more on the topic at hand

I've been thinking about all the posts about sex and sexism in advertising, and Amy's Jean Kilbourn video really resonated with me.

I'm going to bring this around to something that I've dealt a lot with, which is comics and the comics industry. It's definitely a boys club, in a lot of ways. While there are a lot of women who are breaking into the industry, they tend to gravitate towards small and independent press books, and are not yet well represented in the "big Two" (Marvel and DC).

Recently, several of my friends were tapped to work on a new DC line called Minx, which was geared towards the primarily teen female manga market. Minx was a great concept - a woman friendly line, headed by a woman editor. Sadly, bureaucracy had it's way with the line, made the stories the stereotypical "girl comic" stories, and the department was recently closed.

In general, women in comics are forever victims. Even the powerful heroines are frequently given passive, defensive powers, rather than offensive ones. Those that do have offensive powers are either villains or so broken as humans that they're unable to stand as role models. They're rarely less than Barbie in stature, either.

I keep waiting for someone out there, one of the writers with jobs (I try with my little book, but we certainly don't have Spiderman's readership), to create a human woman character that holds the same role as a lead who's a man.

I always wonder, though, what the solution is to any institutionalized problem. I think that discussions like this, and raising awareness, teaching people to think critically about what is presented to them is probably the most important first step. We shouldn't just gloss over things, but rather consider what is being said, and make our own decisions and opinions carefully.