When I was a teen in the 1970s, Wonder Woman was everywhere. A feminist cheerfully determined to right the world’s wrongs, especially against women, she boldly sprinted onto the cover of Ms. Magazine’s 1972 inaugural issue. Her tv series spun off toys, t-shirts, action figures, lunch boxes, and more. Now she’s back. Jill Lepore’s new book, The Secret History of Wonder Woman, tells of her bizarre 1940s creation and subsequent history. In 2016, a revamped Wonder Woman will be sword-fighting her way into movie theaters worldwide in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
Wonder Woman is just one of many currently popular women warriors or superheras, including the X-Men series’ female super-mutants, the Hunger Games’ lead character, the women warriors in the Avatar tv series, and many more, whose power comes from the ability to fight. Even Snow White became a martial arts expert in 2012’s Snow White and the Huntsmen. Like Wonder Woman’s recent regeneration, however, these characters seem grimmer, and more deadly, violent, and dystopian than the earlier Wonder Woman with her optimistic, colorful comic book style, and an innocence that would now seem naive. Continue reading “Great Hera! Wonder Woman and Taking Women’s Power Back from the Mainstream Media by Carolyn Lee Boyd”
Feminism and Religion 