Steve

[kjn]

If you're including me in that, I've never said the Amazons should welcome men to their island. But look at their history; yes they're a flawed imperfect people and that's not a bad thing. I think the flaws in their society are pretty clear, honestly. I mean, how can anyone *not* see them?

Not everyone is on the same scale on how they think the Amazons should be depicted and how to handle them, that's why I said "tendency".

Because I don't view the Amazons refusal to let men to their island (possibly outside very circrumscribed situations) as a flaw. A flaw implies an error or something that should be fixed. But from the viewpoint of the Amazons, it is Man's World that is far more deeply flawed.

To add to what Tzigone said in 115, within science fiction and related fields (and superhero comics is part of those) there is a long tradition of creating expies for various real-world conflicts. Mutants as an analogy for either queerness or racism; blue-skinned aliens instead of black people, all-female societies instead of patriarchy. They have usually been defended as ways to explore the corresponding real-world issue. But I think experience has shown that they fail at that. Instead of teaching the reader how to see and understand racism or homophobia or patriarchy, they learn how to externalise or even confirm their own biases.

To put it another way, you cannot discuss patriarchy via the Amazons by making all the discussion about the Amazons about men, because it places them in an androcentric narrative context. Instead of really examining their society (which some writers have done, like Simone in The Circle), it becomes All About The Men.

[Ascended]

Because I don't view the Amazons refusal to let men to their island (possibly outside very circrumscribed situations) as a flaw. A flaw implies an error or something that should be fixed. But from the viewpoint of the Amazons, it is Man's World that is far more deeply flawed.

Oh, Man's World is certainly more deeply flawed than Amazon society. No doubt about that at all. But there's never a justification for discrimination, and that's what this is.

I dont need or want men on the Island. I'm comfortable with the Amazons not being perfect. But let's not pretend that this isn't sexism.

Unless of course, like Ami brought up, the reason men can't go to the Island is due to some other factor and not the Amazons themselves. If that's the case then it's a different matter, but if the Amazons are the ones saying it, it's discrimination and that's never excusable.

[kjn]

So why the focus on the Amazons? I don't see complaints about Athos—which is a real place—here, or hardly anywhere else. Likewise, I have seen complaints about Wakanda being racist, but little about the way both Gotham and Metropolis are usually depicted as overwhelmingly white cities. Or that the Daily Planet is overwhelmingly white in the people it employs.

It seems discrimination is perceived as much more of a problem and is much more upsetting when it it aimed against P7 people (Pale Patriarchal Protestant Plutocratic Penis-People of Power) than when it is aimed at actual minorities or the unprivileged. Thus all the complaints about affirmative action and similar policies, and trying to frame it as discrimination, when it rather is a (often crude and overt) attempt to fix systemic, long-lasting discrimination made up of many small cuts.

Also, remember that for all intents and purposes, Themyscira is a nation. Part of being a nation in our world is being able to decide who gets to visit or not. Another is self-determination. The power to decide on the direction of Themyscira lies with its citizenry, that is the Amazons, not with the people outside. There is no oppressed male minority on Themyscira. Any "flaw" is entirely coming from the outside. I'm much more interested in looking at Themyscira and Amazon society from the inside.

I think there might be a deeply unsettling colonialist narrative here too, in the demands that Themyscira conforms to Man's World.

Or to see this from another way: just as Superman is a power fantasy that not only includes flying and being nice, it also is a power fantasy of passing as white in the USA. Wonder Woman has in her turn become a power fantasy of growing up unfettered and unconstrained by men, and Themyscira is a power fantasy of a society built by and for women.

[Tzigone]

So why the focus on the Amazons? I don't see complaints about Athos—which is a real place—here, or hardly anywhere else. Likewise, I have seen complaints about Wakanda being racist, but little about the way both Gotham and Metropolis are usually depicted as overwhelmingly white cities. Or that the Daily Planet is overwhelmingly white in the people it employs.

It seems discrimination is perceived as much more of a problem and is much more upsetting when it it aimed against P7 people (Pale Patriarchal Protestant Plutocratic Penis-People of Power) than when it is aimed at actual minorities or the unprivileged. Thus all the complaints about affirmative action and similar policies, and trying to frame it as discrimination, when it rather is a (often crude and overt) attempt to fix systemic, long-lasting discrimination made up of many small cuts.

Metropolis and Gotham may be overwhelmingly white, but they don't have as stated, in-universe policy of excluding minorities. It's the biases of the creators or marketers, not the characters. That makes a difference. Also, the focus is on the Amazons because this is the Wonder Woman subforum. Also, absolutely no one is holding up Gotham as an "ideal" and the Amazons have been held in that regard in some versions.

Also, remember that for all intents and purposes, Themyscira is a nation. Part of being a nation in our world is being able to decide who gets to visit or not. Another is self-determination. The power to decide on the direction of Themyscira lies with its citizenry, that is the Amazons, not with the people outside. There is no oppressed male minority on Themyscira. Any "flaw" is entirely coming from the outside. I'm much more interested in looking at Themyscira and Amazon society from the inside.

Certainly, they have a legal right. But that doesn't stop them from being discriminatory any more than the US's historical policy on immigration stopped them from being racially (or religiously) discriminatory.

[kjn]

Certainly, they have a legal right. But that doesn't stop them from being discriminatory any more than the US's historical policy on immigration stopped them from being racially (or religiously) discriminatory.

So when did the Amazons (outside of possibly Azzarello's run) import men held in chains? Or promised them jobs, only to put them in sweat shops and company towns?

Will some Amazons have prejudices about men? Certainly. But Themyscira's story is about female empowerment and self-determination, it is not about the dudes.

At worst, the demand to put men on Themyscira is a way to demonstrate them as an oppressed minority on Themyscira, and thus prove that the Amazons absolve the reader for their own internalised or overt misogyny as a form of whataboutism.

[Ascended]

So why the focus on the Amazons?

Because this is the Wonder Woman forum.

Also, remember that for all intents and purposes, Themyscira is a nation. Part of being a nation in our world is being able to decide who gets to visit or not.

It's still discrimination. Once upon a time in America it was the country's legal stance that black people were slaves. It was legal, so therefore it must be morally correct? No, I think not.

I think there might be a deeply unsettling colonialist narrative here too, in the demands that Themyscira conforms to Man's World.

Who's demanding that? I haven't seen anyone here suggest such a thing.

Themyscira is a power fantasy of a society built by and for women.

And I think that's great, as is Wakanda being a society built on Afro-futurism. But the Amazons denying men based on nothing but gender is still discrimination. Just because it's discrimination you're okay with does not change that it's discrimination.

[AmiMizuno]

I’m curious one of the most important aspects is Steve. If he is a agnostic, when he first met Diana. Should he convert? If so who would be his essential God?

[Manakel]

Athena definitely. She was on his shoulder after all...

[AmiMizuno]

I think it would be cool to see how Steve a normal man to befriend Athena. Or be on friendly terms. In terms has to why. What if it was Zeus? He was mad at the Amazons. That he wanted to sleep with them.

[Manakel]

I don't think he could befriend her, not after his recent adventures with aphrodite and atlantiades. Gods don't think like mortals, they have their own agenda and you can't trust them. Even Diana doesn't...