Gender Roles In Cat Woman

To be someone of great strength and empowerment is looked upon highly in today’s comic book society. That is, if this specific character is that of the male gender. It is hard, almost impossible to find a character of the female sex to be strong, empowering, and her own person without her being over sexualized. From Harley Quinn, to Cat Woman, there are so many more characters out there who do not get the true spot light they deserve for their over sexualized bodies make it impossible for their story to be fully told. One of the most famous characters in the DC universe who has been over sexualized and under sexualized various times would be the marvelous Wonder Woman. There are many moments where it can be argued, that Wonder Woman’s poses and cleavage are more important than her story. However, there are some instances where this is not the case. Sensation Comics featured Wonder Woman #3 cover by Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, and Carrie Strachan which gives the character a good sense of who she really is. I chose this picture, which can be found in the back of the Sensation Comic featuring Wonder Woman volume 1 which we read in class, because I wanted to take another stand for how people can draw Wonder Woman and still have her empowering and attractive.

Though the discussions about Wonder Woman got extremely heated in class, there was a topic that stood out the most and that was how Wonder Woman has been drawn through the years. Her art has gone from subtle to butt and cleavage galore. It is sad, because that is how people are remembering Wonder Woman now, just this muscular amazon superhero with a nice rack and some decent powers. This is why I like the picture I chose because it shows more of who Wonder Woman actually is. The shot is very action packed and has a vast amount of color and graphic to it. We see Wonder Woman fighting a green alien of some sort, but she is not doing it in a very flattering way. Her face is disgruntled and blood is splattered on various parts of her body. She does not have her butt showing towards the reader, and even her chest is covered up by her arm. Yes, there is some definition in the chest area, but you have to consider that Wonder Woman is a strong Amazonian warrior; she is going to have good and high muscle tone to her build, which is something that will never change. Sadly, there is still the typical opened mouth that a lot of people get flustered over, but in this case it can be seen as her battle cry. She is in mid combat, and there is typically a good amount of yelling or human sound effects. Even though she is not in the typical sexy battle stance that most people like to see Wonder Woman in, I have to say that this picture depicts her as a very attractive woman.
Enough is enough; it is time that women start to be drawn as actual human beings instead of these made up barbies.

This is getting ridiculous that almost every woman you seen in comic book either have really large breasts, or half their skin is showing. It is not only in comic books we see this, but also in video games. I remember when the video game Injustice released a statue of Batman and Wonder Woman, and I personally was utterly appalled by how they portrayed Wonder Woman. It seemed like the only factor they focused on was her chest because her face was not done justice at all. It is frustrating seeing that great women in comics are subjected to these art styles that take away from people seeing who they truly are instead of the outfits the artists place them in. A lot of people I know do not like Harley Quinn because they just believe she is a blonde bimbo, but they have never actually given her a chance, looked past the clothes she was drawn in, and learned about the truly poetic and complicated character Harley is. This concept of how woman are drawn in comics is why most people think that it is their pretty face that is their only power. They place them down so much based on their appearance, and belittle them to the point that there is not return, they cannot make it out of the whole their artist dug for them. This is why as a writer and an artist, I am making sure that my characters in the future are shown for who they are, not the their size of their bra

cup.