Since sexuality and sexism are two of my primary themes I tend to get introspective about how I have treated them in my work. Admittedly Attack of the Robofemoids was very,very sexist which is why I have gone for equal gender representation and all since. Interstellar Blood Beasts had equal male female cast in what would traditionally would have been male with a couple of female tokens.
Start publishing on
DD Comics!
Advertise with us
Comic Talk and General Discussion *
How do you deal with sexism in your own work?
Dictionary.com wrote:
Sexism
(sek - siz - uh m)
noun
1. attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of gender roles.
2. discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex or gender, as in restricted job opportunities, especially such discrimination directed against women.
3. ingrained and institutionalized prejudice against or hatred of women; misogyny.
Origin: 1965-1970
Identifying sexism in our comics… you can go either micro or macro with that. For an individual comic, just look for any of the above. Be as loose as you want in applying the terms, depending on how witch hunty you want to be about it.
It gets more interesting when you look at the macro picture. Let's say I do a comic with a prototypical strong male superhero protagonist. Nothing necessarily sexist about that. But now let's say hundreds of other artists do the same thing… and only a sparse handful of creators do comics with kick-ass female main characters. No one individually has done anything overtly sexist… but taken as a whole, it creates the impression that the community undervalues women. That's what makes sexism such a tricky subject; it's not that it's victimless, but it can seem to be almost offenderless at times. And trying to single out individual comics which are "off message" is not only toxic behavior, but it's generally going to be extraneous to the bigger picture anyway.
I think the more pressing question is not how we define sexism in our webcomics, but deciding how we actually feel about it and how – or if – it should be addressed. Taking a look at a specific comic might help.
The Stick Up Kids by Blackhoodcomics is a gangster comic here on The Duck where pretty much all of the males are either tough street thugs with a vocabulary of colorful four-letter words and itchy trigger fingers, or cops trying to bust them. All of the women seem to be either strippers or prostitutes, and you rarely see a female in the comic who isn't barely dressed. In short, it would probably meet just about any of our definitions of "sexist."
However, it's also a fairly accurate – if unapologetic – depiction of the world these kinds of people live in, from their perspective. It might better fit some people's idea of a "gender friendly" comic if maybe there were some tough female gangsters, and more female cops, and maybe if one of the tough male gangsters is a stay-at-home dad… but all of that would dilute the comic, and make it less true-to-life. Likewise if someone were to write a story about Islamic militants from the militants' perspective, I doubt it would jive very well with our Western valuation of gender roles. Good literature that actually reveals something to us about the human condition needs to take an unflinching look at its subjects as they truly are, warts and all. Bad literature tells us nothing about the real world, and only tells us about the writer's personal ideals and prejudices. It would be immensely small-minded of any of us were we to assume that our own standards were the only ones that matter, and all art should aspire to conform to it. I would say that 'Stick Up Kids' is a very sexist comic, but I would also say I don't care all that much. I don't need to agree with the characters or like the world they live in for me to gain something from reading their story.
My take on the Bechdel Test is that it's useful but a lot of people expect it to be more than it is. Some people seem to think it's some sort of litmus test for whether or not a work is sexist. It isn't, and as far as I can tell, it was never intended to be. It's a test for one particular unfortunate trend. The word "trend" is important too. The original comic featuring the Bechdel Test wasn't saying that all, or even most, works need to pass the test to be non-sexist: it was lamenting that it was nigh-impossible to find any films that pass. If you produce a work with no homosexuality characters in it, that doesn't make you or the work homophic. If noone were producing works with homosexual characters? Probably a warning sign.
Similar thing with character outfits and sexy poses. Doesn't necessarily indicate a problem with a specific work, but if you're seeing a lot of it, that's a problem 'cos it reinforces the "men are there to take action, women are there to look pretty first and foremost". If superheroes aren't incidentally sexy, you're doing something wrong. Think of how sexy athletes in action are - they don't have to strike useless poses in the middle of the action to pull that off.
The Hawkeye Project is flawed: Like you said, female poses look intrinsically wrong on a man because the sexes are shaped and move differently. But it does do a very good job of taking the art outside of its regular context so it can be viewed outside of those normal expectations. IMO, it's main use isn't to "disprove" specific poses, it's to make people more aware of these sorts of poses rather than them just being part of the background noise of comics.
I think you hit another nail to point out how quickly some people will yell sexism (or racism or whatever else) at a work whose entire point is to highlight those issues and that world. Going color-blind (or gender-blind) pretends such things don't exist. But some works' entire point is to highlight those issues or to spoof them or otherwise make a point.
Hence how my sister sees a misogynistic character in my story and calls it sexist. He's not a good character. He's bad. Other male characters are chivalrous (another form of sexism really). They are less bad, but sometimes get called on it. And while my own work is gender-balanced, if I wrote a satire about hyper macho heroes saving helpless women, that work, in a certain tone, would not be sexist but anti-sexist. (Yes, many people don't understand satire or irony, but you don't need to defend your work to the dim-witted, let alone change it.)
That "What is sexism" question is really tricky… because this is the kind of topic that has a lot of opinions and a fair amount of moving goalposts. I feel like I agree with several of the ones Ozone brought up, but I vary a bit in some ways.
1. I agree that the Bechdel test isn't very good… In fact, I think it might be the biggest distraction from good writing since somebody coined the term "strong female character". You can pretty much run down a series if checkboxes to pass and it still won't help you all that much. The good thing about it is that it helps you think about women in your comics, but its criteria are almost arbitrary and have little to do with what makes a good character. Even Ms. Bechdel herself thinks it's a bad test.
2. The Outfits thing is a good point. Probably the big thing to remember is, "Am I doing anything to a woman that I wouldn't do to a man?" So I think you can have nearly-naked Conan-the-Barbarian women in your comic similarly nearly-naked men exist, and if you've established that it's the way people dress in the world you made.
Sidenote: I've seen a handful of "Feminist redesigns comic book characters" articles, and I always think the designs are super-ugly. Part of it is that it's usually a hack artist, but another part is that they decide that even though men are wearing spandex in the comic, women shouldn't be. It always ends up with overly-practical designs in a world that doesn't require them.
3. I agree with the "roles" point, and I think it swings both ways. It isn't women's job to be rescued by men, but it also isn't men's job to fight and die for women. It isn't women's job to be the motherly character, but it also isn't men's job to be the stupid idiot manchild. And I know a person can't avoid all stereotypes and gender roles entirely, so it's really up to the author to just be wary and commit themselves to providing something "fresh" for readers.
4. Here's where we differ. I don't buy the idea of changing the balance of the cast to satisfy a ratio that people consider "fair". I think if somebody wants to make something that's just for boys, they're entitled to it, and vice-versa for girls. And if they want to tell a story with all boys and all girls, they should be able to. We wouldn't demand the My Little Pony people add boys to show and we shouldn't demand the Avengers add women to the team. In other words, I think the author's vision should supercede people's ideas of balance and fairness. I once saw a movie starring 15 grandmas and one man (he was in it for two minutes), and I never once thought "This movie isn't for me." And if they had added men or young people it would have changed the intent of movie.
(Note: I realize that having a diverse cast is a thing that can make a comic more interesting. I'm just saying that it should be up to the author's discretion, and if they still end up making something with not enough [insert character type] for you, then tough luck. Not everything must cater to every person. In fact, when they do, you can end up with things like the Burger King Kids Club.)
I don't know what Alison Bechdel said about it, but the Bechdel Test isn't a bad test - it's just not a general purpose test for telling if a given work is sexist. Essentially it's exactly what it appears to be - a test for whether a particular work has dialogue between women that doesn't revolve around a man. The comic strip in which the Bechdel Test originated was lamenting that there didn't seem to be any movies around that fit that criterion so it also seems intended as a comment on the overall trend in movies rather than a make or break test for individual movies. Failing (or passing) the Bechdel Test doesn't automatically make a work sexist (or not) - it's too complex a topic for that. But if some movie makers take note of the Bechdel test and we end up with more movies where female characters get to discuss things other than men, that's hardly a bad thing. :)
Re: diverse cast, balanced ratios etc. my position is basically that stories often default to white and male, and that's so predominent that if you're looking at creating a character that's white and/or male, I think it's worth asking the question whether you're doing so for a particular reason or if you've just fallen back on the default. If you've just fallen back on the default it's worth considering an alternative. If you have good reason for making your character white and/or male - it's a particular historical period or a particular setting - or even just that it feels like the character should be. But ideally it should be a conscious decision, not one you just defaulted to. And given the prevalence of white and/or male characters, if you're just going with the default for no better reason than it's the default, it's worth considering making the character something else.
That's what happened with my character Chaos. I thought about it and realised I'd just defaulted to making the character white male and there was nothing intrinsically white or male about the character concept. That was just how I'd assumed the character should go. I hadn't launched the comic (still haven't >_>) so I changed it. And now I get to draw more women and a greater variety of characters! \o/ (And I ended up with that truly epic Secret Santa picture from Fallopian Crusader!)
Hawk wrote:
1. I agree that the Bechdel test isn't very good… In fact, I think it might be the biggest distraction from good writing since somebody coined the term "strong female character". You can pretty much run down a series if checkboxes to pass and it still won't help you all that much. The good thing about it is that it helps you think about women in your comics, but its criteria are almost arbitrary and have little to do with what makes a good character. Even Ms. Bechdel herself thinks it's a bad test.
…
4. Here's where we differ. I don't buy the idea of changing the balance of the cast to satisfy a ratio that people consider "fair". I think if somebody wants to make something that's just for boys, they're entitled to it, and vice-versa for girls. And if they want to tell a story with all boys and all girls, they should be able to. We wouldn't demand the My Little Pony people add boys to show and we shouldn't demand the Avengers add women to the team. In other words, I think the author's vision should supercede people's ideas of balance and fairness. I once saw a movie starring 15 grandmas and one man (he was in it for two minutes), and I never once thought "This movie isn't for me." And if they had added men or young people it would have changed the intent of movie.
(Note: I realize that having a diverse cast is a thing that can make a comic more interesting. I'm just saying that it should be up to the author's discretion, and if they still end up making something with not enough [insert character type] for you, then tough luck. Not everything must cater to every person. In fact, when they do, you can end up with things like the Burger King Kids Club.)
Good point Irrevenant: just because something is common in prevailing pop-culture doesn't mean it's fair, natural, normal or the default. Gender imbalance, as already pointed out, is a problem when it is NOT about context: if we're NOT talking about a men's prison or My little Pony, why should the default situation be 3 guys to every girl?
——
One problem from the other side:
Female secondary sex traits are often talked about as being represented in comic and that's contrasted with the portrayal of male characters where muscles are shown- the idea is that muscles are about a "power" fantasy or something.
I disagree with this. Muscles are the male version of a secondary sex trait. They ARE the big boobs, thin waist and bubble butt on men, of the most exaggerated sort.
There is no male power fantasy involved in looking at massive muscles. Men will appreciate a muscular male figure, not in a direct homoerotic sense, but rather as a representative of the male sexual ideal that they wish they were. The same reason many women appreciate female sexual ideal characters… But by the same token- many men and women are turned OFF by those sorts of character, especially when the exaggeration is taken too far.
Muscles are not about power, they're tits for men, tits that you cover your entire body in. :)
And they're about as useful for real world.activities…
Many men will even have silicone implants or saline injections to achieve the ideal look, which is VERY telling.
But what is "fair", "natural," or "normal"?
Is it normal for a group of friends to look like this? Or a gang to look like this?
Is it natural for a group of eight-year-olds on a playground to be a 50/50 split of boys and girls? People often group according to similarities, after all.
And "fair"… first you'll have to convince me that not enough of one gender is "unfair". If we step back to My Little Pony you mentioned that it was as exempt from gender ratios as a Men's Prison. Why is that? Why must the Avengers balance their gender ratio but My Little Pony must not?
ozoneocean wrote:
Good point Irrevenant: just because something is common in prevailing pop-culture doesn't mean it's fair, natural, normal or the default.
You're still looking at that too directly Hawk- look at it overall, in the broader context- men and women represent a pretty much 50/50 split of the audience for most things, while stuff that's gender balanced or has more females than males is still the exception. There's something nasty and skewed about that and if we can make the change ourselves, so much the better.
We talk about that in our latest Quackcast: https://next.theduckwebcomics.com/quackcast/
I think something may have gone wrong because I got a whole quackcast about stories starting at the climax. And since you didn't answer any of my questions I'll have to guess what you're trying to tell me. And my guess is that you're trying to tell me that the overal pool of characters in fiction are mostly male, so an artist/author has a social responsiblity to adjust their cast to make up for the deficit of female characters that other creators have left them with.
Now, please understand, I'm not trying to say that a wide range of characters and a good selection from both genders isn't nice, but I'm really troubled by the current trend of people thinking they can decide the appropriate gender ratio for already-made stories, and then publicly shame the creators for not meeting their standards. I strongly believe in the idea of having artistic freedom, and I've seen social pressure suck the charm right out a good thing before.
I think what is being said is asking yourself , " is there a reason why the cast is all white males?" And if there isn't equaling up the ratios. Why not equal numbers? It's your world and your story, free yourself of what is expected and work with that difference .
By the same token don't feel forced to do to please some crowd of protesters unless you share their agenda. Then again express yourself freely and most definitely not feel forced to obey some PC social standard. This isn't some university with a PC policy.
El Cid wrote:Precisely. I can still remember reading Closing of the American Mind when it first came out. What nearly 30 year ago? At this point the thing is absurd.
Were you intentionally vacillating facetiously just now? Because if so, that was a brilliant illustration of how absurd this whole subject is.
If you were being serious, well, it still kinda shows the same thing!
I have no intention of being sexist in my comic, but I'm a guy, so I'm sure I've done it ;)
I actually mention the Bechdel test in strip #15, poking fun at myself for not having more women in my comic, but it's a three panel strip. It's going to take a while to work in all the characters. I actually have a woman who was basically an extra, that I really liked and plan to build a whole episode around.
yup, i have been guilty of falling into a sexist trope. i think what matters is analyzing your character and realizing what makes them inherently sexist and what you can change (or flip on its head) to try and combat that. its got a huge learning curve.
my current issue:
not making foppish villains. thats hard actually lol
Advertise with us
DDComics is community owned.
The following patrons help keep the lights on. You can support DDComics on Patreon.
- Banes
- JustNoPoint
- RMccool
- Abt_Nihil
- Gunwallace
- cresc
- PaulEberhardt
- Emma_Clare
- FunctionCreep
- SinJinsoku
- Smkinoshita
- jerrie
- Chickfighter
- Andreas_Helixfinger
- Tantz_Aerine
- Genejoke
- Davey Do
- Gullas
- Roma
- NanoCritters
- Teh Andeh
- Peipei
- Digital_Genesis
- Hushicho
- Palouka
- Cheeko
- Paneltastic
- L.C.Stein
- Zombienomicon
- Dpat57
- Bravo1102
- TheJagged
- LoliGen
- OrcGirl
- Fallopiancrusader
- Arborcides
- ChipperChartreuse
- Mogtrost
- InkyMoondrop
- jgib99
- Call me tom
- OrGiveMeDeath_Ind
- Mks_monsters
- GregJ
- HawkandFloAdventures
- Soushiyo