4.1 William Marston’s Love Leader: The Ideas Behind Wonder Woman’s Creation William Moulton Marston wanted to create an independent and strong superhero, and she had to be female. He firmly believed that “the comics’ worst offence was their blood-curdling masculinity” (qtd. in Hanley 13), which he stated in an article in American Scholar magazine in 1943. Moreover, he was a vast supporter of a progressive thinking regarding women and gender roles, and believed their emancipation, their “greater freedom, development and equality” (qtd. in Lepore ch.25) to be the key for a functioning civilization. He thought that an important step towards female emancipation was their economic independence; “he used Wonder Woman to encourage women and girls …show more content…
Marston was born in 1893 and grew up during what is often considered the first wave of feminism. This first movement towards female emancipation finds his foundation in the Declaration of Sentiments, written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1848. The document was modeled after the Declaration of Independence and a result of the first women’s rights convention held in Seneca Falls, New York. The women claim that men have reigned in “absolute tyranny” over the female sex (“Declaration” 71). Further, Stanton names several sentiments in which men and women are currently unequal, such as political, social or economic rights, demanding female emancipation. To accentuate the women in history whose actions had a major impact on the American culture and history, the segment “Wonder Women of History” had been included into the Wonder Woman comics: “one point of the series was to celebrate the lives of heroic women and explain the importance of women’s history” (Lepore ch.26). This series was written by a woman, associate editor Alice Marble. One of these Wonder Women of History was Susan B. Anthony in the comic book series’ fifth issue. Susan B. Anthony was not only a prominent civil rights leader in the 19th century, but also took part in the aforementioned women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls. The introductory panel reads: “Susan B. Anthony struck the shackles of legal, social and economic bondage from millions of American women. Brave, daring, generous, sincere, this Wonder Woman led her sex to victory and became ‘the liberator of womankind’” (Marble, “Susan B. Anthony” 1). The comic describes the struggle of women in the 19th century, such as their objectification as property of the men in their lives or being disrespected in their field of profession. The comic ends by