Report: Only 30 Percent of Marvel/DC Characters Female

[Plunkies]

This is the most tragic thing I've ever read. We should just do away with the first amendment, round up all of the comic writers in a government controlled camp, and force them to create female characters at the end of a whip. How else will we ever free ourselves from this patriarchy? This is what happens when people are allowed to freely express themselves. Oppression.

PLEASE tell me you're joking. Otherwise, you my good poster, have issues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

It really is frightening that even absurd sarcasm is almost indistinguishable from some feminist extremists.

 

[Random Argument Man]

This is the most tragic thing I've ever read. We should just do away with the first amendment, round up all of the comic writers in a government controlled camp, and force them to create female characters at the end of a whip. How else will we ever free ourselves from this patriarchy? This is what happens when people are allowed to freely express themselves. Oppression.

PLEASE tell me you're joking. Otherwise, you my good poster, have issues.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

It really is frightening that even absurd sarcasm is almost indistinguishable from some feminist extremists.

Sarcasm is mostly misunderstood when it's in written form even if the poster has given context for it. I understand your pain.

 

[Riotguards]

30% or 99% does it matter? nobody is going to create something (good) that they do not love and forcing them to make new characters that they do not love and only exists to fuel political correctness will never succeed

if you feel that there's a huge lack of female characters perhaps you should become someone who would make that gap smaller instead of taking away the artists freedom

 

[deth2munkies]

See, that's the problem I have right there: quality over quantity. I don't want them to force a bunch of female knockoffs or genderflipped characters and especially not the super shallow one note female heroes (you know, like the majority of the already-existing male pantheon of heroes) just to fill some diversity quota.

I'd rather have 4 well written female heroes among the slog of shittiness than have the genders equally represented by a bunch of low quality drech.

At this point, I don't think a single person is arguing that the general portrayal of women and lack of female characters is a problem that needs to be addressed, but putting some sort of affirmative action cap of "50/50" on all forms of media is fucking dumb. Buffy was good with no interesting male characters, Supernatural is good with no interesting female characters. Shoehorning a ton of opposite gendered individuals into either show would have been detrimental to its quality. Give me good characters in good situations without resorting to stereotyping and typecasting and I guarantee the gender thing will work itself out.

 

[Remus]

Well, to be clear, Marvel, or more specifically, Wolverine, regularly makes female counterparts for the wide majority of its male characters. For every Sabretooth, there's a Feral, Wolverine has a sister clone, Romulus has his sister Remus, Fantomex has Cluster as well as Eva. When Archangel was in his X-Force, Psylocke was there to try and contain the madness that taking that form instigated. While this isn't true of all comics, there are still plenty of notable female heroes. Heck, Thor is a woman now. While full equality is an admirable goal, 30% representation in an artistic medium is far from terrible in an industry that saw its golden age during WW2 when hero worship was largely centered around male heroes fighting the good fight against despotic foreign regimes.

 

[Grumman]

I do not want 50% of all comic book characters to be female, because I'm never going to read 100% of all comic books. What I want is for the books I /do/ want to read - the Batwomans, the Secret Sixes and the Cable & Deadpools - to be left intact.

 

[softclocks]

This is amazing.

30% representation when all the major characters established their foothold in the 30s through the 50s. This percentage is better than I expected.

It'd be difficult to make up for the advantage that the major titles have, but I wouldn't be surprised if we'd be looking at 45% or something in another 10-20 years.

 

[kilenem]

But more importantly, what's the percentage of Marvel & DC characters who identify as female?

That isn't a good argument because the Teen titans Cartoon had a larger female viewer ship then the comics because it was better at portraying women. Like Terra sleeps with slate in the comics. If you make better Female charterers more women will read it.

 

[synobal]

But more importantly, what's the percentage of Marvel & DC characters who identify as female?

That isn't a good argument because the Teen titans Cartoon had a larger female viewer ship then the comics because it was better at portraying women. Like Terra sleeps with slate in the comics. If you make better Female charterers more women will read it.

It was also on TV with a wider audience than the comics ever reach. It has everything to do with TV vs Comics rather than anything to do with the the subject material at hand.

 

[Grabehn]

I... yeah, don't care about comics, but this "part of this HAS to be females" is just so incredibly annoying, I mean it's not like I'm against this or that being a female instead of a male, but make because it fits, not just to fill a quota.

Make a "female character" because it fits, don't just change a few ones into females because "you have to". In any kind of media, I don't give a shit if a character is male or female, I care about if it's a good character or not.

 

[Mister K]

OK, 50 percent of population are women. There are more women now in the world than man (as far as I am aware), but let's just roll with number 50. Of thoze 50, how many actually READ comics? I am not talking about bishonen manga, I mean superhero western ones. I am willing to bet that not a lot. And I mean ladies that are actually interested in the concept, not those who "don't care, but want more women everywhere because equality".

I do not know how it is in the West, but where I am from, there is a HUGE manganime fanbase, but western superhero fanbase is almost non-existent. What is the point of forcing something for the sake of equality, if those who are we equalizing this media for aren't interested in it?

I am not saying that ladies like only stories with pretty boys, I am not saying that I wouldn't love good superhero stories with actually well-written female leads(quite the oposite, give me more original ladies in non-tight outfits!) but saying that ratio SHOULD be 50/50 by default and gender-bending already existing chacters just to reach this ratio is a way into oblivion.

EDIT: Does anyone know of the sites WITHOUT "sensational" articles?

 

[Something Amyss]

Honestly? I'm a little surprised it's that high.

I do not know how it is in the West, but where I am from, there is a HUGE manganime fanbase, but western superhero fanbase is almost non-existent. What is the point of forcing something for the sake of equality, if those who are we equalizing this media for aren't interested in it?

If you don't know how it is, why assert something like it being "forcing" it for the "sake of equality?"

Sounds like you're working backwards from a predefined conclusion.

 

[theNater]

I actually want to know where the problem lies here? Is it that there are less people who have a name in these books who are women then there are men? That's not an inherent problem in my eyes.

No, that's not a problem. It's an indicator, and it's not 100% clear what it indicates. However, some of the things it might indicate are problems.

Example: It may indicate an unconscious assumption on the part of many writers that male is "default", and that a character will only be female if there is a specific need to be female and be male otherwise. The solution to this is to encourage writers to think more about their characters; why do they want this character to be male? If they don't have a good reason, then maybe they can see if they can identify a good reason for either gender.

Example 2: It may indicate that the comics companies are, for some reason, preferentially hiring creators who wish to write about male characters over ones who wish to write about female characters. The solution to this is simply for the companies to try to broaden their hiring base.

The real answer is probably a mix of several things, possibly including one or both of the examples.

Final notes:

Note that in both example cases, instituting the solution is generally advantageous. We have creators thinking more about their design decisions, and we have comic companies developing a larger idea pool overall.

Note also that there is no case in which the solution is "force people who want to write about male characters to write about female characters." Anyone who suggests that should be soundly mocked.

 

[Dragonmouth]

But more importantly, what's the percentage of Marvel & DC characters who identify as female?

Sadly, about the same.

 

[Strazdas]

So?

I'd rather have 30% of charaters being male/female and the authors of the books making them male/female because they wanted to make the character that way rather than it being 50/50 and authors being denied creative freedom with their charater for the sake of political correctness.

This. gender quatas are a sign of being so weak that you are unable to accept that other people may actually like different things than you so you must make everything equal. Whatever happened to "lets let authors make characters they want"?

 

[Tsun Tzu]

The roots of this uneven division are, in turn, likely grounded in what comic companies perceive to be their primary audience: white men.

I swear quotes like the above used to just read "men" not too long ago, rather than specifying race.

Whatever. Just make some good characters. Nothing at all wrong with adding good (read: good) and diverse characters to the roster.

I do object to the Thor -> Female thing on basic principle though. Not really sure why it isn't just an alternate universe type of thing, rather than changing the gender of...well...the Norse god of thunder. Seems like a publicity stunt, to be honest...why not just use Norse goddesses? I mean, I assume they already do. They'd have to, right?

Is Freyja a marvel character?

Or Ran! Do a crossover with DC's Aquaman. It'd be great. They could both be useless together.

Or Skaði!

Hel would be pretty badass too.

 

[Nurb]

That number is even lower in yaoi comics.

Most problematic.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

I don't know if Freyja has ever shown up in Marvel, but she was a goddess of war, death, seidr(a form of magic) and a whole lot of other things. One of her many names was Valfreyja, Lady of the Slain, and as such she'd be more than capable of kicking ass. Though I don't see Marvel doing her justice, she'd be a good choice.

Which could be friggin' awesome.

I'd love to see a Thorish character design for her too. If they're going for the warrior woman archetype, then give her decent Norse armor/practical clothing and away we go.