Objectification In Comics

Objectification of Women in Comics Objectification refers to the act of treating a person as an object without any regard to their individuality or personality. It means to treat people as a commodity and not as an equal human being. Objectification of women has been culturally rooted and it needs to be thwarted. The most common is the sexual objectification of women, when women are thought of as only as sex objects and an inferior entity to get pleasure from. The infamous Marvel and DC comics that engulf the imagination of majority of the young people in the United States are overflowing with degrading and deplorable imagery of women. The famous tales of heroism and nobility in these comics are dyed despicable with misogyny and denigrating

Every time the topic of sexism in comics is brought up, there is always a certain amount of people who try to defend it. They give the obscurest of arguments to defend their vanishing fantasy of a male-dominated world, such as: Male superheroes are drawn the same way female superheroes are; Superheroes are supposed to look sexually appealing since their clothes are usually tight; A lot of women like the way females are portrayed in the comics; You do not have to read the comics if you don’t like it; It is childish to be getting upset about such a “trivial” matter; Women are objectified in magazines too so it should not be a big deal. All of these arguments, obviously, are senseless. There can be no argument that supports sexism and still makes sense. Firstly, male superheroes are drawn as a symbol of power and nobility whereas women are drawn as sex symbols rather than heroic symbols. Furthermore, whenever female characters are drawn their genitalia is exaggerated a bit too much and there poses are always erotic and sexualized. Whereas when male superheroes or characters are drawn they are drawn as divine figures, with muscular and strong bodies. There is absolutely no sexualization of male characters in the comics. For instance, Superheroes such as Superman and Batman are drawn and shown as powerful characters. But female

It is one of the oldest and a vacuous stereotype. But in the 21st century where science has proved time and again that females are equal to males biologically and mentally, there is absolutely no room for such a senseless stereotype. It is a serious problem. The audience mostly consists of young people in their teens or even below that. Reading such female demeaning comics will influence them in a very bad way and might make them think of women as their inferiors too. One of the causes of this is that the comic book industry is male dominated and the male to female ratio is huge. There is a definite need of female characters that are written by females and are shown as equals of men. The huge gender gap in the comic industry needs to be lessened. The founder of comic site of Legion of Leia, Jenna Buscher , recently did a kickstarter campaign for comic book anthology that would be centered around female characters and would be called Womanthology. They had a goal to raise 30,000 US Dollars, They raised a lot more than that. They raised 109,000 dollars. This shows that the female comic readers are more than ever and they are not silent. Busch said that Marvel and DC need to hire female writers and artists so there can be more positive and accurate portrayal of women and not just female characters that are products of male fantasies