It kind-of makes sense, on a meta level. Like it or not, Superman is the father of superheroes, the first of it's kind, and Wonder Woman was created so that there would be a Superman-like figure for young girls.
Could have been better said, but hey, that's been true for a lot of this storyline.
No, she wasn't. She was created by some old guy to fulfill his effed-up bondage fantasies and present his own stereotype of an "ideal" woman. In fact, the whole idea to make her a woman in the first place wasn't even his. (It was his wife) As much as she is a feminist character now, Wonder Woman has a pretty sexist and fetishized creative origin.
That is... a bizarre collection of half-truths and misinformation.
Marston's lifestyle kink was pretty upfront and his feminism was bizarre (he genuinely believed women were superior to men, which is not precisely the usual point of the movement), but it was sincere, and his motives in crafting an inspirational female hero were the deliberate opposition of sexism.
Which still doesn't change the fact that, no matter how much you spin in, Wonder Woman was NOT created to "inspire to young girls". That's not true, that was never Marston's intent. Wonder Woman was based on his idea of feminism, which I interpret as a specific dominatrix-bondage fetish gone to far. Marston genuinely believed that women were superior to men, yes, but it was still a fetish and was still sexualized, and last time I viewing women solely as a source of sexual gratification is pretty damn sexist. "Wonder Woman was created so that there would be a Superman-like figure for young girls." This is sentence that I have a problem with, because while I may have "misinformation", this sentence is outright false.
"Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman."
I guess Marston was just fucking with us then. And his wife, who was an important part of her creation (which you seem to think is a bad thing for some reason)
Um, yes, she was. In our world. But in the DCU, she was inspired to become a superhero because of her family and her beliefs. And those things would go on to define her as a superhero. It is insulting to replace all that history--even in a different world where her history is different--with seeing Superman save people one time.
Nonsense! It's perfectly reasonable that a character designed for the express purpose of giving young women someone to aspire to, a paragon of virtue to look up to, who wasn't a man; a character designed wholly to show that women didn't have to be inspired by men, that they could look up to a woman too; a character who was designed to be the Superman (inspired only by his own inherent virtue) of the female set....
... should be entirely inspired by a man. Because that absolutely sends exactly the message that Wonder Woman was explicitly designed to send.
Yeah, Wonder Woman = EQUIVALENT to Superman, which tends not to overlap with "inspired by."
This basically pushes Wonder Woman one step closer to being an unofficial side-kick, and one step away from being considered a peer.
I doubt this bit of backstory will stick (partly due to optimism... but there's also the point that the interpretations for Wonder Woman have been known to shift like nobody's business over the decades, so...), but in the meantime... ugh...
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scans_daily2011-02-09 05:19 pm
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Could have been better said, but hey, that's been true for a lot of this storyline.
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She was created by some old guy to fulfill his effed-up bondage fantasies and present his own stereotype of an "ideal" woman.
In fact, the whole idea to make her a woman in the first place wasn't even his. (It was his wife)
As much as she is a feminist character now, Wonder Woman has a pretty sexist and fetishized creative origin.
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Marston's lifestyle kink was pretty upfront and his feminism was bizarre (he genuinely believed women were superior to men, which is not precisely the usual point of the movement), but it was sincere, and his motives in crafting an inspirational female hero were the deliberate opposition of sexism.
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Wonder Woman was based on his idea of feminism, which I interpret as a specific dominatrix-bondage fetish gone to far. Marston genuinely believed that women were superior to men, yes, but it was still a fetish and was still sexualized, and last time I viewing women solely as a source of sexual gratification is pretty damn sexist.
"Wonder Woman was created so that there would be a Superman-like figure for young girls." This is sentence that I have a problem with, because while I may have "misinformation", this sentence is outright false.
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You're wrong in ways that can only be measured by the Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram.
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I guess Marston was just fucking with us then. And his wife, who was an important part of her creation (which you seem to think is a bad thing for some reason)
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Wow.
Just.
Wow.
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... should be entirely inspired by a man. Because that absolutely sends exactly the message that Wonder Woman was explicitly designed to send.
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This basically pushes Wonder Woman one step closer to being an unofficial side-kick, and one step away from being considered a peer.
I doubt this bit of backstory will stick (partly due to optimism... but there's also the point that the interpretations for Wonder Woman have been known to shift like nobody's business over the decades, so...), but in the meantime... ugh...
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