We Need a Hero(ine)

What if we want a little more Wonder Woman and a little less Disney Princess?

Peggy Orenstein had an essay in the New York Times Magazine this weekend on the lack of female superheroes, and what that means for little girls. Orenstein’s 6-year-old daughter has called feh on Disney princesses (“All Sleeping Beauty ever does is sleep,” says the wise little one), and surprises her mother by asking for a Wonder Woman lunchbox for her birthday. Wonder Woman—who recently starred in a pretty awesome-sounding animated feature—has always been there for little girls who like capes and duels and spectacle-laden mythologies. But who else have we got in that super sorority?

A quick Facebook poll yielded some great options—not only our ever-beloved Buffy, but also She-Ra, Elektra, Sailor Moon, the very cool-sounding Zatanna Zatara, and of course, the fierce women of the X-Men: Storm, Rogue, Jean Grey, et al. One friend pointed me toward Birds of Prey, a female crime-fighting crew founded by Oracle, a paraplegic code-breaker/martial arts expert. (In her younger days, Oracle was Batgirl, who earns some gentle derision from Orenstein in the piece.)

I’d argue that many of these characters exhibit “the true drama of the superhero,” as Orenstein describes it:

[The superhero is] the ordinary Joe who discovers that he has a marvelous gift, something that sets him apart from everyone else, simultaneously elevating and at least potentially isolating him, forcing a series of moral choices about the nature of might and goodness. It’s a story writ large about coming to grips with power: accepting it, demanding it, wielding it wisely. Those themes are rarely explored in the fantasy culture of little girls, yet given how problematic power remains for adult women — in both fact and fiction — perhaps they should be.

Fantasy and comic-book fans, what laser-wieding, ass-kicking, spell-casting women do you want on your daughters' lunch boxes?

Photograph of a woman reading a Wonder Woman book by Amy Sussman/Getty Images.

Tags: comic books, peggy orenstein, superheroines, wonder woman

Nina Shen Rastogi California native, theater and comics fan, Slate "Green Lantern" columnist

Comments

As a mom of a geek almost 13

By: BlackRose | Wed, 08/19/2009 - 22:42

As a mom of a geek almost 13 yr old girl, you've missed your mark. Though she does read many comics, she spends a lot more time in th world of japanese print anime, and online you tube clips. At a younger age she loved all of the works of Miyazaki's works especially Kiki from _Kiki's Delivery Service_, and Nora from the _Thin Man_ series. And as much as it pains me to say it,when she was growing up, she liked Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider games.

Now when I ask her about her heroines, she draws them from the literature she reads. Shannon Hale, Tamora Pierce and Clive Barker provide the most vivid, in depth and varied characters she draws on when I ask her what kind of hero she'd like to be. She just finished Hale's _Book of a 1000 Days_, and we had a great conversation about what courage means if you may be mentally unstable as one of the female characters appears to be. Pierce's knights and wizards explore both being first in an all male world, but more importantly what it's like to be the *second* girl to enter an all male bastion. In Barker's _Arabeth_ series the heroine, deals with all kinds of things including an abusive father.

Quite frankly, the young adult literature has the most subversive and complex storylines around.

If you have to stay in the print comic medium, she likes reading Neil
Gaimen's Sandman, and Fables have some interesting, if mature, heroes.
Death, and Red Rose kick some serious butt. But my daughter also likes the old standbys Black Canary, Batgirl, Spidergirl and Oracle.

There are plenty of amazing heroines, and the girls do find them.

Cheers,

Clarinda Merripen

Transitions

By: jslucas | Thu, 08/06/2009 - 12:18

Perhaps the discussion is not just about the lack of female super heroines currently pushed to the forefront in popular culture, but what is the natural transition for little girls who are ready to leave the princess stage? Hannah Montana is too old (as the episodes focus more on boys and dating), Harry Potter (thinking of the movies) is too scary at times and the books are a big step up from Judy Moody and the Magic Treehouse series. We want our children to grow, but not too fast!

There is a large segment of potential customers for a creative person or entertainment company to latch on to here. Girls who are outgrowing the princess phase but are too young for the teen focused options.

What is out there for these girls?

Heroines don't have to be fictional, y'know.

By: Murasaki | Tue, 08/04/2009 - 15:06

You don't have to drag out the obligatory Eleanor Roosevelt or Rosa Parks if you're talking about formidable women of history to interest girls; there are plenty of plain old kickass historical heroines worthy of comic books.

Nakano Takeko was one of the few female samurai (onna bugeisha) history took note of. She was trained extensively both in classical literature and writing but also the intensely demanding 'thousand daily swings' of then-standard martial arts training, and led a 'dirty dozen' troop of all-female soldiers, the Aizu Women's Army, to resist an invasion. She committed ritual suicide when she received a mortal bullet wound to her stomach and is still honored today in an annual parade by girls who dress in martial costume and march to her grave.

'Princess' Matsudaira Teru was the lady of that same castle, and during the numerous attacks on her new husband's territory worked alongside hundreds of other women and children, despite her high caste, to treat the wounded, cast bullets, and sharpen weapons. She also had her personal bodyguard confined to quarters when he had a nervous breakdown during the invasion and urged her to commit suicide.

Boudica was a Celtic princess who had her kingdom taken from her when the Romans refused to honor her deceased father's will, who had intended for his two daughters to govern jointly with Rome. When she objected, she was flogged and her daughters were raped. Boudica did the only sensible thing for a woman to do in this situation and rampaged across Britannia with the full support of her tribe's common people and slaughtered upwards of 5,000 better equipped Roman soldiers and sacked three cities before her luck ran out, heading an army of close to 250,000 rebels that included such a significant proportion of women that Tacitus took specific note of it in his history of the Briton rebellion.

The history of the real world has made it harder than the comic universe for formidable women to shine, but the ones that succeeded make Wonder Woman look like a peach.

We Need a Hero(ine)

By: Skelleydaemen | Tue, 08/04/2009 - 10:27

When my daughter was about this age she and all her friends loved The Powerpuff Girls, which is now being rerun on cable. The girls kicked butt, the animation was great, there's plenty of cartoony humor for the little ones, and the dialogue suitably multi-layered and ironic to appeal to adults. In one episode, every spoken word was a line from a Beatles song.

There's also two episode where the girls figure out ways to take apart their male counterparts.

woman super heros

By: mscraven | Tue, 08/04/2009 - 08:14

Happily, both of my older girls love watching Justice League Unlimited with me. The latest Wonder Woman film is great (with a great Nathan Filion Steve Trevor). But, the history of WW is not that great. WW was only allowed to be the secretary of the Justice Society and the early stories said that she lost her powers if bound by her own lasso. Which happened. A lot. Disturbingly.

But ...

I have spent a number of fun hours looking for Supergirl books at Baltimore Comic Con with my 8 year old.

And there is Black Canary, and Huntress, and Oracle. And Power Girl (who often talks about how she is cheesecake and has an uneasy relationship with said status). And Stargirl.

And a lot of them. The problem is there are very few comic book writers or artists who are women. So the portrayals are not always very good. Or are there for the cheesecake.

So, I give you Amanda Connor and Gail Simone. Two women working in the industry who are awesome. Gail Simone coined the phrase 'Women in Refrigerators' for the horrid fates that await most hero girlfriends and wrote great runs in Birds of Prey and I believe is the current WW scribe.

Superheroines

By: Dark King | Mon, 08/03/2009 - 19:14

I rather like Lina Inverse. Powerful mage/wizard/sorceress/insertmagicusertitlehere with good character development over three animated series plus any number of OAVs and movies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lina_Inverse

There's also the Tenchi Muyo! universe. Sure, the "hero of the series" is the titular Tenchi, but the real interest in this lies in the female characters. Sure, its easy to deride it as just another harem anime, but the women around Tenchi are intense! Three goddesses? A space pirate who can (allegedly) destroy entire planets? A princess who is more inclined to beat up her would-be kidnappers than wait to be rescued? The "weakest" character is a space cop who packs a serious arsenal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenchi_Muyo

heroines

By: scavenger | Mon, 08/03/2009 - 13:34

Has Xena been forgotten already?

The thing about "princesses"

By: alkali | Mon, 08/03/2009 - 13:28

For good or for ill, "princesses" are accessible to very young girls. Most if not all of the superheroines mentioned above are not. My 3-year-old cries when dogs bark: I am not going to be sitting down with her with to watch DVDs about vampire slayers and their demon pals anytime soon.

How many lunch boxes can I have?

By: shanendoah | Mon, 08/03/2009 - 12:49

I've got no argument against the Whedon women, but if we're talking comics...
1) Agatha Heterodyne from Girl Genius
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php

2)Wendy Watson from the Middle Man
http://www.vipercomics.com/features/the_middleman.asp

3) Emma Bishop from Ruse (sadly out of production as CrossGen comics is no longer in business)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruse_(comics)

4) Raven & Starfire from Teen Titans http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/tv_shows/titans/

5) Haley from Order of the Stick
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0671.html

River Tam

By: Nina Rastogi | Mon, 08/03/2009 - 12:24

... is an awesome addition. (She's from the much-lamented series Firefly and the spin-off movie, Serenity.)


Battlestar Galactica's Starbuck is also a fantastic character--so rich and complex. Though in the piece, Orenstein is calling for actual superheroines--"larger-than-life" characters with superpowers. So River might qualify, I think, what with her bionic strength and assassin skills. But I'm not sure Starbuck does. Though I would still like a Starbuck lunchbox. Or a Zoe Washburn lunchbox, for that matter.