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]

We're getting down to fine semantics here; I interpreted that as 'sooner or later, men will disappoint you' rather than 'men will always disappoint you in every situation', so that could be why we feel differently about that.

I'd've preferred it if she'd laid stress elsewhere; for a woman who's strongly feminist, men will disappoint intellectually quite a lot of the time, and it would have been nice to place emphasis on that. Then, perhaps she feels that as a heterosexual woman, she can get intellectual conversation from other women, but sex, not so much, so it's important to address that. (I'm not sure if the three students are hetersexual, or if it's been eastablished.) But I wish she hadn't said that 'most of all'.

But at the same time, I like her saying that men aren't necessary to complete a woman, and that she advises skipping them entirely and using toys - again, not that this needs to be the One True Message, but it's a good message to have out there mingling with the others. (It would be lovely to have a diversity of feminist messages out in comics; then the few that are there wouldn't need to please everyone.)

[whitesycamore]

We're getting down to fine semantics here; I interpreted that as 'sooner or later, men will disappoint you' rather than 'men will always disappoint you in every situation', so that could be why we feel differently about that.

Ah, I think you might be right about the root of our disagreement. I definitely interpreted her as saying that all men will inevitably disappoint you. I still think that is probably the intended meaning, but I can see why your interpretation is also valid.

I'd've preferred it if she'd laid stress elsewhere; for a woman who's strongly feminist, men will disappoint intellectually quite a lot of the time, and it would have been nice to place emphasis on that. Then, perhaps she feels that as a heterosexual woman, she can get intellectual conversation from other women, but sex, not so much, so it's important to address that. (I'm not sure if the three students are hetersexual, or if it's been eastablished.) But I wish she hadn't said that 'most of all'.

Word. I think it's the "most of all in the bedroom" bit that also struck me as Cartoon Dominatrix-y - a sort of "you pathetic men could not hope to satisfy us awesome goddesses" spiel, which particularly grates on me because I identify somewhat as a dominant woman, and that is not at all how I experience my sexuality.

[proteus_lives]

"Word. I think it's the "most of all in the bedroom" bit that also struck me as Cartoon Dominatrix-y - a sort of "you pathetic men could not hope to satisfy us awesome goddesses" spiel"

She should ask Kelda about Bill, born of Bills.

[shadowpsykie]

She should ask Kelda about Bill, born of Bills.

,.... *whimper* oh Bill....

[proteus_lives]

He's chilling in the Hall of Heroes. He'll be back in Kelda's arms one day.

[valtyr]

On the last bit, one could interpret it as simply Valkyrie's own issues - a mortal man would probably have trouble keeping up with her. ;) I think for this character, what she said is good; but you're right it shouldn't be taken as a completely accurate Here Is How To Do Feminisim or anything. Again, I think it comes back to the lack of diversity in feminist messages - I'm just so glad to see a woman in comics declaring that the patriarchy sucks and the media spoonfeeds damaging messages to girls, and no-one even disputing it. :)

[cleome45]

I mostly agree with all of this.

Plus, given that usually the only kind of feminism we see in these things is the straw kind, I'll be pretty pleased if somebody could tell me that the storyline didn't end with Tigra having to give some speech about how some women overreact when most men are really groovy people deep down and just need our understanding and guidance and yadda yadda yadda.

Also, the art is nice. There's actually still mainstream cartoonists who can draw more than one or two facial expressions-- correctly?!

[single womanly tear of joy goes here]