Is Wonder Woman a good symbol for women?

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For me the inspiring thing about Superman is not his super strength but the way he deals with the moral conflicts that result from it. To me those are the most interesting Superman stories. Superman's greatest power is his self-control. How easy would it be for him to just kill Lex Luthor. How hard must it be for Superman to spare Lex Luthor's life.

Interesting stuff yet I don't relate to it personally. Like most people I've never had the responsibility of wielding great power.

This does not surprise me that the UN would look to Wonder Woman after she got SJW'd and turned into a feminist b***h:

http://m.imgur.com/rnFASzz

(Though whether she still is I don't know, but I am guessing she is.)

If you take an uncorrupted Wonder Woman, while female superheroes in general are positive role models, if you're applying it to the real World in this kind of way it is tricky because of the super powers. I'd be more inclined to look for a fictional character that was an ordinary human being, thus more emulateable.

I see your point----so, we could just say that a woman can do ANY job.

I think it might be more worthwhile to find a real symbol of empowerment as opposed to a fictional character.

SURE, you have!! Love / hate, VERY powerful. EVERYONE has to deal with moral conflicts----even if it's just a choice of whether or not, to LIE. EVERYONE has to choose to use or NOT to use self control----and, even to the point of getting so angry, they might want to harm someone.

I think the whole point, maybe, of comic book characters, is giving us "everyday circumstances" (albeit EXTREME, like whether or not to kill, for instance), and then giving us a way out of it. Even if it's fantasy, there are underlying messages / lessons----and, if someone can ENVISION themselves as powerful enough to conquer "things", they can BE powerful (as in improved self esteem, self-reliance, etc.).

I'm thinking just the opposite. I'm thinking a fictional character is more "generic"----like, "all-embodying"----whereas, if they pick a REAL person (I LOVE Malala), then there will be those who will say: Hey, why not somebody from MY country?" (I'm thinking most countries have Wonder Woman).

I think it's really interesting that, at-the-time of this writing, there are 3 women AGAINST, and 3 men FOR; and, 1 woman FOR, and 1 man, AGAINST----EXACTLY the opposite!!

Personally, I prefer Xena.....

Many people in the US don't grasp the scale of the problem. In Mexico, India, and many other developing countries, sociologists attribute an increase in murders of women to changing cultural norms. The local officials often dismiss the problem, and in some cases support the misogyny.

Rosie could make things worse, by spotlighting what a lot of men fear explicitly. WW is easier to accept now because she's unreal.

What the hell does a UN ambassador even do?

Yes!

Well, so is Rosie "unreal"----and, if men fear a woman taking their job, wouldn't they ALSO fear women being powerful, which is what WW represents?

I'm quite fond of Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, but I don't think they'd be very good role models for budding feminists.


[edit]: Couldn't they at least have chosen a fictional character who was created by a woman? I can think of at least four who have some credibility as feminist icons; Hermione Granger, Flame Princess, Twilight Sparkle, Sailor Moon. No, those characters aren't nearly as iconic as Wonder Woman, I know, but is the "icon" part really more important than the "feminist" part?

Last edited by Barchan on 22 Oct 2016, 10:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

Are you being deliberately obtuse?

I think this is stupid on two accounts:

1. The main issues in the world for women are places where women are legally second class citizens and don't have access to education, healthcare, etc. There seems to be a lot of focus on countries that offer a lot of choice for women while treating countries that have a poor record on human rights with kid gloves.
2. An Ambassador, if it is to mean anything is an active role, it is not simply about being inspiring. How would woman in some country where they have never heard of wonder woman, find her inspiring?

Celebrities generally make poor ambassadors. However, Angelia Jolie from what I'm told was quite good. For one she was able to work with people across the politic spectrum. I doubt most have what it takes.

Emma Watson, I'm afraid hasn't really achieved a great deal in her role as was quite clear from the year anniversary talk. It was pure padding, and the only thing of note was association with questnable academic courses in the US, all of which doesn't really address the serious human rights issues faced by women in the world.

It is really not her fault, it is just you can't expect actors with no applicable skills to do anything other than be a mouthpiece. It is the motivation of the people behind that mouthpiece that needs scrutiny.

Last edited by 0_equals_true on 22 Oct 2016, 4:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'd like to apologize. That question made me mad, but on further consideration it makes more sense. I rushed to judgment, and I'm sorry.

Men only fear stuff like mountain lions, to use a local example. Any real man will still offer to fight one for the woman he loves. Many 'real men' would run and a lot of real men would piss their pants. I only had to hope that I would follow through on that offer; the mountain lion did not breach the tent. Fear like that is something you fight.

Other than that, I have to remind myself all the time that stuff will hurt me. I think a lot of men also would try waterskiing for the first time or go down the skyslide because it's scary. Other people star in Jackass. Most men find some degree of that kind of thing necessary and fun. People like me choose the skyslide, and others go to a skate park to get that thrill. Fear like that is fun.

There are a lot of other 'real men' who like to have a workplace full of men and know that all the women are at home. Not all the women, obviously, but all the child-bearing women. The other women, they don't talk about at home. The workplace provides a place where men can talk about that stuff, and if a woman came in someone might chide them for their sexism. Men fear getting laughed at by women, and the response can fall into either of the above categories, or internet ranting in L&D, or something else. The two I listed represent at least a plurality, in my opinion.

ETA: That's not actually much of a claim, now that I think further about it. Let's say for argument that I partition the uniform distribution into n parts. For 2<n<4, the union of any two intervals represents a majority, and as n->infinity, the union of any two intervals will always be a plurality if we consider each other interval separately.

Furthur ETA: Okay, but it made sense in my head along these lines:
Throw out the uniform distribution, because I believe that the distribution is not uniform. Let A, B, C, ... be subsets of U, such that A>B>C>...
Note that A is a plurality by definition.
If V=(A,B,C,...) is an ordering of the set of male fear responses, and we let X1 represent one of the two fear responses I described and let X2 represent the other, then I'll bet that (X1,X2)=(N1,N2|N1 is an element of {A,B,...,I,J} and N2 is an element of {A,B,...,I,J},
to be specific.

Oh yeah, edited one more time to add: I need a statistics Wonder Woman. My claim is still too weak.