Version 1

Sharpie version

This is a piece of fabric I bought, thinking it would be fun to build a piece of wearable art around it. But then I noticed and hated the typical male-fantasy portrayal of warrior women — all boobs and butts and much too much skin. So I got out my Sharpies and made some editorial adjustments to their costumes.

Note the change in the message of the images, just by adding a little ink. It’s such an easy adjustment for comic illustrators to make, and it shifts the message from “sex” to “power.” The pose of the warrior on the bottom is still a problem, but at least, covered, she’s not inviting and easy entrance.

Unfortunately, most comic illustrators are male, and they keep doing what they’ve always been doing — objectifying female heroes and warriors, making them sex objects first and foremost. There are plenty of rants being written decrying that “tradition” and asking for a new paradigm, a new standard, for how female warriors are portrayed. With the new Wonder Woman movie in production, the issue of how to portray and costume a female hero is front and center.

Here’s just another example from the illustration in the piece of fabric I bought. I took these photos after I cut out the squares I want to use, but you can tell where I made the Sharpie changes. In case you can’t, check out the “before.” (I didn’t have a piece of the “before” of the other image.)

After and Before

It just burns my (well-covered) 74 year-old butt that we are still fighting this battle to portray women, even fantasy women, with an emphasis on their abilities and power rather than their sexuality.