Valkyrie on Feminism and "natural appetites"

[proteus_lives]

Greetings True Believers!

Here 3 funny scans from Avengers Academy #3. Various superheroes are visiting the kiddies to teach them various stuff. One class has the female cadets learning from the mighty Shield-Maiden herself!

Her advice is...to the point.

Plus, a Juggernaut funny!



Class is in session.





I want a Hercules and Valkyrie mini now.

The kiddies are also in a "super-scared straight" program where they visit The Raft and talk to the Thunderbolts.

Reptil has a question for Cain.



Hehe, is Reptil to polite to ask him to say, "I'm the Juggernaut bitch!"

Comments

[valtyr]

Well, IDK - I read Tigra's 'Yeah, I know, here goes the feminist again,' as the kind of slightly self-deprecating thing plenty of feminist women say - they don't want to rock the boat too much or invoke stereotypes or piss off the men around them, but they want to do their feminist stuff, so they say something like that. Like, I kinda laughed and sighed, because it seemed very real to me to see a strong, proud woman kind of downplay her feminism.

And I must admit, I saw Valkyrie as pretty much telling it like it us about the patriarchy, and I didn't feel she was mocked - it was presented as funny, sure, but I felt that was more in the mythological-adult-gives-teens-beer-and-inappropriate-talk way, as Hercules and Ultimate Thor have done. Tigra's objections seemed to be more about the sex and booze aspects rather than the fight-the-patriarchy talk. Although of course this is in the realm of interpretation, and I quite see how you might feel differently.

I dunno, I really liked the fact that a woman was mentoring younger women and was actually concerned they had enough suitable female role-models, and specifically invoked feminist theory to justify this. And the genius scientist is all 'oh yes, this is completely valid and correct, I'm just wondering Valkyrie is totally clear on what she's meant to be doing'. Like, everyone in these scans seem to be down with the idea that feminism and working to give young women support and role models is a good idea, and I find this refreshing.

And also a female character is speaking frankly to other female characters about female desire and sexuality, and presenting it in a non-judgmental way - wow. I really like that.

[whitesycamore]

And also a female character is speaking frankly to other female characters about female desire and sexuality, and presenting it in a non-judgmental way - wow. I really like that.

She was being pretty judgmental about women who might actually want to have sex with men. I really don't like her implication that actively desiring men is buying into the idea that you need a man to be happy, or that having sex with men and keeping your mind on what is "truly important" are mutually exclusive.

[valtyr]

This is interpretation, of course, but I read that as desiring men is natural, but Valkyrie thinks it's best just to take care of said desire oneself, because men will disappoint one way or another. It didn't come across as judgmental to me. (Well, not of women.)

I don't really have a problem with her view that sex and romance are a distraction from what she considers more important things - in this case, cleaving skills. Especially placed in the wider context of comics messages; there are so many messages saying that sex and romance are the important things for girls, I like having this contrary message that not only are they not that important, they can actually distract from the important things. Sure, if all the messages in comics were about how women couldn't have sex with men and do important stuff that would be problematic, but given that they're not, I think this is a good one to have.

[terrykun]

Yeah, it felt more like (badly done) Thundra than Val. :\