Report: Only 30 Percent of Marvel/DC Characters Female

Morbira

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In other news: Statisticians are amazed by the paradigm shift as 30% now reads as "about 1 in 4 superheroes is female" (25%) as opposed to the previous logic wherein 30% is actually much closer to 33%, which would have correctly been read as "about 1 in 3 superheroes is female."
 

babinro

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Maybe it's just me but I feel that 30% is enough to say that this isn't even a 'problem' worth mentioning.

There's clearly plenty of representation for both genders and that's all that's important. A person going to a comic book store and looking for female character comics won't exactly be lacking in options.

Kudos to DC/Marvel.

Hope you continue to offer more gender, racial, political, religious and sexual diversity to your comics characters in the future.
 

scotth266

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Oh man, I love reading this sort of shit. Builds up my blood pressure nicely.

StewShearer said:
One of the blatant paradoxes of many a human society is the fact that women make up 50 percent of the population, but are often treated as a minority.
Something about this sentence annoys me. Perhaps it's the attempt to equate sexism to racism. Yes, they're both "isms", pointless hatreds of people, but I don't think that sexism equates to treating women as "minorities" - sexism is a unique sort of problem. For example, some people consider pink toys to be sexist, even though they're supposedly produced FOR women.

It strikes me as an attempt to put square pegs in round holes because the number of sides isn't too far off so long as you squint. Speaking of numbers...

The report, which was recently published but the media site FiveThirtyEight, found that among DC and Marvel's current line-ups, only around one out of every four characters is a woman. More precisely female characters only represent around 30 percent of either company's overall cast, with <a href-http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/dc%20comics>DC Comics claiming a slight lead over Marvel owing, in part, to its early willingness to create female counterparts to its male leads.
This does not compute. 30 percent of comic book characters are women, but apparently you choose to say only a quarter of characters are women when the number is much closer to a third. Why the negativity bias, bro? 46% of comic readers are apparently women [http://comicsbeat.com/market-research-says-46-female-comic-fans/], so the number of characters representing them is actually only 16% off the actual proportion of readers. It could obviously use improvement, but it's not like the apocalypse was just announced - in fact, the number of women in comic books has apparently been rising steadily over the years.

What's more is that the analysis of these numbers has been skewed to suit a pre-arranged conclusion. The author of the article says that his sources are the Marvel and DC comics wikis, which he's been yanking data from to establish all sorts of stuff. The problem is that his 30% figure is based upon an analysis of the entire history of the two big comic book universes (at least if I'm reading his notes right).

If you wanted a more accurate picture of how many females are ACTUALLY in comic books CURRENTLY, you'd take a look at how many of said characters have been active/had starring roles in books the last few years. Otherwise you get shit like an enormous number of long-dead male Green Lantern Corps members that starred in one comic padding the numbers (and wouldn't that just be too bad?).

It gets worse the more you read. Take this snippet from the original article:

When we look at what kinds of characters women are, another unfortunate picture emerges: There?s evidence that women are more passive than men on the page.

Women and men were almost exactly equally likely to have a secret identity in the Marvel universe (49.4 percent of males and 49.5 percent of females), while in the DC universe 51 percent of males had a secret identity and 45 percent of females did. While it?s not a perfect stand-in, we can also infer that men may be slightly more likely to be superheroes or villains ? rather than just normal, unpowered side characters ? than women in the DC universe.

In both DC and Marvel, women were of neutral allegiance at a higher rate than men. Men were also more likely to be bad in each universe ? in fact, bad-aligned men alone outnumbered all women combined. In other words, there?s something of a paucity of female villains.
The author starts with a conclusion - that women are somehow more passive in comic books. As proof, he offers up... an analysis of how many women have secret identities? And the number is roughly equal (only 5% difference) to the number of men with secret identies?

First up, how does having a secret identity determine how "passive" a woman is in a comic book? For example, She-Hulk is VERY public about her identity, and she's not someone I'd describe as "passive." And when the number is only 5% different, aren't you saying that most men are also somehow "passive"? Gee, with how "passive" all these characters must be, it's a wonder comic books aren't used as sleeping aids!

Then he attempts to tie the number of women who don't have secret identities to the number of "unpowered side characters," as if all the characters in comic books without secret identities were mere window dressing. I can just FEEL the amount of >implying going on. Woman without a secret identity in a comic book? Meh, probably just eye candy or unpowered girlfriends, right?

The funniest bit though is when he comments on how the number of male villains is greater than the number of female villains (a difference of about 20% on average). You'd think that the majority of women in comic books being good/neutral instead of evil would be a GOOD thing, but this guy's in full Negative Nancy mode, so instead he insists there's a "paucity" of female villains.

I never imagined that portraying the majority of women as good/neutral could be construed as a BAD THING(tm), but hey, here we are. Rather than talking about the actual issues (I found the number of female characters being created/the number of female artists and writers to be a far more compelling statistic than the rest of this garbage) we have to work hard to be outraged about as much as possible.

Nurb said:
That number is even lower in yaoi comics.

Most problematic.
I admit, I chuckled.
 

Autumnflame

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Still what everyone fails to understand we CANNOT equalise 50/50 male female. roles in movies/games/comics/anime ect ect OVERNIGHT

a lot of these projects takes years to come to fruition. games especially.

a 5 year plan for closer to 50/50 is reasonable. Saying well on the first of this month i demanded 50/50 and now its the 10th and you have done NOTHING is very silly.

Creating new IPs modifying old ones takes time and people need to under stand that it is a process not a valve that can be adjusted at whim.

patience people patience
 

Tsun Tzu

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Halyah said:
A proper valkyrie design would be better as she has a relation to them, but I forgot the details of it. I wouldn't say she fits a straight up ye olde vanilla type of hero though, but then neither does Thor and we know what marvels take on him is like. :p
Frankly, a non-standard heroine would be a good thing. Anti-heroes or Observer heroes are perfectly servicable and all.

You're probably right on the valkyrie angle.

Something like -

For a classic angle.

Or the more 'futuristic' movie versions.

- seems like it would be cool. I dunno. I find this idea a whole hell of a lot more interesting than just gender flipping a character.
 

Alleged_Alec

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To be honest, I'd rather have 1% of the characters being female and well written rather than 50% being female and just being there to tick boxes.

My issues with this article can be neatly summed up with the first sentence, however:
Despite efforts to balance the scales, Marvel and DC still focus primarily on creating male comic characters.
Because it's just not true. If you look at the actually new characters they're making, there are already more than 30% females in them. However, as they go through the entire backlog of comics, this is swept under the rug rather ham-handedly. It'd be like saying that most people who've ever been in the army are male, and therefore there is an issue with how the army recruits. It not only misuses statistics, but it also undermines a problem which is real by using those bad percentages.
 

Mister K

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Zachary Amaranth said:
Honestly? I'm a little surprised it's that high.

Mister K said:
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.
Because a) I made an assumption based on my own experience and, after reading posts here b) came to certain conclussion based on the info given and c) I am not saying that I was correct, although I WILL say that I'd really like more leading ladies and femanizing Thor and blackening Spider Man because Marvel is too lazy/affraid to create someone new seems like a cheap bullshit to me.

EDIT: I am in complete agreement with people here, who say it is better to make smaller cast of well-made female characters, then create 100 forgetable "chicks".
 

Izanagi009_v1legacy

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nekoali said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squirrel_Girl

She's a mutant squirrel/girl crossbreed. She has a cute fluffy tail and the proportional abilities of a human sized squirrel (except holding large amounts of food in her mouth. I don't think she's ever been shown doing that.) Despite being not very powerful, she's defeated some of the most powerful villains in the Marvel Universe, like Doctor Doom and even Thanos.

Yeah, she's a joke character that has just kept going. People just love her and she keeps showing up in books. So they're giving her a series of her own where she deals with super villains and college life.
I swear to god this sounds so much like a game charcter I know

Similar base appearance and strength and she is also one of the big comedic characters for that universe who somehow can screw with the plans of the villains unintentionally.

OT: do I think that more female characters should be made, to some extent yes. Do I think it should be mandated, hell no. Make a character that fits a story and personality needed, if it benefits from or doesn't matter if it's a female character, I say consider making the character a female. A quota will be problematic but some progress should be made.
 

Silentpony_v1legacy

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I'm sorry, its a logical fallacy to assume that just because women are 50% of the total population, they must also be 50% of every fan base. This article never address if that 30% of characters being female corresponds to 30% of the fanbase being female.
 

And Man

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Morbira said:
In other news: Statisticians are amazed by the paradigm shift as 30% now reads as "about 1 in 4 superheroes is female" (25%) as opposed to the previous logic wherein 30% is actually much closer to 33%, which would have correctly been read as "about 1 in 3 superheroes is female."
Glad I'm not the only one who noticed this.

StewShearer said:
...with DC Comics claiming a slight lead over Marvel owing, in part, to its early willingness to create female counterparts to its male leads.
And I think this is the issue people have with focusing on "only" 30% of characters being female; DC creating "female counterparts to its male leads" gives the impression that they're lazily shoehorning in female characters for the sake of having more female characters. I'm not saying that these new characters are necessarily poor characters, but it definitely gives the impression that they were just thrown in.
 

Lupine

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LostGryphon said:
Halyah said:
A proper valkyrie design would be better as she has a relation to them, but I forgot the details of it. I wouldn't say she fits a straight up ye olde vanilla type of hero though, but then neither does Thor and we know what marvels take on him is like. :p
Frankly, a non-standard heroine would be a good thing. Anti-heroes or Observer heroes are perfectly servicable and all.

You're probably right on the valkyrie angle.

Something like -

For a classic angle.

Or the more 'futuristic' movie versions.

- seems like it would be cool. I dunno. I find this idea a whole hell of a lot more interesting than just gender flipping a character.

The current rulers of Asgard in Thor at the moment.

Also the whole just gender flipping a character is a bit of a misnomer because as a fan of Modern Thor, the current Thor isn't a gender flip, she is a character that just happens to be female that is taking up the mantle of the God of Thunder and taking over his current Thor comic title. This exact same thing happened with Amadeus Cho over in Hercules but Cho didn't get this kind of press and there was no one calling it the worst thing ever...so I can see how people might have missed it as a non marvel comics fan.

Cho became the Prince of Power which had been Herc's title up until then as Herc lost his powers and basically disappeared. Thor Odinson of course hasn't really lost his powers, but I digress.







Marvel has a good amount of them. Not a fan or the designs for the most part, but you do tend to get some interesting characters out of it. That is so long as someone doesn't just come along and decide to treat it as just a gender flipped Thor, which some writers do and which is why the original comment of such sort of rubbed me as a fan the wrong way.
 

Tsun Tzu

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Lupine said:

The current rulers of Asgard in Thor at the moment.
And that is awesome. I say bring her to the forefront...except apparently that character is named Frigga who's apparently taken the name Freyja? And that's a triumvirate of goddesses formed for some...reason- All right, so I'm getting that comics are something of a massive pit of events/entities/facts/etc.

Ugh.

Also the whole just gender flipping a character is a bit of a misnomer because as a fan of Modern Thor, the current Thor isn't a gender flip, she is a character that just happens to be female that is taking up the mantle of the God of Thunder and taking over his current Thor comic title. This exact same thing happened with Amadeus Cho over in Hercules but Cho didn't get this kind of press and there was no one calling it the worst thing ever...so I can see how people might have missed it as a non marvel comics fan.

Cho became the Prince of Power which had been Herc's title up until then as Herc lost his powers and basically disappeared. Thor Odinson of course hasn't really lost his powers, but I digress.







Marvel has a good amount of them. Not a fan or the designs for the most part, but you do tend to get some interesting characters out of it. That is so long as someone doesn't just come along and decide to treat it as just a gender flipped Thor, which some writers do and which is why the original comment of such sort of rubbed me as a fan the wrong way.
Those designs are kinda neat, honestly. The topmost being something modern, the middle being futuristic/vaguely reminiscent of X-Men, and...well, the bottom one looks like someone really enjoys playing World of Warcraft and took an interest in its Val'kyr (or vice versa).


As for the new Thor: I realize it's a "different" character, but what I mean by a 'gender flip' is...well, look at her.


I mean...give her different colored hair. Cover her arms. Bulkier armor. Less armor. Whatever. Something that doesn't look like they were too scared to stray away from the original while simultaneously discarding it. If you're doing this; really DO it, you know?
 

Lupine

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LostGryphon said:
Lupine said:

The current rulers of Asgard in Thor at the moment.
And that is awesome. I say bring her to the forefront...except apparently that character is named Frigga who's apparently taken the name Freyja? And that's a triumvirate of goddesses formed for some...reason- All right, so I'm getting that comics are something of a massive pit of events/entities/facts/etc.

Ugh.

Also the whole just gender flipping a character is a bit of a misnomer because as a fan of Modern Thor, the current Thor isn't a gender flip, she is a character that just happens to be female that is taking up the mantle of the God of Thunder and taking over his current Thor comic title. This exact same thing happened with Amadeus Cho over in Hercules but Cho didn't get this kind of press and there was no one calling it the worst thing ever...so I can see how people might have missed it as a non marvel comics fan.

Cho became the Prince of Power which had been Herc's title up until then as Herc lost his powers and basically disappeared. Thor Odinson of course hasn't really lost his powers, but I digress.







Marvel has a good amount of them. Not a fan or the designs for the most part, but you do tend to get some interesting characters out of it. That is so long as someone doesn't just come along and decide to treat it as just a gender flipped Thor, which some writers do and which is why the original comment of such sort of rubbed me as a fan the wrong way.
Those designs are kinda neat, honestly. The topmost being something modern, the middle being futuristic/vaguely reminiscent of X-Men, and...well, the bottom one looks like someone really enjoys playing World of Warcraft and took an interest in its Val'kyr (or vice versa).


As for the new Thor: I realize it's a "different" character, but what I mean by a 'gender flip' is...well, look at her.


I mean...give her different colored hair. Cover her arms. Bulkier armor. Less armor. Whatever. Something that doesn't look like they were too scared to stray away from the original while simultaneously discarding it. If you're doing this; really DO it, you know?
Honestly my only real annoyance with the designs is that they sometimes come across as too similar. Especially when you're looking at a ton of Asgardians and they are within the same space. Without other characters around you get a sense of cool astetic choices, but in a crowd it is a little too similar, though I think that is probably a part of the artists plans so that you can get a feel for Asgard as a culture.

As far as female Thor goes, I for one think that everyone should just wait until her identity is revealed, there have been alot of theories floating around and one of them if true would pretty much address the design issues you might have.

Some people think it might be one of Thor's Granddaughters from the future. We've seen the three of them together and we know they are Thunder goddesses. If this is true, well her resemblance to her Grandfather makes a ton of sense.
 

Erttheking

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To be perfectly honest, this isn't that bad of a ratio.

Though I'd question what the ratio of protagonists were. I imagine that might be a bit less even.
 

Something Amyss

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Mister K said:
Because a) I made an assumption based on my own experience and, after reading posts here b) came to certain conclussion based on the info given and c) I am not saying that I was correct, although I WILL say that I'd really like more leading ladies and femanizing Thor and blackening Spider Man because Marvel is too lazy/affraid to create someone new seems like a cheap bullshit to me.

EDIT: I am in complete agreement with people here, who say it is better to make smaller cast of well-made female characters, then create 100 forgetable "chicks".
Since you admitted you already don't know what you're talking about, none of those really seems to matter.

You're not saying this is happening, you're just ranting about it as though it's happening and ascribing motives to people with no information.

That's absurd.
 

Something Amyss

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LostGryphon said:
I find this idea a whole hell of a lot more interesting than just gender flipping a character.
Since the ideas aren't mutually exclusive, though, what difference does it make?
 
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While it would be nice to have perfect inclusiveness I cant help but to feel that were trying to fill a quota here.

30% doesn't seem like a big problem. Thats still a large amount of female characters.

There is such a thing as a target audience and there is such a thing as a reader base. Maybe the overall effort should be to try and create comics that have a general appeal to both men and women, or at least a similar amount of comics directed towards both groups. And whether or not such a thing has already been achieved really cant be directly observed from character percentages.

You also have to consider what percentage of these characters are actually relevant. I'm just not convinced that this data is particularly valuable.