Why We Need Wonder Woman

Illustrated by Jacqueline Davis Moranti

It's crazy to think that not too long ago (within the past century), women were allowed to vote, women were allowed to apply for their own charge cards and not ask their dads for theirs.When I was a just a little girl, my brother and I would walk into the local comic book store and check out the latest comics. I was always intrigued by the beautiful illustrations inside of comics, it may have been part of my influence into the creative field! The colors, the characters, the costumes, the romances, the plot lines, everything was given detail to except for one, women. Growing up, I never quite understood why I never saw women on the front lines of the comic book stories. Sure there were the famous women characters that we all knew and loved like Cat Woman, Super Girl, and Storm to name a few. But if you take a look at those characters' comics or other women characters comics, you'll notice that most of their stories are pretty abstract and vague or at the center of their plot is a man, unsurprisingly. It wasn't until I realized that that's the way the world is run, there are more men in power than women, even though women have been 52% + of the world's population for the past several years. Then, 2017 came around with it's first movie of a woman comic book character, Wonder Woman.

As an adult, I understand the importance of representation, television, movies, books, video games and even comic books can create an influence on any young child's mind. For little girls it's especially important to see people that look like them on the screen or even in literature. One phrase that i've heard go around growing up was, "Women don't do that" or "girls can't do that." Sounds harmless, but in actuality it can be the single most significant thing to hinder a girl's mind and skill set to reach her potential.

Wonder Woman in a way represents that to me. Comic books since it's very early beginning have always told stories of oppression, that feeling of otherness, alienation and discrimination. I guess thats why the X Men series are so popular and relatable to many. Often the allegories in comic books are those that center around men, white men in fact, making their stories of "feeling" marginalized criminally false. 

Historically, Wonder Woman, like many of us ladies was made to feel that unlike her powerful peers, that she, as a woman must retain her woman- ness, her femininity even if her physical prowess seemingly determined otherwise. This literally rings true to me and many of my female friends, just because I love the color pink doesn't mean that I don't also love to lift 300 pounds over my head! 

Women hide so much of their real identity just to fit into societal standards of what a woman should be and act like. When I saw that Wonder Woman was getting her own live action movie, I felt the earth quake beneath my feet because I knew that sooner or later, the gender role archetype wall would soon be crumbling. This is why Wonder Woman is needed in the 21st century.