Via Bookslut, I came across this excellent piece on the shoddy way women are represented in comic books: whether treated as sex objects, subjected to horrific
and humiliating (often sexualised) torture, or portrayed as simpering idiots, it seems the male-dominated history of women and superheroes has not been a very happy one. Perhaps the best answer to this problem is for more women to write about super heroines.
On a closely-related topic, it wasn't until I read a recent letter in the Radio Times that I realised that of the two women (i.e. a minority) in (the otherwise gripping and well-rendered) drama series Heroes, both of them are stereotypical females: one a blonde, pretty cheerleader, the other a blonde, pretty stripper... Sigh.
How about a super heroine for the 21st century? Maybe she could start by wearing clothes that fit...?
What else?
