Originally Posted by
Tiamatty
Sure, let's destroy the list entirely, as long as it means there are women who get to be super-geniuses! Because that's the real crux of the problem. As stupid an idea as the "Smartest Person" list was, the greater problem was, as I kept pointing out, any grouping of genius heroes was ALWAYS exclusively male. Always always always. If a bunch of genius heroes got together to work on whatever the latest threat was, it was only men. There were never women included. Female geniuses were villains or civilians. I think I could probably count on one hand the number of female genius superheroes prior to Moon Girl debuting. You had Mockingbird (who was dead for a long time), you had Kitty, and who the hell else was there? Was there anyone else?
If people want to end the idea of ranking the smartest characters - which, for the record, was something the fans began in the first place - then that's great. But if a gathering of Big Brains is all-male? That is still misogynistic as hell. If Lunella and Nadia and Riri and Bobbi and Kitty still get left out of discussions of genius characters, that's still misogynistic.
The fans who bitch about Lunella being ranked as The Smartest need to actually push for more female genius characters before they can be taken seriously when they bitch about the rankings. It's that simple. People do not get to be completely goddamn silent on 50 goddamn years of there being no female genius superheroes, and then bitch when one is brought in who's stated to be smarter than one of their precious male genius superheroes. These people didn't give a single **** about the fact that women were entirely omitted from gatherings of geniuses. They didn't care. They never cared. Frankly, they still don't care. They'll say that they care. "Oh, of course there should be female geniuses! I totally support there being female geniuses!" Then stop shitting on them now that they're finally getting to exist. If the next event has a bunch of smart characters working together on a way to beat the villain, and there are no women in that room, these people won't say a damn word. Hell, they'll defend it! "The writer just used the characters who made sense!" Because they still think it makes perfect sense for major STEM projects to not have a single woman involved.
So fine. Eliminate the list, and let's ALL actually push for more female genius superheroes, and for them to get more use as technical consultants outside their own books, and for them to be in the room when events have groups of geniuses working together. Can we agree on that? Can we all agree, the next time a Marvel events has a bunch of geniuses, that we will ALL call bullshit if the group is entirely male?
Because, and I really can't stress this enough, Marvel's spent the last 50+ years omitting women as genius superheroes. And the people bitching about Moon Girl never had a single damn thing to say about that.