Stereotypes In Wonder Woman

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Wonder Woman was created in the December of 1941 by William Marston, a psychologist with a law degree who had trained at Harvard. As an intellectual who loved the new art form of comic books, Marston was hired as an education consultant for Detective Comics by Gaines. In the wake of the prevalence of male superhero in comics, Critics argue that comics were too violent for kids to read. In order to deal with the decreasing selling of comic, publisher Max Gaines decided to hire Marston to join his office after he saw Marston's interview in Family Article, which said that he believes comics are good for kids. Instead of following the flaw to make his own comic character a male, Marston determined to make that character a female with the suggestion …show more content…
Unfortunately, although women got the opportunity to work in order to support their family when most of men lost their jobs, they still had to experience discrimination, and they could only work for the low paid job in the 1930s. The stubborn, unfair stereotype of women that they were supposed to take care of their family and be protected by men was always exists. The world war 2 came right after the end of the Great Depression. Women took the responsibility to be the work force when most of the men had to went to the war. During the World War 2, women started to take the “men’s job” such as producing munitions and driving fire engines. As the American women broke the male occupations in engineering and military, Wonder Woman broke the monopoly of male superhero in comic business with her independent comic series and high popularity. The origin story of Wonder Woman appeared in the anthology title All Star Comics#8, her success after the first Wonder Woman comic issue soon brought her own independent series. Wonder Woman was the only female comic character who has her own book in the …show more content…
Marston accepted the request from the comic publisher Max Gaines to create a superhero because his passion and belief in the “great potential in comics”. With the inspirations of women activists such as Margaret Sanger, who argued that woman “had chained herself to her place in society and the family through the maternal functions of her nature, and only chains thus strong could have bound her to her lot as a brood animal” at the birth control movement in the 1920s. Marston intentionally made Wonder Woman in chained when she is challenged because being chained was a metaphor to women who were restricted in the gender roles and stereotype in the reality. People saw Wonder Woman breaking the restraint with her strength and power while they saw her getting chained over and over again . “Wonder Woman has bracelets welded on her wrists; with these she can repulse bullets. But if she lets any man weld chains on these bracelets, she loses her power.” This, says Dr. Marston, is what happens to all women when they submit to a man’s domination. Wonder Woman stands for all women who were restrained in the 1940s, and she encouraged females to believe that women always have the right and ability to fight back as long as they want. Wonder Woman combined the hope and belief of feminism from its creators in the beginning. William Marston provided a passionate and encouraging script for Wonder Woman to
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