Anonymous asked: There has been controversy in the Wonder Woman comics recently regarding the amazons. The controversy itself is not what bothers me the most, what does is some people's belief that the amazons of paradise island are the symbol of a utopian feminist community in comics and should remain unchanged. That troubles me because paradise island in the comics is an island filled with beautiful, powerful amazonian women and zero men. Can a world devoid of all males be considered a feminist utopia?
That depends on whether it’s a fictional world or an actual world. If the latter, then emphatically no, because feminism is meant to be about equality, and getting rid of half the population on the basis of gender is… not so much equal. If a fictional world, then I can completely understand why many readers, feminist or otherwise, would consider it an awesome thing: so many stories are male-dominated that the opportunity to write about an all-female environment is comparatively rare. However, on a personal note - and bearing in mind that I know pretty much nothing about Wonder Woman - I tend to dislike all-female settings that are established as such on the basis of men are too difficult to deal with, so let’s ditch them and go over here. Apart from the many problematic implications of such stories - such as, for instance, the idea that men are inherently bestial, untrustworthy and power-hunger and therefore ruin everything - they’re also a means of escaping what is, for me, the most important question any feminist utopia should attempt to answer. This question isn’t are women capable of running a society? - because clearly, the answer to that is yes - but how can we make things gender-equal and get rid of sexism? And if the only answer to that second question is to effectively throw up your hands and say, we can’t, so we got rid of men instead, I’m going to be vastly less interested than if someone gave it a crack and proposed a different, maybe radical way for men and women to live together equally. Don’t get me wrong - I’ll still be interested in the women and their stories - but for me, a feminist utopia is one where we’ve figured out how to keep the men, but lose the sexism.
ETA: In the case of Wonder Woman, though, it seems like the Amazonian set-up is deeply integral and significant to the character’s history. Even with what I’ve said above, I can’t see a logic for changing it that wouldn’t end up being more sexist than not, because all you’d succeed in doing is undermining the origins of a feminist icon for no better reason than an objection to how some readers interpreted her story.
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