mlai
Too often, a woman is shown to be subdued by her love for a man. To avoid this, generic powerful women (example, Lara Croft) is attached to no man, or is lesbian (example, Matoko Kusanagi). Because the stereotype is that no matter how strong the woman, true love would cow her and reveal a woman's true nature as meek and giving.

You should read Warrior Queens by Antonia Frasier (if you haven't). She lays out different ways real women have handled their powerful personae. And the archetypes are alive and well in the present culture.

And I think it's as much a mistake to underestimate the effects of our culture on us as to "blame" every bad thing that happens on it. But the biggest mistake is to act like it doesn't matter at all.

Kristen Gudsnuk
I feel like the bigger problem than the bodies of the ladies in comics, is their personalities. I generally HATE women in fiction, because they're so freaking annoying! either they're too clingy and wimpy, or even worse, they're the so-called "strong women" who can do anything and everything, 'mouths are agape in wonder at the beauty and innate intelligence and talent of this girl!'
take... inu-yasha, for instance (not my favorite series, but..) is there ANYONE out there who actually likes Kagome? I feel like her character was designed to make inu-yahsa even more awesome and multi-faceted.
sure, there are girls in my comic, but I try reallly hard to make them likeable. I don't know if I've succeeded, but I tried to avoid the whole 'innate talent and wisdom' thing, but they're not all weak and lame (ok... eve might be that, a little.)

I guess it comes down to gender stereotypes. it's not that men are less stereotyped than women in fiction, it's just that the stereotypes are kinder to men than to women. the stereotypical woman in fiction is beautiful and needs to be babied, and is little more than an ornament for the man.
compare that to the typical byronic hero... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byronic_hero [en.wikipedia.org]) yup, he sounds pretty hot. just reading that description makes ME wanna read some Lord Byron.

so that's my two cents.

That's a very good observation and it's another problem that I prefer to avoid. On a whole, if a character doesn't seem like a person it makes them not as interesting somehow. And I think most of us would agree that falling back on sterotypes is the hallmark of a bad writer.
Personally, I've always been annoyed by powerful women who are portrayed as overtly bitchy. It's like these writers think that any woman with an intependent attitude has some sort of personality problem.

patrickdevine
Personally, I've always been annoyed by powerful women who are portrayed as overtly bitchy. It's like these writers think that any woman with an intependent attitude has some sort of personality problem.

People in power are stereotypically portrayed as dicks/bitches. Its not a woman thing.

On the subject of stereotypes, I would like to add something:

The ideas of stereotypes are frowned upon a lot, but I think of them as the building blocks of character design. Character archetypes are useful as a starting point for creating your character. We have stereotypes such as the big dumb jock, the skinny nerd, the ditsy blonde, and others. The important part is using these as a starting point and adding to them. You could take the typical ditsy blonde but make her strong as an ox or a deadly sniper. NOW you're starting to build an interesting character, and readers are able to quickly identify with her because of her archetypal roots.

How this applies to the feminism issue is that while we could do a full 180 and only make female characters that go against the stereoypes (i.e., make them all independent, small-breasted, full-figured, and powerful), I think it would make an equally bad comic. Similarly you can't make every single man in your comic into a muscular brute.

I think we should not be afraid to have an attractive or submissive woman somewhere in our comic. Just make sure the feminists are properly represented for the most part. And if you do tap into stereotypes, add to them and make them interesting and atypical, as was mentioned before.

I think this also applies to one of the biggest cliches in webcomics; the 2 guys on the couch format.

I've never had a big problem with that, because its an accurate portrayal of real life. So what if Penny Arcade did it. So what if CAD did it. PA and CAD certainly didn't come up with the idea. Dudes have been hanging with their buddy on the couch for years. Its a perfectly fine starting point for a strip. That's pretty much how I feel about all comic cliches. Who cares? Your writing is what will separate you from the others in the end.

Stereotypes have some validity...as something common , generally seen, occurred over and over. They're not necessarily right or wrong, I suppose it's how you interpert and react to them.

Whew, so many excellent comments and observations. I actually have a couple to add which build off of previous concepts.
1. Stereotypes. They exist because they are real. Both men and women really do look and act in stereotypical fashion, and more often than you might expect. That is why stereotypes exist. Nerdy guys like me, we rarely indulge in heroic activity, we just aren't built for it (okay, I'm not built--nor have I ever been except for a short time in high school--like a nerdy geek--but I felt like I was for a long time) so the idea that a skinny, nerdy klutz might be a hero in the Byronic mold just doesn't right true! Not that it cannot be. Readers of illustrated stories (movie-go-ers ect) however, want to emmerse themselves in the fantasy they they ARE the character. Ergo, if your comic, like mine is geared toward a youthful male audience, you want to put your 'hero' in situations that appeal to the reader. Which brings us to...
2. The female stereotype. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that I have, possibly a longer term viewpoint than most posters on this forum. I have nearly made it to my fiftieth birthday. I certainly do not have any kind of lock on wisdom, or anything, but I am a keen observer of the human condition. This is what I have observed (and don't forget, I raised a daughter, now twenty-two, through slumber parties, high school proms, first dates, first sexual encounters, make-up, being slammed by other girls in gossip scams, first lesbian kisses, fights with me and with peers, you name it...) girls fit roughly into four groups. I will not go any further in defining this as I still enjoy life and my place here on DD!!! These four groups bear the brunt of stereotyping. Frankly, most well rounded women are not buried in any of these groups, but people tend to classify behaviors as a way to try and understand them. For guys, understanding girls is a huge, murky, mysterious thing. However, we all know what we like--visually.
3. Guys, despite claims to the contrary, are primarily visually stimulated. Biologists will back me up on this. This is why human females--of all the animals in the animal kingdom are the only ones whose breasts are swollen at all times! Human female nipples are the only oned which are differently colored from skin at all times. It is to promote sexual attraction!!! Get with the program already. Nature doesn't care whether you have feelings about this--Nature built men and women to be competitive in the pro-creation arena. So quit telling me to put my eyes back in my head and stop staring at your lovely breasts. I was designed by Gaia herself to look at and admire them!!! Thank-you Gaia!!!
4. Which brings me to Subcultured who stated quite succinctly that he creates female characters based upon what he likes and wants. Thank-you Subcultured! I too create characters, both male and female, which arouse feelings of sympathy, lust, concern and everything else. If the girls are particularly well-endowed, so be it. These are girls that I would have loved to have been involved with! I also like males who are pretty--not less manly, just not 'in your face muscled' and why can't a fellow be pretty? Michelangelo's David is beautiful! As is Benevenuto Cellini's David. I love 'em both. Still, I was alway attracted to the X-Men's Scott Summers, physically, despite his often morose attitudes--and he was of the well-muscled variety.


So that's my opinion on this issue, for what it is worth. I just wish, somehow, men and women could get on the same planet when it comes to things like this...but I expect that is not in Gaia's plan. She likes keeping the pot stirred let me tell you!

Walker

TnTComic

patrickdevine
Personally, I've always been annoyed by powerful women who are portrayed as overtly bitchy. It's like these writers think that any woman with an intependent attitude has some sort of personality problem.

People in power are stereotypically portrayed as dicks/bitches. Its not a woman thing.

People in power being portrayed as bad is a pretty common stereotype, though that's not what I meant. it's just when there's a female character who's skilled and/or willful, (not "in power" per se,) being presented as a irrational, mean person but men in similar situations are portrayed much more sympathetically.

patrickdevine

TnTComic

patrickdevine
Personally, I've always been annoyed by powerful women who are portrayed as overtly bitchy. It's like these writers think that any woman with an intependent attitude has some sort of personality problem.

People in power are stereotypically portrayed as dicks/bitches. Its not a woman thing.

People in power being portrayed as bad is a pretty common stereotype, though that's not what I meant. it's just when there's a female character who's skilled and/or willful, (not "in power" per se,) being presented as a irrational, mean person but men in similar situations are portrayed much more sympathetically.

Yeah.... kinda like how it's OK for men to be "loose" when it comes to women as seeing this seemingly makes them a "irresistible stud", but if it's the way around the woman's automatically considered an slut.

Gonna love double standards.

Aurora Moon
Yeah.... kinda like how it's OK for men to be "loose" when it comes to women as seeing this seemingly makes them a "irresistible stud", but if it's the way around the woman's automatically considered an slut. Gonna love double standards.

No, that's not a double standard. It's simply a different standard when it comes to sexuality, between man and woman. That's because they are different.
The man is expected to pursue the woman, and to take the lead in courtship etc. That's also not a double standard. That's the way nature and society is structured.

mlai
No, that's not a double standard. It's simply a different standard when it comes to sexuality, between man and woman. That's because they are different.
The man is expected to pursue the woman, and to take the lead in courtship etc. That's also not a double standard. That's the way nature and society is structured.

That's not true, it's an assumption; a cultural one. And it's not the same in all cultures and hasn't been the same way throughout history either. It's especially evident how obviously incorrect an assumption it is when you examine the "natural world", where you've identified this structure as existing: The relations between the males and females vary widely depending on the species.

Ha! But this has already changed in Western Culture anyway. The "Stud" myth has all but died out in many places, or at least altered fundamentally... Overly sexually promiscuous males are often looked on with suspicion and some degree of derision more and more, instead of just plain tolerance or admiration. Sexually promiscuous behaviour in females is seen as more acceptable; witness the rise of such television shows as "Sex in the City", "Desperate Housewives", etc. Aspects of entertainment often reflect the changing views of the society that originates it, such is the case here.

How do you know that it's how nature intended? it's not like you know for sure that humans from the start was breed with males being aggressive towards females in mind.... after all, you can't travel back in time. (far as I know anyway).

Yes, there's that whole thing about cavemen supposedly being aggressive towards their females and dragging them off to rape them in order to produce offspring... but how do they really know for sure? it's not like they can do a foresnics thing on a corspe more than 100 years old and go: "Oh yeah, she was raped."

take a good look at those other animals out there for instance. Not all animals in nature has the male aggressively pursing the females.... in a lot of cases, the females actually have to compete against each other to get the male's attention. So in some cases, it can be said that nature made certain females competive in getting their desired males.

And being competive can be a trait of being "agressive" and pursing the males. Just because the females don't say outright that they want the males or outright "court" the males doesn't mean that they aren't actively pursuing the men.

After all, when a woman starts dressing in a certain way to seem more attractive for certain males, is she not indirectly pursuing the men by grabbing their attention? The same for makeup, hair and all those other things that women do to get men intersted in them.

Men and women have different ways of pursuing each other, but that doesn't mean that one method of pursuing/courtship is any less vaild than the other.

And that whole society thing is bullcrap. Society once conidsered women to be nothing but property of men, so of course naturally women had to be meek, demure and all that. God forbid that they actively court men like she's an equal instead of being somebody's property! but that doesn't mean that they were "right".

Think about it.

ha, ozoneocean beat me to it while I was making that long post.

Regardless of what you would like, the society I live in does not treat men and women equally in terms of sexuality, at this time. Therefore it's not a double standard. It's the standard.

When the time does come when women lord over men (which has happened in some societies in the past and present), then that would be the standard as well.

But the incorrect thing to say would be "Oh men get to be more promiscuous that's a double standard" while failing to mention the things women have over men in advantage. Having the priority in keeping the children in the event of a divorce, for example.

mlai
Regardless of what you would like, the society I live in does not treat men and women equally in terms of sexuality, at this time.

See that seems like the definition of double standard to me.

However, I think women and men are physiologically and psychologically different and therefore need to be held to different standards in a few different ways... just like how we think it's unethical for a man to punch a woman.

Hawk

mlai
Regardless of what you would like, the society I live in does not treat men and women equally in terms of sexuality, at this time.

See that seems like the definition of double standard to me.

However, I think women and men are physiologically and psychologically different and therefore need to be held to different standards in a few different ways... just like how we think it's unethical for a man to punch a woman.

heh, speak for yourself. I don't think it would be competely unethical for a man to punch a woman in certain cases.

Instance: You got some crazy woman going at you and your family with a knife/or other weapon.... what do you do? of course you attack her to defend yourself and your family! If the quickest way to get her to stop was to punch her in the head, knocking her out...of course you would do it if it was to defend your family.

But to be fair here, let's say we're talking about abuse and random violence that was competely uncalled for.
I would think it would be competely unethical of a woman to punch a man if he had no way of defending himself too as well. I've heard of abusive wives who would randomly attack their husbands pyshically with objects, etc. And of course naturally the men feel that they can't defend themselves against their pyscho wives, otherwise they'd be seen as the "bad guy". And of course their "male pride" would prevent them from ever seeking help because they feel like they'd be mocked for being such "weaklings". That kind of thing doesn't get much publicity as an abusive husband does, but it does happen.

So I would say it's equal for both women and men in relationships, it's not just unethical to pyshically abuse each other like that.

http://www.answers.com/double+standard&r=67
Oh, answers.com!

It's been a while since I read this, but I believe that a lot of modern research squashes the idea of the caveman-rapist-rageaholic, esp. in relation to neanderthal societies. Of course it's all theory, due to the dreadful lack of time machines, but they're solid theories. Small and fragile subsistence communities had to be cooperative to survive, and if mobile, likely had few possessions, leading to more egalitarian structures. It's rather hard to generalize, because in modern hunter-gatherer societies, there's a lot of diversity, esp. when it comes to division of labor. But I guess my point is that it hasn't always been the way it is now, so it doesn't always have to be that way in the future.

You are correct, there is a double standard.

It seems I knew what I wanted to say, but merely confused the way I chose to express my opinion. What I basically mean is what Hawk said above. I'm not saying there isn't a double standard; I just mean that it applies both ways.

Aurora Moon
heh, speak for yourself. I don't think it would be competely unethical for a man to punch a woman in certain cases.

Then you admit that under normal circumstance it's unethical.

I'm just saying that there is a prevalent rule in this day and age that a man doesn't hit a woman. Of course there are exceptions.

I've never heard the whole caveman-rape thing, but I can already tell it's bull crap. It looks to me like nothing but more subjugation of women with men taking charge again and people trying to use science to back it up. If that's how people reproduced, then women would have evolved out of associating sex with pleasure or being attracted to men. It's obvious that it hasn't happened, so I can think of no evidence to back it up. Rapists are just frustrated wimps who're too lazy to get love the proper way.

The whole "Men are allowed to be promiscuous" thing is bull, too. Like has been said before, it went out of fashion a long time ago. Do you know how much turmoil a man sleeping with another woman can cause in romances or soap operas? It's not like people say "You go guy", except maybe the obligatory jerk who often receives pain as a result of his comment. Infidelity is frowned upon in typical American society.

As for writing the complete opposite of the stereotypical woman (Or the stereotypical really-powerful woman?) I think that's been called an "Anti-Sue", which is also a form of Mary Sue. I might be wrong, but...

Kohdok
The whole "Men are allowed to be promiscuous" thing is bull, too.

News to me.

Aurora Moon
Take that one Heavy Metal movie.. the first one with that orb, that is. Near the end, we have this lady warrior who seems to be mute since she doesn't really speak at all and rather let her actions speak for her. Anyway she walks into this bar, and then there's all those male creatures perving on her, and one of them goes too far (actually grabbing her breasts) and she promtly slices his head off with her sword. Then the males are all suddenly well behaved after she gives them all this glaring look afterward.

Taarna the Defender! My favorite character in the film!

I like strong women. And more an issue to me is not "are the heroine's breasts big?" so much as "is she an anorexo-babe who is a prepackaged sex object"? If she is, I find that offensive. One reason I can't stand women in mainstream superhero books anymore.

I have no problem with the way Alex Ross draws large-breasted women. Michael Turner's Supergirl, on the other hand, disgusts me.

TitanOne

Aurora Moon
Take that one Heavy Metal movie.. the first one with that orb, that is. Near the end, we have this lady warrior who seems to be mute since she doesn't really speak at all and rather let her actions speak for her. Anyway she walks into this bar, and then there's all those male creatures perving on her, and one of them goes too far (actually grabbing her breasts) and she promtly slices his head off with her sword. Then the males are all suddenly well behaved after she gives them all this glaring look afterward.

Taarna the Defender! My favorite character in the film!

I like strong women. And more an issue to me is not "are the heroine's breasts big?" so much as "is she an anorexo-babe who is a prepackaged sex object"? If she is, I find that offensive. One reason I can't stand women in mainstream superhero books anymore.

I have no problem with the way Alex Ross draws large-breasted women. Michael Turner's Supergirl, on the other hand, disgusts me.

Yeah, that's her name! I competely blanked on her name...

Anyway I pretty much agree with you. I don't care about the size of a woman's breasts, but rather just the way she's portayed as.

And speaking of Michael Turner--he was quoted to actually say that he based some of the supergirl pyshical traits and personality on his DAUGHTER. So I find it kinda disturbing that an artist who would compare his supergirl to his daughter would actually have the nerve to dress super girl in clothing that was barely there. Does he actually have his daughter dress in the same way? Ew. And even if he didn't have much choice over her outfit, drawing her SO skinny... wouldn't that be viewing his daughter ina unhealthy way?

Hawk
On the subject of stereotypes, I would like to add something:

The ideas of stereotypes are frowned upon a lot, but I think of them as the building blocks of character design. Character archetypes are useful as a starting point for creating your character. We have stereotypes such as the big dumb jock, the skinny nerd, the ditsy blonde, and others. The important part is using these as a starting point and adding to them. You could take the typical ditsy blonde but make her strong as an ox or a deadly sniper. NOW you're starting to build an interesting character, and readers are able to quickly identify with her because of her archetypal roots.

How this applies to the feminism issue is that while we could do a full 180 and only make female characters that go against the stereoypes (i.e., make them all independent, small-breasted, full-figured, and powerful), I think it would make an equally bad comic. Similarly you can't make every single man in your comic into a muscular brute.

I think we should not be afraid to have an attractive or submissive woman somewhere in our comic. Just make sure the feminists are properly represented for the most part. And if you do tap into stereotypes, add to them and make them interesting and atypical, as was mentioned before.

well, yes there's definitely a happy medium. I think varied characters are a good way do go about doing a decent comic. My official opinion on sterotypes is be careful with them. If you just need a quick throwaway sort of character to make a point or tell a joke then a stereotyped character might be fine because cartoons tend to rely on the audience recognizing something right away. Not to say stereotypes should be used all the time just be careful and aware of what you're doing.

I draw women the way I do because that is how I like them. I imagine that is the same with everyone. If the women are overly hot or big chested it is because it is how the artist wants them to be. Same thing with buff guys. I mean why else put super heroes in skin tight costumes. The sex appeal is part of the gig right? But for women characters it is a little different.In guys it is about shouling off their giant muscles, in women it is about showing off their figure. I don't see the harm in it.

I also try to make my femal character(s) more apart of the story other than the "damsel in distress" plot point.

I love power-girl and her costume.

I hate mega-ton man. the doooooch bag that draws that book taught at the art school I attended. And he is a pretentious knuckle head. I know that doesn't have anything to do with the thread, I just can't stop from lashing out when I see his stuff. I once prayed to God that he would get hit by a bus.


http://www.drunkduck.com/The_Nonstandard_Assembly/


http://www.jonnyaxx.com/

jmt
I draw women the way I do because that is how I like them. I imagine that is the same with everyone. If the women are overly hot or big chested it is because it is how the artist wants them to be. Same thing with buff guys. I mean why else put super heroes in skin tight costumes. The sex appeal is part of the gig right? But for women characters it is a little different.In guys it is about shouling off their giant muscles, in women it is about showing off their figure. I don't see the harm in it.

I agree with you to an extent. Some certain artists' styles just.... scares me. Take Micachel Turner's "style" which has already been brought up. He seems to have a tendecy to draw his girls really taunt-looking. by that I mean they're not only just skinny, there seems to be a point where the ribs and the bones on her body LITTERALLY seem to be showing. To top that off, it's just not something he does with all of his females...he only seems to draw the "heroines" that way.

So why does that disturb me? Well... it just strikes me as a little odd how somebody SO UNHEALTHY LOOKING (as in being basically a living skeletion with zero muscles) could do things like lift cars while a much more healthier-looking woman in that same artist's universe can't.

Thin or fat, tall or short, musclar or stringy.... whatever the build, I want them all to look at least HEALTHY. Nothing annoys me more than seeing an sickly looking woman acting like there's nothing wrong with her, or worse, people acting like being sickly-looking is super hot.

Aurora Moon
And speaking of Michael Turner--he was quoted to actually say that he based some of the supergirl pyshical traits and personality on his DAUGHTER. So I find it kinda disturbing that an artist who would compare his supergirl to his daughter would actually have the nerve to dress super girl in clothing that was barely there. Does he actually have his daughter dress in the same way? Ew. And even if he didn't have much choice over her outfit, drawing her SO skinny... wouldn't that be viewing his daughter ina unhealthy way?

Agreed. She's an anorexic. Which, in my opinion, is ridiculous. "Slender" is fine, but Turner's Supergirl, translated into human flesh and bone, would only weigh about 92 pounds.

I also just find the idea of a half-naked Supergirl disturbing...why is Supergirl being packaged that way? It's Supergirl, for heaven's sakes...she's supposed to be old-fashioned, like most members of the Superman family. Why does she look a teen prostitute?

Unfounately, I think it got to do with the teenage and pre-teen "trends". Sex sells, plain and simple. Also....nowdays there's teenagers out there who's dressed much worse than supergirl all in the name of what's "totally in and fashionable". So whoever came up with the clothing designs was proably just relfecting that unfounate fact.

Now, on one hand... Clothes are just bits of cloth that was invented for the sole purpose of protecting our body from the elements.. so wearing them a certain way shouldn't make you be a "whore", "gay" or whatever other labels that people would throw on you for wearing certain types of clothing.

But on the other hand unfounately clothing is much more than just something to protect our bodies from the elements. It can be used to express something about that person and to send a message to the world.

On adult women I wouldn't care if they were to wear that type of clothing as seeing they'd be fully informed and be able to handle everything that would come their way because of the type of clothing they wore.

But on Teenage girls or younger, it disturbs me snice at least half of them are very uninformed about what could come thier way because of the clothing that they wear...and they might not be emtionally/mentally mature enough to handle that kind of thing.
Most Teenagers and preteens usually just wore those types of clothes because they were seeking to fit in and get attention by other peers in order to become popular. In a way, though, they don't realize that they're kinda adverising to the whole world that they might be "easy".
young people that only just started to be aware of thier sexuality and haven't had compete control over such matters shouldn't be wearing clothes until they're really ready to take on the world in terms of their sexuality.

Just something I wanted to ramble about.

So I googled Michael Turner's supergirl... She's not anorexic... she's built like a marathon runner from Kenya.

Granted, 90% of USA teenagers cannot have her body type unless they starve themselves, but you can't tell me a Kenyan marathoner isn't healthy.

Her clothing, though... can that skirt go any lower? But that's what sells.

OTOH, doesn't she strike a little too close to home for everyone who's not in the elite clique in school? She looks like the typical Ms. Perfect who makes you feel worthless in high school.

curious to see what a Keyan marthoner would have as an diet, I goggled it...

apperently they burn up to 4,000 calories a day, so they have to eat foods that has massive amounts of carbs!But snice they don't say what kind of effect that would have on the body, I don't know if it would be healthy nethier way.

there's a youtube video of it here: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=f2ekrYID2ho which shows some of the stuff they eat.

But moving on... yeah, that was why I never cared about being popular in high school... snice all the super snooty popular girls in my school back then, of course, was girls who happened to have the most revealing clothing. They liked to pretend that the only reason why they were popular was because of thier althetic prowness and whatever else they deluded themselves into thinking they had. Give me a break.... of course they were hit with that hard reality once they got older.
Too bad the number (of girls) are growing for those who wouldn't mind exposing themselves for the sake of being popular for a measly few years in middle/high school.

but we're kinda getting off topic.. ^^;;