Madeline Winger

Writing 1010
Rogers
November 21, 2014
DC v Marvel Comic

Throughout todays media one of the prevalent issues is the problem of sexism in its
many different forms. While, in many respects, this issue has seen improvement in several
different ways its still a hot topic for many people. One of the newest forms of media that is
under fire for this issue is comic books; this begs the question of the two biggest mainstream
comic book companies which of them is the least sexist in their physical copies of comic books
and their merchandise? While the idea of sexism has many different subjects built in it, overall
in their comics and merchandise DC comics is much less sexist than Marvel.
To begin, for those who may be hazy or unsure about the term its best to define sexism.
According to dictionary.com sexism is defined as discrimination on the basis of sex
(dictionary.com). Basically, sexism is the treatment of one gender as inferior to another in a
harmful or demeaning way. In arguments made by female fans of the comics, or even casual
fans of the comics, accusations of sexism have been made on many different occasions by many
different people. Sexism in these comic books cant be denied, its even to the point where
people who arent associated with comics but are still feminists are noticing, decried the
unrealistic anatomy, sexualized pose and costume that more closely resembles body paint than

any fabric known to man (McMillan 2). While comics are largely marketed towards males the
female demographic for them is beginning to grow and things such as the anatomy and poses of
female characters are beginning to become a big problem with feminists who read these comics
and females who dont read the comics. As time passes these problems are becoming more
talked about over the internet and sometimes even the media.
Sexism in Merchandise
Recently DC released two shirts which both caused extremely negative reactions from the
general public. One of the shirts is light grey and boasts in pink text: Training to be Batmans
wife, the second of the two shirts is black and depicts a panel with Superman and Wonder
Woman pair and claims that Superman has scored Wonder Womans love and done it again while
leaning in for a kiss. If you were to type in the words sexist in DC or Marvel comics in Google
many different articles about these shirts would be some of the first things to show up in your
search. The authors of these articles had such things to say as: The shirts are clumsy, and they
reinforce the idea that women are objects to be won. Its all the more disappointing because they
come from a company that promotes empowerment with feminist touchstones like Wonder
Woman and Batgirl (Abad-Santos, 4). When shirts claim that a woman is training to become
Batmans wife show up not only is this ridiculous as Batman never marries in the comics but its
also telling young woman that their only role is to get married and that they cant be a hero
themselves. Claiming that Wonder Woman is some sort of catch for Superman is degrading the
most famous female superhero to a piece of meat for another superhero to take. Its easy to see
why people are enraged by these shirts; theyre outlandish and offensive, however. DC has
publicly apologized for both of the shirts. They state, DC Comics is home to many of the
greatest male and female Super Heroes in the world. All our fans are incredibly important to us,

and we understand that the messages on certain t-shirts are offensive Accordingly, we are
taking a look at our licensing and product designs process to ensure that all our consumer
products reflect our core values and philosophy (DC). This doesnt detract from the fact that
the shirts shouldve never been made in the first place it does show that DC acknowledges their
mistakes and will work to fix them. Unfortunately, this isnt something that Marvel can claim.
Marvel is under fire for a similar reason, due to the release of two shirts one for little
boys and the other marketed for teenage girls. The boys shirt is blue with yellow, black and
white stripes on the sleeves; in the center of the shirt is Ironman and the text above the hero says
Be a hero in capital letters. The shirt for the female fans is red, low cut and short sleeved. It
has several of the Avengers on it and it big text claims I need a hero. Easy to see why people
have made a petition to get rid of this shirt that received around 6000 signatures. People who
have signed the petition have stated such things as, My daughter LOVES superheroes She
doesnt need a superhero What she needs is for corporations to stop telling her that because of
her gender she couldnt possibly BE the superhero herself. Please think through the messages
you send to our daughters (Online Petition Against Disneys Sexist Avengers T-Shirts Gets
Nearly 6,000 Signatures). Women really dont need men to save them, theyre strong
individuals that can help themselves and dont need support unless they ask for it. This shirt is
perpetuating the stereotype that women do need somebody to save them to younger girls, and
when this message comes from a two companies as big as Disney and Marvel theyre more likely
to believe it. This idea can and is damaging to younger and much more impressionable girls; by
creating this shirt the designer is confirming the idea that a girls role is to be a prize and that
they themselves cannot be the heroes. Neither Marvel nor Disney has made any statement about
this shirt, nor is there any word about whether or not they were taken off of the shelves.

Sexism in the Comics

Woman in the Refrigerators is a term created by Gail Simone inspired by a scene when
one of the Green Lanterns, Kyle Rayner, finds his girlfriend stuffed into a refrigerator dead.
Woman in the Refrigerators is a list created by her that refers to the number of female
characters in Marvel and DC comics that have been killed, raped, turned evil, tortured or suffered
other such tragedies. The results of this list are that Marvel has 43 female characters on this list
and DC 59 female characters. The author of the article, Hugh Fox, says that, DC had a little
more than one-third more characters on the list than Marvel. I also counted the number of rapes
and tortures in each list DC had one rape versus none for Marvel. DC had three instances of
torture compared to none for none for Marvel (Fox 4). In the comics its clear that DC does far
more horrific things to their female characters, and this includes other humans that dont have
super powers, than Marvel does by far; the author even goes as far as to say not to buy DC
Comic books for your children if youre a parent as The data suggests that DC has a more sexist
editorial policy towards its female characters than Marvel (Fox 5). The questions remaining is
then this: does something like having their female characters go through traumatic events make
DC more sexist? Not necessarily, if theyre motives are to tell a story and they arent in some
way finding pleasure in doing this to a character then theyre simply just telling a story.
Theres one last question that arises from all of this discussion: Are comic books really as
sexist as everybody makes them out to be? Anybody whos seen pictures of the unrealistic body
proportions or especially in the earlier comicswomens constant need to be saved and is not a
sex crazed person will answer yes. Concepts such as the male gaze defined as [a] theory that
describes the tendency of works to assume a (straight) male viewpoint even when they do not
have a specific narrative point of view, and in particular the tendency of works to present female

characters as subjects of implicitly male visual appreciation (tvtropes.org) have made arguments
against this hard to defend. To some it may not seem important but for female fans of comic
books its incredibly disheartening as Women are presented as men would want to see them.
These same images are presented to woman as something they should aspire to be if they want to
be with a man (fantasy-magazine.com). The figures we seen in female comic books characters
arent realistic, and can cause a big problem for young women if they truly believe that its
possible to look like that. Thoughts like these can and have led to problems like depression and
eating disorders, and its for that reason the objectification of women in comic books and in
general must stop.
Comic books are hardly the bastion of gender equality that comic books geeks would like
to believe they are. Believe it or not both male and female characters are portrayed as muscle
clad, tight jumpsuit fitting, human Adonis with unrealistic powers that could never exist in real
life. While there may be more important issues to focus on than whether or not Wonder Woman
has a realistic breast size despite being an Amazon Warrior or if Captain Marvels weight is
accurate its hard to deny the effect that its had on social media. Overall DC is less sexist than
Marvel but not by much; they have created stronger and more popular female characters, their
merchandise is less sexist and their bodies are closer to accurate but like Marvel they still have a
long way to go before appeasing their female fan base.