The Sexualization of Women in Comic Books

[Spacelord]

*Gasp* My God OP, are you saying that... comic books pander to horny nerds?

WHY, I NEVER!

 

[Seanfall]

I'm sorry what? I was too busy oogling Power Girl's tits. *sits and reads more power girl* Hmm...boobies. *power girl's fist fly's out of the page into my nads* OOOF!

 

[Dags90]

Think about it. Who were the great male sex-symbols of the 20th Century? Mick Jagger, Paul Newman, Jimi Hendrix, Marc Bolan, Elvis Presley... all of these guys were incredibly popular among women of their respective periods, and none of them had uber-masculine bodybuilder images. Women dug them for their apparant sensitivity, class, charm and intelligence. If muscularity is so important in how attracted women are to men, why is Edward Cullen a modern day pin-up and not Dolph Lundgren?

THANK YOU!

I think Newman made a joke that his tombstone should read "Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown." Plus his company sells a damned good Cesar dressing.

I would also add James Dean (to whom Pattinson has been compared) to previous examples of smaller framed sex symbols that were HUGE.

 

[Klarinette]

Man... I don't even care. As a woman with strong legs, as long as a woman in a comic has shapely hips/thighs, I can't bring myself to even pretend to be offended.

Also, I tend to turn away from muscle-y men. The bigger the muscles, the less appeal for me.

 

[Matrixbeast]

I don't understand all the "Who cares" responses here, as that line can be used for every thread here.

 

[AdamRBi]

While I disagree with the OP's suggestion that sexualization = powerlessness, let's not kid ourselves, guys. We can say all we want that there are plenty of women in comics who are not usually sexualized (Wonder Woman, Invisible Woman and Storm come to mind), but pretty much every female superhero out there has been played for sex appeal at some time or another. And enough with that B.S. about men in comics having muscles of steel as sexualization for the ladies. You and I know that's just a cheap cop-out argument with little basis in reality. Women don't go see Superman movies to fantasize about him carrying them away to the Fortress of Solitude. Nor do they watch Die Hard to drool over John McClane. As others have mentioned, characters like Edward Cullen or even freaking Harry Potter have exponentially more drooling, obsessed fangirls than any superhero. Comic books (or at least superhero comics) have for a very long time been almost exclusively been a man's medium, made by men for men, so it stands to reason that the images within superhero comics, both male and female, would be made to appeal to men. The well-muscled men of comics are not a woman's ideal of a man, but a man's view of the ideal man: the man we men want to be, not necessarily the man women want. This applies to countless action heroes in movies and games as well: Conan the Barbarian, Rocky, Rambo, the Terminator, anything Steven Seagal, Vin Diesel or van Damme have ever done, Markus Fenix, Duke Nukem (to parodic effect), Nathan Drake, Kratos, the list goes on. That's the effect they're all going for: our own gender's fantasy about our own body image. It's the image we men have built for ourselves as the ideal. And because sight is naturally much more of a primary sense for men when it comes to sex (compared to smell and touch for women), our view of a good-looking woman is a much bigger part of women's body image than the reverse. As a straight man, I will admit that men tend to be a lot more picky about what we consider an attractive-looking woman than women are for us, and that has a big part to play in what the female ideal is in the eyes of both men and women. So I just don't see how that "sexualized man" argument holds any weight in the terms of the men in action films and comic books. Sure, men are sexualized, but you can't really claim that it's in those media that they are. Superman and Batman are not, nor have they ever been, considered really "sexy" characters. The one real example of overt male sexualization I can offer in action/comic media is James Bond. Heck, I'm straight as an arrow and I'D let Bond have his way with me. But other than that, you have to look at media designed primarily for women to really see male sexualization: rom-coms, soap operas and the like. That's where the sexually appealing guys to women are. And the same logic applies: along with the handsome guys are the women that women want to be like. It's just the different ideals and interests that thousands of years of assigned gender roles have implanted in us. Whether it's nature or nurture, I really don't care.

TLR: Women are sexualized in comics, men are sexualized in rom-coms (and NOT in comics). Men in comics are the male fantasy of ourselves. This is a surprise to no-one.

I agree to a point and that point is this; by idealizing ourselves in comics aren't we, as men, over sexualizing ourselves? Besides passion and sensitivity what are women naturally tuned to be attracted to? Strength and Confidence, two things male comic book heros are usually exaggerated to portray as a means to be attractive to both something women would love and men would pine to become.

I still say, while not intentional, both genders are equally sexualized, otherwise they'd be too real and thus some of the appeal would be lost.[/quote]

I would say that men are idealizing themselves in mainstream comics, but not sexualizing themselves (on the whole, there are always one or two exceptions).[/quote]

I think many of the fellows here haven't actually seen what it looks like when men are sexualized. Let's go back to one of the images a poster brought up earlier as part of his example that men are sexualized in comics too.

Spoiler

Superman is an idealized form, but he's not sexualized. He, like most depictions of male superheroes in costume, has no crotch...also no nipples, and no butt shots. The things that make women sexual (mostly big boobs and butt at this point in our history and culture--though not always so) are not highlighted.

Unlike say this:

Spoiler

This guy has a penis, and while he is powerful and idealized, he is also really sexualized.

One of the larger points the original blog wants to make is that having only the male gaze in comics is one of the things that makes comics so dominated by male readership. That changing it up a bit could alienate fewer female readers and result in more women reading comic books. The writer isn't saying that women should never be sexualized, but that there should be care taken to equal it out. Mainstream superhero comics haven't gotten very far on this.

On the other hand, Superhero blockbuster movies, which can't afford to basically ignore the female film audience, work differently. Are there sexualized women? Sure. But they also sexualize the men in ways that they aren't generally in comics. I think a great example is Thor.

Here is Thor from the comics, idealized for straight men, not sexualized for straight women or gay men.

Spoiler

And here is Thor from the film--idealized body...but sexualized for those who like looking at men.

Spoiler

Anyhow, this blog post is a good overview of women in comics...and how for quite some time DC had a policy were discouraged from being main characters or important:

http://www.comicbookgrrrl.com/2011/04/06/women-in-comics-an-overview/

And here is Gail Simone, one of the few female mainstream comic writers on mainstream hero comics's tendency to depower, rape, and kill its female heroes:

http://www.unheardtaunts.com/wir/

So the women can be badass....but not too badass.

[/quote]To start, the guy you compair superman against... I mean, I can't speak for the female population on how attractive he is, but he looks like that comical, over stereotyped rendition of gay. As far as I know, women aren't as attracted to the sex organs as men are. In fact, nether are men. We're not attracted to the vagina, we're attracted to the hips. And while considered sexual to most, the breasts are not a sex organ. As far as I know, confidence, serenity and power are what women are most attracted to in a man which is actually illustrated beautifully in your second example with Thor.

Men simply don't know what women like. That stuff I said earlier about confidence and power I learned from a science channel special on the science of sex and attraction. How women see it and how I see it can be two very different things. The first Thor is an idealized action pose to get the male audience pumped, it's obviously not a pose to attract women. The movie Thor (conveniently topless) does have a more sincere look and does make him look more sexualized. However, that's an issue of attitude and pose. The body types are essentially the same. Draw Thor one in the same pose, emotion, and outfit as movie Thor in that screen and you'd have almost an equivalent to a sexualized woman in a comic book (ignoring however the fact that, in a comic book, you'd normally get 3 books full of sexualized female for every one sexualized male panel).

I agree, men are significantly less sexualized in comics then women are. Not to say they aren't in some way as I still feel idealizing is a big part of sexualizing a character.

 

[trooper6]

To start, the guy you compair superman against... I mean, I can't speak for the female population on how attractive he is, but he looks like that comical, over stereotyped rendition of gay. As far as I know, women aren't as attracted to the sex organs as men are. In fact, nether are men. We're not attracted to the vagina, we're attracted to the hips. And while considered sexual to most, the breasts are not a sex organ. As far as I know, confidence, serenity and power are what women are most attracted to in a man which is actually illustrated beautifully in your second example with Thor.

Men simply don't know what women like. That stuff I said earlier about confidence and power I learned from a science channel special on the science of sex and attraction. How women see it and how I see it can be two very different things. The first Thor is an idealized action pose to get the male audience pumped, it's obviously not a pose to attract women. The movie Thor (conveniently topless) does have a more sincere look and does make him look more sexualized. However, that's an issue of attitude and pose. The body types are essentially the same. Draw Thor one in the same pose, emotion, and outfit as movie Thor in that screen and you'd have almost an equivalent to a sexualized woman in a comic book (ignoring however the fact that, in a comic book, you'd normally get 3 books full of sexualized female for every one sexualized male panel).

I agree, men are significantly less sexualized in comics then women are. Not to say they aren't in some way as I still feel idealizing is a big part of sexualizing a character.

I have been in places where women were enjoying male strippers, I've been around lots of women in the Army, and I went to a women's college. Women care about butt and bulge as much as men care about T&A. I have listened to looong conversations from female soldiers about which jeans are hotter on men Wranglers or Levis...and that conversations was not based on confidence or power, but on which jeans showed off the package and the ass best.

 

[Dags90]

To start, the guy you compair superman against... I mean, I can't speak for the female population on how attractive he is, but he looks like that comical, over stereotyped rendition of gay. As far as I know, women aren't as attracted to the sex organs as men are. In fact, nether are men. We're not attracted to the vagina, we're attracted to the hips. And while considered sexual to most, the breasts are not a sex organ. As far as I know, confidence, serenity and power are what women are most attracted to in a man which is actually illustrated beautifully in your second example with Thor.

Men simply don't know what women like. That stuff I said earlier about confidence and power I learned from a science channel special on the science of sex and attraction. How women see it and how I see it can be two very different things. The first Thor is an idealized action pose to get the male audience pumped, it's obviously not a pose to attract women. The movie Thor (conveniently topless) does have a more sincere look and does make him look more sexualized. However, that's an issue of attitude and pose. The body types are essentially the same. Draw Thor one in the same pose, emotion, and outfit as movie Thor in that screen and you'd have almost an equivalent to a sexualized woman in a comic book (ignoring however the fact that, in a comic book, you'd normally get 3 books full of sexualized female for every one sexualized male panel).

I agree, men are significantly less sexualized in comics then women are. Not to say they aren't in some way as I still feel idealizing is a big part of sexualizing a character.

It's a Tom of Finland drawing, they were popular with gay men in the 80's and 90's. And gay muscle culture of the 80's and 90's had a specific catalyst: HIV. Heavy muscularity was considered a sign of health and negative HIV status, and the closest thing gay men could even begin to use as an HIV-test.

Muscle culture is still around, but it is its own subculture like bear culture. Twinks still dominate mainstream gay culture.

 

[yookiwooki]

The whole point of comics is to have extraordinary people: hyper-powerful, hyper-smart, hyper-funny, and yes hyper-sexual.

 

[The Heik]

Hello All,

I stumbled upon this very interesting take on the difference between the way men are portrayed in comic books vs. the way women are portrayed in comic books. This is a very good counterpoint to the usual argument: "But men are drawn unrealistically too--we don't all have all those muscles!"

Bonus: exciting photos.

Spoiler

Check it out and then I'd be interested to read y'all's commentary.

http://rosalarian.tumblr.com/post/6288675810/megan-rosalarian-gedris-dressed-to-kill

I think that the article's author is being silly.

If you put an idealized guy into those clothes, of course he wouldn't look good because those clothes were specifically designed for the female form, so he's automatically at a dsiadevantage.. You put a girl into a guy's clothes, she wouldn't look as attractive either (though most guys would still oogle her anyways).

Seriously though, most female superheros (aside from the giant boobs) have athletic bodies, which is to be expected for people who beat up small armies of thugs as a day job. Though it is more politically correct for females to have an average body, it's not as believable.

Just for comparison look at these average women

Spoiler

Then look at these athletes

Spoiler

Which group looks more likely to kick your ass and kick it hard?

It's simply logical for female superheroes to have that kind of body for the role they play in. Same goes for men.

Spoiler: You wouldn't expect this guy to save you from criminals would you?

So yeah, the state of the human body in comics is really more appropriate than people think (boobs notwithstanding).

 

[ms_sunlight]

I was just thinking that myself. Most women I know like pretty boys rather than shaved bears.

Personally I like chunky boys with plenty of body hair, but there you go.

Look, I'm a woman and I like comics, I grew up reading stuff like 2000AD and I still read manga and graphic novels and webcomics like Freakangels. All I can say is, I cannot abide most superhero comics. I just find them -- and their relentless objectification -- just so tiresome. Anyone who denies that a large number of these comics exaggerate women in a way that objectifies and sexualises in a way that they simply do not do with male characters is in complete denial.

 

[Labyrinth]

Here's a question: why does it matter? So what if the women are sexualized. They aren't real and never will be. Hell, it's a helluva lot easier to get full range of motion in most of the female superhero suits than it would be in the mens'. And aren't comic books targeted at males, anyway?

I swear I don't get the political correctness of today sometimes.

I would like to look at pretty men too, actually. And I'd sure as hell read more comics if I didn't feel like I was so overdressed while doing so. I'd like to add that the article talked about pose and expression much more than the costume designs.

Comic books are directed at -heterosexual males-. So is everything else outside of the 'niche' or daytime TV and really awful women's magazines. It's something known as privilege. Some time, have a look around you, at what is made for 'general audiences' and how that is gender skewed male to what is made specifically for women, which has a tendency to be goddawful horseshit.

In the meantime, I'll be going back to drawing Bruce Wayne shirtless and in heels. You'd be amazed what they can do to a backside.

 

[Dense_Electric]

Men aren't overly-sexualized? Really? You know, I really don't need to elaborate any more than that, enough people have done that for me.

 

[Therumancer]

Actually women sexualize themselves too, read books written by women for women at some time, as well as at the work of lady artists. Of course I suppose "sexualization" isn't quite the right word here, so much as it's a matter of presenting a physical ideal.... and that's common through all forms of fantasy, going back to things like early statues of gods and heroes.

See, the thing is that when we're looking at things like super heroes and fantasy warriors and such we're dealing with characters who are more or less physical perfection defined in most cases. Not many real people would ever have a build like that, and be able to function as well as they do, but then again it's not real, and isn't intended to be so.

Using the illustration above, it's not just a matter of men being less likely to read the comic with Lady Tubbo... well unless it was a comedy/genere spoof, it's doubtful that many women would do so either. Sometime take a look at the artwork on the covers of Kim Harrison's "Hollows" series or the "Women Of The Otherworld" (Author's name eludes me at the moment unfortunatly) to say nothing of even more well known characters like "Anita Blake".

Truthfully, it's been a nerd-scapegoat for a while that women are turned off my fantasy and comics because of all the overendowed female characters. In reality that's never been the case, even if some feminists like to yell about it, nerds usually just think that by being sensitive on the subject they can make themselves more likable to girls.

If anything it could probably be said that the lack of general interest is because most girls just generally aren't into all of the same kind of incredibly rational, as opposed to relational thinking, or the whole action-adventure genere to begin with. This is a whole differant issue and comes down to the overall question about inherant gender instincts vs. societal conditioning which is a big issue that goes beyond the context of this arguement.

Ironically, the trick to getting a female fan base actually seems to be to involve MORE sex and ideally proportioned characters, not less. A lot of these "paranormal romance" stories (and I've read more than a few in the genere) aren't really all that differant from other science fiction, fantasy, or comic works, they just tend to follow through on all the sexuality rather than leaving it to implication or faded out into the backround. Something like Marvel's "Hellfire Club" would fit right in with a lot of these stories, except we'd actually get descriptions of them doing their thing, rather than leaving it to costumes, comments, and implications for the most part. Simply put staying away from an adult rating has probably hurt the female readership.... and truthfully I'm surprised it took as long as it did for people to very gradually start noticing this kind of thing, given the sheer number of "romance" novels produced for women.

The point is that as standards about sex slowly lower, and people drop the over-protectionism, I think we're going to see more women creeping into the circles of geekdom. I think books about characters like "Anita Blake" and "Rachel Morgan", not to mention things like "Twilight" (laugh as you will) and other works are going to act as a gateway to getting women gradually more into this kind of thing. Heck, "The Hollows" series in paticular is like one step away from being "Shadowrun" as it is, all it would need is cyberware.

 

[Therumancer]

For instance, would people classify Nova (from the Starcraft universe) as sexualized?

Yeah a little.
Also I feel I shall link these articles because I hate all of you and your spare time.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MostCommonSuperPower
and
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HeroicBuild

Dat ass.

10 years in the making.

Sorry, had to say it.

However, the funny thing is that if you look at dudes in armor you'll notice the same basic effect. If you ever play "Knights Of the Old Republic" or a lot of third person action games, you'll notice that everyone of both genders not only wears spandex in the back, but has a perfect posterior (and yes I've known some ladies to comment when I was playing KoToR II... I was never able to un-see what had not occured to me before that).