This series was originally posted by Nicole D'Andria as part of her high school Women and Gender Studies class on Entertainment Fuse from 2013-2014. 

There are several qualities that have hurt the overall portrayal of women in comics and several suggestions from the interwebs and myself that I think could help further equality in comics. That’s what this new series, “Women in Comics: Do the Super Ladies Need Saving?” is all about. Inspired from a Gender Studies inquiry project and a “Gender and Comics” survey I created a couple of weeks back, this series will take an indepth look at women’s portrayal in comics. It was originally going to be one feature, but after hitting almost 4,000 words I thought people were much more likely to stay awake if I made it into multiple parts.

​If there’s a particular topic you’d like me to talk about, let me know! I already have a lot planned including the way women in comics dress, their poses, the types of angles they’re drawn in, how women of race and other ethnicities are treated in comics, how women in comics are abused and I’ll be listing some empowering women in comics. But today, it’s all about the hotness of comic book women.

For most of the examples I’m going to be using the two mainstream comic book companies Marvel and DC Comics. Independents and other publishers like Image Comics and Dynamite Entertainment have their problems too, but the “Big Two” are the comics that are most widely read, meaning they have a huge impact when it comes to how women are portrayed in comics. These examples are also not limited to just superpowered heroines but also non-superpowered beings and villains.

Beauty: One Size Fits All?

There are exceptions, of course, but a majority of comic book women often have voluptuous curves, perfect skin and come-hither hips. Human beings are not shaped like comic book characters – it’s comic books, they’re allowed to be, and I’m not against eye candy. After all, I don’t mind a little of the male variety myself sometimes. But by having every women basically looking like a model and shoving their boobs in your face it can undermine characters and have a negative impact on female and male readers.

Read the full feature here.

Victoria Secret-esque Styles

There’s an expression that “clothes make the man” but what about a woman? Apparently, what a super heroine wears is more important then who they are sometimes and usually involves a skin tight jumpsuit that looks painted on.

Read the full feature here.

What's so bad about a broken back?

​Women’s poses in comic books are often mocked and yes, they mostly look ridiculous. There are several nonsensical poses women are put it and while it’s to make them look seductive when in reality it makes their anatomy look more anatomically incorrect and hilarious. It’s good for a laugh but this juvenile stunt shouldn’t spread like wild fire onto almost every comic book cover featuring a woman and, even worse, in the comic’s pages.
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Read the full feature here.

Time for a close-up...

Women in comics don’t even need sexy clothing half the time when the way the panel is drawn leaves little to the reader’s imagination. This is another issue with sexy women in comics that actually gets under my skin:  The inappropriate, obviously shoe-horned in way women are demeaned in panels. Sometimes this can intersect with how women seem to pose in comics, but I wanted to dedicate a full article to the angles of panels and not just throw it in with posing.

Read the full feature here.

Empowering Women in Comics

There are paragraphs worth of problems with women in comics. But there are several positive female characters in comics and I’d like to spotlight a couple of my favorites and urge writers to create more characters like them.

Read the full feature here.

Abusing Women in Comics

I definitely don’t think this is as prevalent as it has been in the past since fans are much more likely to get out their pitchforks when it comes to controversy in comics, but women have been horribly treated in the past by comics. And it’s not about them being hot or posing with a broken back. Pointlessly violating women on the page. It’s one thing if it’s pivotal to the plot (and it’s the abused character’s story, not her love interest’s) and the comic doesn’t revel in the woman’s abuse. I can understand that. I can even understand if it’s the typical “revenge” story as long as the women isn’t crudely depicted. It’s tricky sometimes to tell what steps over the line, and this is where some people either overreact or under react. But sometimes women are abused in comics and it’s pretty clear it’s unnecessary. Some of the worst mainstream offenders include:

Read the full feature here.