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

[pyrotwilight]

Valkyrie as a teacher. XD Oh wo-man that's great.

Might want to shrink your images a bit since the first two are getting covered by SD's sidebar stuff.

[pyrotwilight]

Or not, man my comp was buggy there for a sec.

[seriousfic]

"UMBRIDGE SMASH!"

[xammax]

*Looks down*

I still love you.

[bwhahahabeck]

Lol oh god I was just about to post the Valkyrie scene.

Posted to the right post, this time....

[kamino_neko]

So, the chick in the yellow kit...she's evil, right?

[bwhahahabeck]

Not *really*, she wants to get revenge on Osborn for torturing her.

[kamino_neko]

Doing a good imitation of it...but I guess being all vengeance-focussed will do that to you.

[bwhahahabeck]

Yeah, she's got some of her wires crossed, but you gotta remember she's a teenager who almost killed her boyfriend and was then tortured by Osborn and made even worse.

[proteus_lives]

Her origin paints her as a more pissed-off Rogue.

[proteus_lives]

I wasn't going to do another post today but I read this and realized it had to be shared.

[stig]

I feel this script could be improved a bit if Tigra was shown up as the comedically ignorant character and Valkyrie was shown to have a point. When women in the Middle East are getting their noses cut off and their clitoris' mutilated, when women in so many areas of the West are the unspoken victims of domestic abuse, when the male-run churches think they can dictate every right a woman has to her body and her independence, when the sexist prejudice if many employers drives women out of work, when prostitution and exploitative porn still run unchecked...it's kind of cretinous for a comic aimed at a young teen audience to be written like this.

I mean, come on - Tigra emphasises 'feminist' as if it's adirty word that she knows less about than Sarah Palin? Tigra, whose most recent forays back into the limelight were 'Got phusically abused by a man in a magic cape' and 'Unknowingly seduced an alien terrorist'? And Valkyrie - a strong-willed female character who actually wears functional armour - is re-branded as the comedy man-hating feminist who 'gotta be a dyke cuz they hate men, AMIRITE FELLAS'. Why didn't they just give her a buzz-cut and have her burn a phallus in effigy, if they wanted to be wilfully ignorant?

[gargoylekitty]

It actually sounds more like she's about to bring up sex toys than political lesbianism(ew.) and it's kinda sad that her armour passes for being more functional than average, but motto.

[stig]

Dammit, I misinterpreted. Thank you for pointing that out. I'm still indignant, though.

[lieut_kettch]

Val: BEHOLD! THE STARKTECH VIBROMATIC 3000! WITH RABBIT-EAR ATTACHMENT AND VARIABLE SPEED SETTINGS!

Also, who's the girl with the fishbowl on her head, and how does Val expect her to partake of her frothy mug of mead?

[jeyl]

"Sleeping Beauty, Bridal Magazines, The Bachelor. All oppressive tools of the patriarchy indoctrinating us to believe we need men to complete our lives."

Don't forget Star Wars: Episode III. If a woman can't have her man, she will die of a broken heart.

[suzene]

But not until she's fulfilled her purpose by birthin' some babies!

[requiem2adream]

... Oh. Oh my. Oh Valkyrie! ♥ I don't know anything about her but all of a sudden I want to!

Also, love the way Veil is looking up at Valkyrie like she's the font of all knowledge.

[cmic]

This is actually the second "is feminism a dirty word" (no) piece I've read this morning. Weird.

I hadn't seen Valkyrie before. I like her.

[whitesycamore]

You've got a point there. I was actually cringing as I clicked on the cut, because I could already imagine what comics-feminism was going to look like.

And yeah, I think Valkyrie was advocating vibrators not political lesbianism. Her message was still the same though - "sexual desiring men is so silly. Plus, every time you put out for the man-team they score another point!"

The line about mortal craftsmen still made me giggle though. Dumb Tigra, interrupting the mead-fueled vibrator lecture.

[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.

[valtyr]

Her message was still the same though - "sexual desiring men is so silly. Plus, every time you put out for the man-team they score another point!"

I don't really agree; she specifically says sexual desire is normal and healthy (no offence intended to asexuals; female sexuality is often pathologized, so it's nice to hear it stated that female desire is not unhealthy) but that men will disappoint. And I really don't think she implied that sex with men gives them points - she just says that women will inevitably be disappointed by it.

I read it as her not advocating competition with men so much as just disregarding them and going your merry way and focusing on more important things, with the assistance of the tools of mortal craftsmen if necessary.

[darklorelei]

Ahahaha, I was cringing as I clicked the link, but that was actually funny.

[valtyr]

I really liked this; if this series is in part about female superheroes mentoring young women, I'll buy the hell out of it.

I quite enjoyed the contrast between Tigra's slightly self-conscious 'oh yeah, feminist stuff' and Valkyrie's 'Sisters, ignore the patriarchy!' I mean, it felt real to me, to have a woman feel kind of awkward about it, because a hell of a lot of women do. I remember once saying that I wished a film had more women in it, and a guy said "You're not a feminist are you?" in tones of withering disdain. A lot of women know that declaring outright you're a feminist, damn it, is a good way to get pigeonholed and dismissed, so they kind of downplay it when they talk about it. So yeah, I liked Tigra's line because it felt real, but I also liked Valkyrie's lines because I love a powerful woman declaring that women don't need men to complete them whatever bull the patriarchy tries to push.

ALTHOUGH: Mead doesn't really foam. And where is Tigra's tail rooted in that shot of her bending over? And the confrontation between Val and Tigra is kind of BOOBFIGHT, which slightly undermines the message here.

[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.