women superheroes

A lot of my close friends are boys. Boys who like comic books. I hang around them a lot, and usually we talk about random things like physics and foreigners and lobsters having no pain receptors. We went to watch The Amazing Spiderman on a whim just recently. It was fun.

Sometimes it's not so fun. I used to get a lot of sandwich jokes until those stopped being funny. Now I get "d'oh you're a girl so of course you hate comic books" jokes.

I don't hate comic books. I love Neil Gaiman's Sandman. And Walking Dead, too. And Scott Pilgrim!!!

But I don't read superhero comics. It's hard to be interested in them when most, if not all, of the superhero women 1.) have gigantic breasts, 2.) wear sexy clothing, and 3.) are always in stereotypically feminine poses.

What if the male characters posed like the female ones? (c) Kevin Bolk

And look at that. Why can't the men wear clothes as revealing as the women, or women wear clothes as concealing as the men?

(c) Coelasquid

Do you see what I mean? I personally find it hard to idolize any female superhero. They're always so sexy. The way they look, dress, and pose. What if I don't want to be sexy? What if I just want to be... normal? 

Why do female superheroes always have to be sexy, anyway? Since when has "sexy" been synonymous to "empowered"? There are so many women out there who are both sexy and strong, but the message that comic books (or at least the ones I'm constantly exposed to) are sending is that women who are strong must be sexy.

And what can we do about it? It's the media. It's the way things go. Sexy sells, whether we like it or not. Whether I like it or not. I raised this point to Rap one time, and he said, "What can you do, guys write the comics." 

And that is what's frustrating, this "that's the way the cookie crumbles" mentality. It's so annoying having to just shrug my shoulders and go, "Well, what can you do about it?" I hate it.  I can't live with that.

I want to change the system. I want to live in a world where women can reveal or conceal as much as they want and still be considered "empowered." I want to live where billboards don't tell me how to dress, how I should look, or how much I should weigh. I want to live where women write comic books and superheroes are not all sexy. 

I know people all over have been fighting gender equality for many, many years. But I'm impatient. I want change now. 

But I don't know what to do. I don't know what I can do. 

So I result to silently grumbling in my seat as my guy friends adore Wonder Woman's legs. This is my life as a woman who hangs out with boys. 

I probably should stop hanging out with boys.