In Defense of Wonder Woman...

I have something to say. Something that is, as of this very moment, a very very important thing to say.

I love Wonder Woman. Princess Diana. Diana of Themyscira. Diana Prince. Whatever you want to call her. I just love Wonder Woman.

This is, admittedly, prompted by my friend Flidget's essay here. While I agree with her that Power Girl DEFINITELY deserves a movie. A Power Girl movie positively couldn't lose, in my opinion. I simply can't agree with her position on Wonder Woman.

Flidget has some really good points of course. Diana is from a society of all women. She is immortal. And yes, there is nothing "feminist" about the fact that she's never had to face the challenges that women have to face here in the real world. She's never had to deal with an overpowering legacy, and when she came to the Patriarch's World, she already had more than enough confidence that the disapproval and discouragement of people of our society could never phase her. She was invited to the Justice League. She didn't have to fight for their respect. She never had to prove herself to anyone who met her.

And that's ultimately her appeal to me.

Because Princess Diana of Themyscira never really had to truly fight for anything in her life until she came to Man's World. She could have had everything she could want on Themyscira. Pain, suffering, disrespect is meaningless there. No one told her she couldn't do anything that she set her mind toward. (Except possibly leave.) No one told her she wasn't strong enough or smart enough. She had family. Friends. The adoration of an entire island, for whom she was the only child in centuries.

And she gave all that up. To come here. To try to make a difference.

She had no idea what she'd face in the Man's World. And I'm not just talking about villains and monsters. She didn't know what our culture was really like. She didn't know about all the conditioning that young women in our culture face from childhood about what is really feminine and what isn't. She certainly wasn't prepared for the disapproval and discouragement of our male-oriented society.

But it didn't matter. Diana came and people stared. Diana talked and people listened. Diana punched and people punched back. She stood tall and strong and unyielding, rather than moving aside for people, and people moved aside for her.

The point of Diana, from Marston to the modern day, is that she is Diana. She will always be Diana. And there isn't anything anyone else can do about that.

She's been accused of being a bondage fetishist's toy because she was always tied up. This ignores the fact that she always breaks free. Because nothing can hold her

So why is she an icon to so many?

I think it's because she shows us that ultimately those invisible factors of disapproval and discouragement do not matter unless we let it. That the only reason we are restrained is because we haven't yet realized that we CAN break free. The conditioning that cages us isn't something inherent to being a woman. It's something we've been taught, drilled into our heads, and it is the ONLY thing that really holds us back.

The only difference between Diana and any other heroine in the DCU, than any other woman alive, is that she doesn't know. She doesn't know that she's not supposed to be what she is. Thus she, and we, have limitless potential.

If we can stand up like Diana and keep walking, our eyes on our goals. If we do not deign to notice the pressures and boundaries that hinder us. Then they're nothing.
They can't stop us. They can't stop anyone!

Power Girl is wonderful inspiration for the fight that feminists face every day of their lives. But Diana is the goal. She's what we're ultimately fighting for. A day that our daughters never have to know a feminist struggle just to be themselves.