this awesome new project to come to fruition. Or, if you’re at Heroes Con go by and say hi, I have it on good authority that they’ll be there.
It’s the second of our nearly monthly questions that we pose to the GRCT crew. We’d love to hear what you think, or your thoughts on what we think too!
Question: Sidekicks form an important part of the comic world. Who is your favourite sidekick and why?
Dee: I had a really hard time with this one. My two favourite sidekicks — one an old favourite and one new — are both amazing. So, because I’m a bit frustrating that way, I’m going to cover them both.
Lockheed, sidekick of Kitty Pryde
I don’t know how much more dedicated a companion can get than following them back from space. Lockheed does just this, and the relationship he develops with Kitty is a deep and complex one. He’s more than a pet, his empathic nature meaning they understand each other. His ability to speak and knowledge of languages is something that was debated for a long time, and while he can speak he rarely does. More importantly, he’s a friend to Kitty. Even when it’s shown that he’s been working for SWORD, it’s Kitty that’s the most important thing to him, and her loss changes him completely. He regrets his mistakes, and shows remorse, working with Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers.
Lockheed is powerful, extremely so. His fire breathing is very powerful, he’s unable to be read by telepaths, and his knowledge of languages and empathy means he can communicate with nearly any species should he want to. But, with all of that power, he chose to stay with Kitty. He stayed with his friend, and when she’s gone, regrets her loss.
Atlee, the third Terra, friend of Power Girl
A teenaged girl with the power to control the earth, and yet no experience in dealing with those that live on the surface of it. At first it seems a strange person to team with Power Girl who’s experienced so much. But Terra’s naivete doesn’t mean she’s an idealist, and she’s worked hard to get the whole superhero thing down. If anything, she reminds Power Girl just what is great about being on earth as she discovers it herself, and her optimism is infectious. The two make a great team, and whilst neither of them truly needs a partner power-wise, they both need a friend.
Emma: These days I’m not really much of a fan of the idea of “sidekicks” because it implies that their narrative is secondary to someone else’s and so it suggests a denial of their agency (although that is not always the case). With that said, I feel like there is only one honest answer I could give; Robin. Conceived of as a viewpoint character for young readers, the role has gone on to do just that for several generations of readers who not only got to imagine themselves alongside Batman, but watched as their particular Robin grew up to take on their own independent identity and become stars in their own right.
Dick Grayson went on to become Nightwing and eventually Batman only to have to babysit for Bruce. Jason Todd shoots people and wears layered masks or a bucket on his head, typically doing flips and shit as the Red Hood when he isn’t sleeping with Bruce’s baby mama. Tim Drake became the third Dr. Midnite, did not get an owl as part of the deal, and continues to be a popular target for bricks and severed heads (with grenades stuffed in their mouths). Stephanie Brown went on to not be dead, became Batgirl, continues to rep the eggplant and use Tim’s head for target practice. She is currently inexplicably estranged from her significant other- Blackbat- and may be seeing Supergirl on the side. Damian Wayne is just Robin so far, but whatever he goes on to do will probably have something to do with kittens.
Lina: So I am theoretically meant to follow Emma, who might’ve just given the best answer to the question. Oh well, I’ll try my hardest to follow that up and we can see where it goes. I have the hardest time discerning what exactly a “sidekick” is. I blame this thoroughly on my overactive imagination and my tendency to gravitate towards characters who (at least at the start) are tertiary. Does not being the title character or the main villain make them a sidekick? I have no idea, but I’ll say who I think best fits into this mould.
After a lot of thought I’m going to have to say that one of my favourite sidekicks would be Lockjaw of the Inhumans. He’s more than just a pet, he’s royalty and managed to head-up one of my favourite (if not utterly absurd) short-run series of the past year (re: Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers). He’s a psychic dog and is totally amazing, even if he sometimes bumbles into things that he shouldn’t. Like when he told the rest of the world about Attilan. Probably not the best PR move, but it happened. He tracked down Black Bolt, he saves the day and is every bit a character in his own right (the dog has super-strength AND psychic powers).
I managed to catch a screening of Thor at my local theater this past weekend. To be honest, back when they first started promoting Thor (way back before Iron Man 2, if my memory serves), I figured that it’d be the movie out of Marvel’s whole Avengers line-up that I really only saw to complete the set. You’ve got to see all of the movies leading up to Avengers to get the full picture, so I’d be forking over $10 for the greater good. I’ve never read a Thor comic, and the closest I’ve even come is reading bits of New Avengers, and he’s not even around for most of that. Admittedly, I went in knowing absolutely nothing about Thor, except he’s got a hammer, he’s a god of some type and that Chris Hemsworth is a very, very pretty man.
Hey, I’m allowed to be at least a little superficial here.
Spoilers for Thor, and for the post-credits scene, after the jump.
Continue reading
When I wrote “Do You,” I wanted to specifically avoid centering my voice and experiences in fandom since it was meant as a response to specific attacks against women who are not me, but with that done I can get back to talking about myself. Am I kidding? Who knows! But let’s get down to brass tacks. “Boobs” was a big word the other day and I’m sure that some genital based slang got thrown around too somewhere. Which is a perfectly fine word to self identify with if you’ve got a pair whether they’re the ones you were born with, added later, or are detachable.
What isn’t fine is defining women as the owners of breasts and vaginas, whatever clever euphemism you’re using. Not all women have both or either (and not all who do identify as female), for any of a number of different reasons. I- for example- am a trans woman who does not particularly enjoy being erased, even as part of a misogynistic diatribe. When I hinted at there being other intersections of privilege and oppression at work in female geek circles, that was one of the herd of elephants. Just like how the vast majority of cisgender female geeks would prefer to be accepted and included as equal participants, so to do trans* geeks of the full spectrum of gender identities.
The other part I wanted to bring up is that I really want to make it as clear as possible that there is no “debate” or “other side” to the issue of women lashing out at other women as a consequence of internalized misogyny. It’s not a valid question to ask if and how women should self identify in geek circles. It’s not up for discussion. What is up for discussion is dismantling the attitudes and behaviors that lead to this kind of incident. Any time that you set out to police another woman’s identity or choices that are not doing demonstrable harm to anyone else, you are immediately in the wrong. I really am not trying to hear anything about allegedly obnoxious behavior by this or that group of female geeks. There are Buffys and Cordelias, Rainbow Dashes and Raritys. Neither one is inherently better than the other.
The point of the “Do You” philosophy is that you let other people self determinate to the same degree that you expect from them. I was on the bus a few hours after posting up “Do You and Other Words of Wisdom” flipping through the comments from my phone while on the bus to work and several girls got on the bus chattering away about pokemon, anime, and about a dozen other topics in the span of about five minutes. They certainly weren’t operating at my frequency, but they were engaging with each other in a positive way and that’s really all that mattered. So the next time you see something that irks you in fandom, take a second to really examine where that feeling comes from. Are they actually taking away from your (or anyone else’s) ability to engage respectfully, or are they just operating on a different frequency?
Cassandra Cain as Batgirl (II) by James Jean
In considering Cassandra Cain, a significant deviation needs to be made from how I was able to analyze Barbara Gordon. Babs’ life easily conforms to both the conventions of western literature and to the ideals of (white) western feminism so my task was hardly more difficult than stitching together the most significant events of her life and superimposing them against the framework of conventional femininity. For Cassandra to be properly understood, a complete reinterpretation of her is necessary because of a basic lack of understanding of the difference between sex and gender on the part of her original creators.
What gets focused on both in the text and the fandom at large about Cassandra’s childhood is that she was raised in seclusion by her father- David Cain- without being taught to read, write, or speak; she was only taught to fight and kill. The part that gets overlooks is that Cassandra was never assigned a gender at birth, based on her sex or otherwise. While never recognized or expounded on in the text, Cassandra is what queer, trans*, and intersex circles would refer to as UAAB (Unassigned at Birth) in contrast to either MAAB (Male Assigned At Birth) or FAAB (Female Assigned At Birth). From her birth until she was taken in by Bruce and Babs, Cassandra had no concept of gender and thus no fixed gender identity until she was (unknowingly) coercively assigned female by Bruce when he named her Batgirl.
Which doesn’t close the book on Cassandra’s gender identity because it doesn’t account for her self image, a particularly tricky thing to pick out from the incredibly exaggerated depictions of gender in superhero comics. While there’s little to suggest that Cassandra could be transmasculine as she has never challenged or rejected the assumption that she is female beyond the point that she could be reasonably assumed to understand the concept of gender (as discreet from sex), there’s also just as little to suggest that she does in fact internally identify as female. I’m not entirely ruling out the possibility that Cassandra is transmasculine, but my opinion is that her gender identity is non binary or gender neutral.
One of the biggest clues supporting a non binary or neutral gender identity is her original costume. The tendency to draw her with much bigger and more prominent breasts than is realistic or probable notwithstanding, she immediately removed all of the clues to not just her identity but her gender as well from a costume and a legacy that has in every other iteration firmly and intentionally communicated femininity. Cassandra is the only one of the Batgirls or Batwomen who wore no visible make up while in costume nor hair (real or otherwise) spilling out the back of her cowl. The other is that Cassandra has never presented as femme unless directed or coerced into it by a third party. She appears to have absolutely no interest in influencing what gender people read her as.
Interestingly enough, Cassandra’s androgyny seems to expose the sexism of the batfamily; most notably in how differently Bruce, Tim, and Damian treat her relative to Stephanie. Typically, any criticisms or concerns about Cassandra were voiced in terms of her being dangerous, unpredictable, or uncontrollable while the vast majority of criticism leveled at Stephanie as Spoiler, Robin, and Batgirl have been gendered- especially Tim’s brutal manipulations and Damian’s misogynist tirades.
Unfortunately an accurate analysis and extrapolation of Cassandra’s gender identity cannot progress far beyond a rough sketch because her primary struggle has been for agency, something that she’s rarely been able to achieve and maintain for long. All things considered, I can’t help but think that despite the fact that Tim Drake was in the role at the time, Cassandra was better suited to be the first regular continuity FAAB Robin than to follow in Babs’ footsteps to become the second Batgirl.
What the continued failure to slow down and explore the nuances of Cassandra’s identity beyond her capacity to kill and value as a living weapon exposes is how blind mainstream writers and much of the readership are to the critical difference between sex and gender. Cassandra having been raised without an assigned gender or exposure to socialized gender norms should not lead the reader to the conclusion that gender is purely a social construction, but rather created the potential to explore gender as a pure, innate expression of self that sits at the core of her character like a black hole.
As it currently stands, I believe that no one can honestly say that we know very much of anything about Cassandra’s self identity based on her published appearances alone which is a very strange and troubling thing to say about a character who held a solo series for over 70 issues. Cassandra stands as a testament to the fact that the dialogue about gender in mainstream superhero comics must extend beyond improving female representation to the recognition that gender is neither predicated on sex nor a binary.
Writer: Lisa Joy
Artist: Jim Fern
★★★★☆
Sarah is an 18-year-old girl who also happens to be the Greek Goddess, Athena. In her life, there’s no such thing as hyperbole. Hera, her evil stepmother, is out to kill her. The bad boy she falls in love with is Hades, king of the underworld. And the philandering father whose approval she always seeks and fails to attain is none other than Zeus, the ultimate deadbeat dad. Now Sarah must embrace her destiny and take on the gods in order to stop them from destroying mankind.
Sounds awesome, right? The moment I laid eyes on this, I knew it was right up my alley. If there’s one thing I love more than the Greek myths, it’s the Greek gods living in modern times, and Headache delivers that in spades.
We follow Sarah, a young woman in a mental institution who dreams she’s really the goddess Athena. After breaking out, she begins regaining her memories, following someone who looks like her (dead) mother to the house where most of the Greek gods now live. There, she meets Zeus, Hera, Aphrodite, Dionysus, Hades, the lot of them. I would have liked to see a lot more of the interplay between the family here, but we do get an amazing spread with each of the gods chatting away around the dinner table.
But this is Sarah’s story. She figures out Zeus and the gods want to create another Armageddon, have mankind destroy each other because the gods were no longer needed or worshiped – a simple, but effective plot. Through it, we see many different sides of Sarah, which I love. She’s vulnerable, strong, confused, smart, everything a well-rounded character should be. Plus, she eventually kicks ass.
There are tons of funny moments throughout, plus a great mix of emotion and action as the story moves forward. Best line had to be one coming from Zeus about his daughter: “I was worried she’d want to save mankind. Turns out, she just wants Hot Pockets.”
There were a few things I didn’t like, mostly in the way the story flowed – at times it seemed things happened from moment to moment just because the story had to move forward. Hephaestus and Aphrodite, Diana and Apollo, for one. It was nice seeing them, and Hephaestus did serve a purpose, but they felt shoehorned in at the time. (Thinking about it, it’s a very TV way of doing things, which makes sense.)
That aside, this is a good book from a woman who has credits like Burn Notice and Pushing Daisies (!!!!) under her belt. Get if you enjoy Greek myths, capable female leads and saving the world shenanigans.
Headache was released on May 4th from Kickstart Comics.
Disclaimer: This copy was sent to me from the lovely folks at Kickstart. This in no way influenced my review.
Editor’s note (a fancy way of saying Emma talking about herself in the third person at three in the morning): This is the first of a four part series on the gender identity and presentation of the four post-crisis female members of the Batfamily- Barbara Gordon, Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown, and Katherine Kane- that Emma first teased us with back in January. She has yet to show any remorse for either the delay or the awful Beyonce related pun.
Barbara Gordon as Batgirl by Phil Noto
For pretty much all intents and purposes Barbara Gordon is the progenitor, the first serious and lasting addition to the Batfamily who went on to create and maintain a powerful legacy of her own by mentoring not only both her successors as Batgirl but several other young women including the similarly disabled daughter of her nemesis The Calculator. Her power and influence as Batgirl and especially Oracle is unquestionable, but what about Barbara Gordon the woman? Who is she and how does her personal expression of femininity inform her actions and her legacy?
Babs presents an interesting and unique opportunity to explore women in genre fiction because of not only how voluminous her canon is relative to her most popular and frequently cited contemporaries (Buffy Summers and Ellen Ripley), but also because of how completely and iconically her canon portrays her as both maiden and mother, which is something that not even Wonder Woman can claim despite her much longer and more cohesively collected history. When asked about why Wonder Woman’s role in Final Crisis was so diminished relative to Batman and Superman, Grant Morrison echoed an often heard sentiment, that Wonder Woman should be to all women as Superman is to all men but stated emphatically that has never truly been the case. The ideal that despite her problematic origin and early material by her creator, she should or could go on to become a universal symbol of womanhood is very much in line with one of the core themes of the DCU; the relation of the individual to the iconic. Except that doesn’t appear to be what most women invested in contemporary genre fiction are looking for. As a kind of pop culture godform of female strength, Diana has proven to be quite effective, but she has never been able to deliver any kind of noteworthy insight into or commentary on the experience of being a woman.
Wonder Woman makes perfect sense to men. The Amazon Princess from Paradise. It’s a perfect compliment to the fantasies of the billionaire playboy and the alien superman. Diana’s fatal flaw is that she is Woman Denatured. A woman with all the icky things that men recoil from taken out, as illustrated by her Pygmalion origin; the baby made of clay. Wonder Woman’s most reoccurring story is each successive writer’s attempt to re-define and in some way humanize her which- given it’s ubiquity- never seems to take no matter how many times she has her powers taken away or is forced to live undercover as a mortal human. It all comes across as a man’s increasingly desperate attempts at understanding women, giving her canon an irretrievably fractured quality.
Barbara Gordon never required any such extreme measures. To the outside observer, she seems ancillary to Batman with her Adam’s Rib origin and guise, an idea that is laughably absurd to even the most casual reader. Barbara did not start life as a clay simulacrum of a woman. She was introduced as a librarian chafing under the doting eye of her policeman father and the tedium of her comfortable existence, an all too real experience for many of the women in the audience. Despite the accidental nature of her first adventure as Batgirl- foiling Killer Moth’s attempt to crash a costume party- crime fighting has always been a primarily intellectual pursuit for Barbara. Even before she took on the Oracle persona, her greatest skill and the focus of most of her stories as Batgirl was her intellect. From the beginning, Barbara sought to prove her intellectual equality if not outright superiority to the men in her life, mostly by arriving to the same conclusions they did before them.
Although she boldly appropriated Batman’s symbol and demanded his respect, Barbara never intended her creation of the Batgirl identity to be a feminist act, unlike Power Girl who joined the JSA explicitly to prove that women had a place in the superhero community. Babs was on a personal quest, and at first it was even more about proving it to herself than anyone else as she frequently downplayed her role in solving crimes, sometimes even to preserve the egos of the men around her. Even after she was paralyzed and became Oracle, Barbara retained her desire for anonymity, this time seeking a level of it that obscured her gender entirely.
That desire for anonymity and isolation may have begun as an effect of her shooting and difficult rehabilitation, but it took on a new dimension in her interactions with the Suicide Squad and the deep impact that Amanda Waller had on her personality and goals as Oracle. Through her time at Belle Reve, Barbara came to understand a completely different perspective on crime fighting than what she had been used to as Batgirl. Instead of the vigilante approach of patrolling a limited physical area and reacting to crimes in progress, Amanda Waller had carved out a position where she could proactively respond to situations across the country or even the globe, which became the original basis of the Birds of Prey when Barbara left the Suicide Squad. In addition to her operational model, Barbara emulated Amanda’s cool detachment from her operatives, as evinced by the botched mission that resulted in the feud between Babs and Power Girl. It isn’t very clear when Barbara’s primary goal changed from proving herself to becoming the most important mother figure in the DCU, but I think it’s reasonable to assume that it started when the anonymity of the Oracle persona was broken in a meaningful way when she met Dinah face to face for the first time and crystallized when she took in Cassandra Cain.
There’s an important distinction to be made between her activities with the Birds of Prey and her role as the coach of Team Batgirl. While both became safe spaces for female superheroes to operate on their own terms without having to answer to male authority they reflect two distinct impulses; Barbara’s desire for sisterhood and her desire for motherhood. As far as we know, Dinah was the first woman that Babs shared an intimate connection with that encompassed both her life as a superhero and a civilian, which opened Barbara’s world view to the idea of sisterhood and became the cornerstone of the Birds of Prey when it shifted from being Barbara’s attempt to emulate Amanda Waller into the combined efforts of Babs, Dinah, and Helena.
While the story of the Birds of Prey has never been a fairy tale, Team Batgirl is perhaps the harshest test that Barbara has faced as it was the moment in which she became a mother. Much like her first true meeting with Dinah, Babs’ role as surrogate mother for Cassandra Cain was thrust on her by circumstances rather than something she sought out. Her relationship with Cassandra was likely doomed to a tragic end from the beginning by what amounted to an ongoing dispute over parenting styles between her and Bruce. While Barbara saw a wounded soul who needed nurturing and time away from the violence that defined her life from birth, Bruce was fascinated by what David Cain had accomplished with his daughter and sought to leverage Cassandra’s gifts towards his war on crime, which resulted in several heated exchanges between the two. This tension only made Barbara push Cassandra harder to learn to speak, read, and write that created a deep resentment in Cassandra that has likely never fully healed given their estrangement and Cassandra’s eventual formal adoption by Bruce. Her declaration that she had been Batgirl for him when she relinquished the name and costume to her successor Stephanie Brown upon his death made her feelings about Barbara and their time together abundantly clear.
While Barbara did attempt to mentor Misfit and Black Alice, it wasn’t until Stephanie returned from Africa following her supposed death that she made a sustained effort at creating a lasting relationship with a young hero. More than just recognizing shades of her younger self in Stephanie both in her determination to be Batgirl against any and all who would dissuade her and the violence she suffered at the hands of the Black Mask, Barbara saw an opportunity to redeem herself and her legacy for the mistakes she made with Cassandra much like Jim Gordon did when he retained custody of Babs following the dissolution of his marriage. Most modern readers readers are familiar with his ex-wife and son James Jr. through Batman: Year One, but further reading reveals just how poor the relationship between Jim and his son was.
Jim himself was a survivor of abuse plagued by the fear that he would abuse his own son and came dangerously close to it on several occasions culminating in Jim Jr pulling a gun on his father, ostensibly to protect his mother during an argument. This proved to be the breaking point that drove Jim’s wife Barbara to leave him and take Jim Jr with her to Chicago. Whether Babs is cognizant of it or not, her estrangement from Cassandra and fierce protectiveness of Stephanie closely resembles how Jim attempted to atone for his failures as a father to his son through his doting on Babs. However, there is more to Barbara’s devotion to Stephanie than simply righting the wrongs done to Cassandra. Her continued desire to find an heir following Cassandra’s departure to Bludhaven and eventual disappearance despite her admonishments to both Charley and Stephanie suggest that Barbara has reached a point in her life where she feels incomplete without someone to carry on her legacy as Batgirl, despite the greater operational capacity of the Birds of Prey. In that sense, Stephanie (as well as Cassandra) is truly a daughter to Babs whether or not either of them are willing to admit it openly. The same may be said in the future of Wendy Harris, but only time will tell.
Barbara Gordon as a woman is defined by her relentless drive for self improvement and her complete disregard for the limitations placed on her. She could have had a secure, easy life as a librarian. Instead she chose to carve out a place for herself at immense personal cost. As a feminist, she took the gains she made for herself and transferred them to her contemporaries through the post Hunt for Oracle Birds of Prey and her successors through the Batgirl mantle.
This is, to be perfectly honest, one of those posts that should never have to be written but we don’t live in some kind of post-feminist utopia where women are taken seriously as equal participants in anything so I end up having to write this instead of wrapping up the second part of my long awaited series on the female post-crisis batfamily members.
This is a thing that happened. Neither piece represents anything remotely new in terms of the kind of vile attacks that female geeks are subjected to on a daily basis- in this case both from other women- but shit gets real when a female blogger gets targeted with violent language just for daring to attach a signifier of her gender to her blog title. Which is beyond obscene. Before even getting into the whole “hot girls” being geeks thing, I just have to say that these so called commentators have to stop centering hetero-normative masculinity in every single discussion about women and their self identification.
Women- heterosexual identifying or otherwise- do not pause to think of men every time they make a decision. It’s not the real world. That is kyriarchy fantasy land, okay. Give it up. It may come as a surprise, but women do actually think about themselves and each other before men sometimes. It’s a thing that happens quite frequently. Dee and Chantaal, for instance, when they founded this site didn’t really give a shit about what any man had to say when they named it “Girls Read Comics Too.” Their concern, which echoes my own motivations for contributing here, were to reach other women.
Female geeks are essentially members of a vast diaspora. While we don’t have a common physical homeland, we share the feeling of dispersal and isolation that comes from being a group frequently adrift in populations who are indifferent or hostile to us. Being the only female identified geek in any setting can be and frequently is uncomfortable, alienating, and humiliating. What the Internet- and the web 2.0 platform in specific- offers is the potential to connect this vast diaspora into communities for the first time, which is precisely what many of us have done both consciously and subconsciously. Identifying as female in geek spaces online is not comparable to lighting a candle to attract moths- the moths will always gather, intention be damned- it’s firing a flare from a lifeboat for passing planes and boats to see. Occasionally we just want to talk among ourselves in spaces where we can vent our feelings in a setting where there is common ground and mutual respect. I’m not going to claim that female oriented or exclusive spaces are free of other elements of kyriarchal oppression (ableism, racism, classism, cissexism, heterosexism to name a few), but I do want to make it absolutely sparklingly crystal that the assertion of female identity in geek spaces- especially on the Internet- is rarely if ever done with male attention as the primary motivation. We do in fact wish to seek each other out and increase our visibility.
One of the other incredibly important reasons that women raise their voices as women in geek circles is the very ugly and very real erasure and bigotry that we suffer despite our considerable contributions both monetary and otherwise to the various geek communities of which we are a part. In comics, despite the unavoidable presence of female bloggers, readers, and creators there continues to be a strong contingent both within the major companies and the fandom at large who believe that if women are even entitled to participate in the fandom, they should do so on the terms set out for them by the hetero-normative male establishment. Thus we are forced to assert ourselves to remind them we exist and we intend our voices be heard, yet are frequently rewarded with bigotry and threats of violence.
The other side of the issue is the pressure to de-feminize both our engagement with geek culture and our bodies, as highlighted in the Salon piece. In many cases it simply is not enough for women to assimilate into the means by which media is consumed and discussed by the male segment of our fandoms. Our bodies must be policed as well. Women who are considered attractive by heteronormative male standards are to be seen and not heard; consumed as objects and never respected as subjects. For such a woman to speak in her own voice is a heinous crime. Apparently it is outright heresy to believe that Rosario Dawson- who has appeared in three live action and one animated adaptations from comics, collaborated with the highest profile “geeks” in the film industry (Kevin Smith, Quentin Tarantino, Frank Miller, Rob Zombie), and co-created her own comic book- is authentic in her self identification as a geek. It’s an outright misogynistic lie. Why shouldn’t any woman confess to enjoying what are by Generation X and Y standards, quite common pursuits? Is it really that difficult to imagine that Mila Kunis, who has appeared in over a hundred episodes of Family Guy and worked on Robot Chicken, may have in fact reached out to explore some part of the geek culture that the characters she plays take part in whether in a professional or recreational capacity? Why isn’t anyone but Warren Ellis mentioning the fact that Helen Mirren wore a t-shirt eulogizing Harvey Pekar to the San Diego Comic Convention?
Behind all the misogyny and body policing of female geeks lies the very simple truth that there is absolutely no dichotomy between femininity and geek culture and women have been engaging with a geek culture of their very own for decades before the gatekeepers of male geek culture decided to validate any kind of female participation in their hallowed pursuits. Where- might I ask- is the line between my Monster High Frankie Stein doll and the Power Girl action figure who stands not six inches away? Mattel is selling an SDCC exclusive Superhero variant Ghoulia Yelps doll this year, and had an exclusive Frankie Stein last year. It’s a completely arbitrary distinction.
Women don’t magically become geeks when they engage in male dominated geek culture. Women become geeks when they apply the geek ethos to whatever they lay their hands on, whether it be fashion, doll collecting, or World of Warcraft and they will bring their feminine sensibilities- however those may manifest themselves- with them. A guy might repaint an action figure with an obscure costume, a girl might do the same or even modify a Barbie doll into her favourite mutant. Not every pursuit and insight that women bring to geek culture will be comfortable to men. It may be difficult to believe, but women don’t exist anywhere to comfort and reinforce male thought.
Attacking and invalidating women who choose feminine identities is an inherently sexist act that seeks to limit the ways in which women are allowed to express themselves, to deny them agency. As part of the dialogue surrounding the two pieces mentioned above, I stumbled into some pretty disgusting criticisms of Team Unicorn, a group of self professed girl geeks whose mission statement includes reversing femme erasure and bashing in geek circles, going so far as to define themselves as not being meant to exist. A specific piece of criticism against their parody of Katy Perry’s California Girls caught my attention. Team Unicorn was, according to one commenter, dressed to appeal to straight men. Again, I have to wonder at why the dialogue surrounding women and their choices has to be viewed through a lens of masculinity. Who is this person to discount queer female desire? When has it ever been a fact that queer women aren’t attracted to conventionally female presenting women? I’ll readily admit to having sexual fantasies about Rachel Maddow, especially when she’s wearing glasses, but I’m no less attracted to Cate Blanchett and why shouldn’t I be? Female sexuality- heterosexual or otherwise- conforms to none but the individual woman’s personal narrative. It’s just one more way that hetero-normative male geek culture seeks to control female participation, their desires must conform to expectation.
If you’re a woman who wants to assimilate into hetero-normative male geek culture, then do you. That’s a valid choice. However, these two pieces- both written by women- are emblematic of a very disturbing phenomenon. Out of some inexplicable need to exercise their sizable internalized misogyny, they attack the perfectly valid choices that other women have made, creating a fog of war around the place of women in geek culture as the misogynist element of the male population latches onto these attacks as validation for their disgusting behaviour. It’s nothing more than women quite willingly underwriting misogyny. It’s not a part of any kind of debate. It’s an ugly and ignorant campaign that has no place in the discourse whatsoever.
