Laura Hudson Takes Down the Portrayals of Catwoman and Starfire in the New DCU ›
This is not about these women wanting things; it’s about men wanting to see them do things, and that takes something that really should be empowering — the idea that women can own their sexuality — and transforms it into yet another male fantasy. It takes away the actual power of the women and turns their “sexual liberation” into just another way for dudes to get off. And that is at least ten times as gross as regular cheesecake, minimum.
And
In many ways, the constant barrage of this type of imagery (and characterization) is not unlike the sh*tty neighborhood I used to live in where every time I walked down the street, random people I didn’t know shouted obscene comments about my body and told me they wanted to have sex with me. And you know, maybe a lot of those guys thought they were complimenting me. Maybe they thought I had tried to look pretty that day and they were telling me I had succeeded in that goal. Maybe they thought we were having a frank and sexually liberated exchange of ideas. I’m willing to be really, really generous and believe that’s where they were coming from. But in the end, it doesn’t matter that they didn’t know it was creepy; it doesn’t matter that they “didn’t get it,” because every single day I lived there they made me feel like less of a person.
That is how I feel when I read these comics.My emphasis in bold. This is just more comic porn for dudes, not empowered female characters for women to connect with.
Dressing it up as, and stridently arguing that it IS empowering for women, is what makes it even grosser than the usual barrage of comic porn for dudes.
for turhan
whoa… I didn’t know those bikini panels were from the actual issue. I thought they were just mocking it. I can’t deal with this. And I was excited as hell about both the titles too. Especially Selina’s.
(via theonetaylordetroye)
