Don't Project Your Shame Over Here.

Over at Occasional Superheroine, the Video Store Girl has an interesting post up about comics feminism and the real world, that's worth reading. This part is something I find particularly noteworthy:

Now go compare your struggle as a comic book fan angry that Stephanie doesn't have a trophy case to the s**t these women went through.

I mean, the MJ and Stephanie and Power Girl discussions, they're a good start. It's like school. Graduate from school, and apply all that passion and sense of social justice towards something in our reality. You can still discuss Power Girl. But break it up a little bit. Maybe devote 50% of your bandwith to Stephanie getting her trophy case, and 50% to Afghan women setting themselves on fire because their lives are so damn miserable. Or maybe 75% Stephanie, 25% Russian sex slaves. Or maybe two pages of posts on "Fangirls Attack" on MJ, one page on domestic violence in Canada. Maybe I'll stop being such a self-absorbed snarky blogger myself. You don't think I read about the real s**t that goes on in this world and feel like a jackass sometimes for the stupid fangirl s**t I write about?

There's just one thing I don't understand here. Why in the world is the Video Store Girl speaking as though real world feminist issues and comic book issues are somehow in competition with one another?

Why in the world would anyone feel like a jackass for posting about a subject that they care about?

Look, I'm going to be frank here for a moment. I have never addressed real world issues on this blog. I have never addressed real world politics on this blog, without a comic book or pop culture connection. I have no intention of ever doing so. Pretty Fizzy Paradise is a COMIC BOOK BLOG. I am not ashamed of it.

This is not to say that I don't care about real world issues, or that I don't have a lot of respect for people who do address said issues on their blogs, it's just that I don't feel the need to do so. I don't feel any guilt about that either, because this is a comic book blog. I consider real world issues to be something that I address in my real life and I don't believe that I have any reason to make a public show of it here.

What continues to bemuse me about arguments like this one on Occasional Superheroine is the insistance on comparing comic book slights like Stephanie Brown's death or the MJ statue to what is suffered by women in Afghanistan, (or any other real world atrocity one can fill in here).

NO ONE is making the comparison between the two. NO ONE is arguing that the circumstances of a fictional character even remotely compare to the tragedies and oppression suffered by real women out there. Or even some women here at home. No one, not even the most militant comic book feminist around, is making that claim.

The only people that I've ever seen bring up that comparison at all are people who seem to be, intentionally or not, trying to instill a shame in comic-book feminism activists for speaking out about things that are important to them.

Look, I haven't posted thus far about the MJ statue, because my reaction to seeing it was basically "...okay...and?" I don't care about it. I wouldn't buy it. But it's important to other people and I can respect that. I have my own hot-button issues as well. There is no reason that anyone should be ashamed of expressing their opinions about this.

Besides, ultimately, depictions of sexism in the media IS an important issue. Sexist caricatures, like racist or homophobic caricatures, are not a harmless phenomenon. They spread the idea that women, that racial minorities, that gay people are a certain way, which promotes a subconscious message that it's all right to treat people in an unfair and unequal way. It's all right to treat women like sluts or shallow, image-obsessed mental deficients. It's all right to treat minorities like they're somehow less than white people. It's all right to treat gay people like they're conscienceless, perverted, sex-obsessed freaks!

Most people are intelligent enough not to consciously buy into these stereotypes of course, but when these images are absorbed day in and day out, they do affect us on a subconscious level. I remember being a teenager and actively rejecting anything that remotely smacked of feminine, cringing away from pink or skirts or showing off one's body, because I had somehow absorbed the idea that these things were stupid, weak and silly. That if I dressed up, wore make-up, put on a skirt, carried a pink backpack, I was somehow becoming one of THEM. No one taught me this. No one told me to be ashamed of being female. My mother always tried to teach me to be proud of who I am, that I was smart and beautiful and could do anything. My father always encouraged me and my interests, no matter how traditionally masculine or feminine they were. This idea didn't come from them. It came from everywhere else. And I was definitely not the only girl I knew who felt this way.

I don't consider myself oppressed, of course. A minor gender-identity issue growing up is no comparison for being a virtual prisoner in my own house, or even killed for daring to transgress against behaviorial customs. But does that mean I should just let it go?

Feminism isn't a one-battle at a time sort of war. It isn't a "oh no, poor oppressed women, we can't help you until we finally get a statue where MJ doesn't look like she's offering her orifices up to the highest bidder!" sort of deal here. We are more than capable of fighting on multiple levels at the same time. We can work to help stop real world oppression in our real lives while at the same time fighting a cause like comic-book feminism on our blogs.