Scarlet Witch #1 (BREAKDOWN & SPOILERS)!

[Reality]

In interviews, Robinson has said that he is writing about a brand of magic only accessible to women. Hence "no boys allowed". I can see that it has a feminist slant, but I'm hesitant to call it feminist, just yet. "Linked to the energy of [...] womankind" is pretty vague, and without an examination of feminist themes, or even defining what the "energy" of womankind is, it's really only paying lip service to feminism. I'll wait and see on this one.

Anyway, what annoys me is not the concept, it's that, if the goal was to turn Wanda into a feminist character, changing her magic was unnecessary. A woman that draws power from a dark masculine-coded source is already fertile ground for exploring feminist themes. Conflating that with some sort of woman power just confuses things, unless we do away with continuity. I mean, what, is Chthon into girl power, now? And why not just have Wanda be knowledgeable in two different types of magic? The concept of duality is feminist, after all.

Also, hasn't Doc Strange used chaos magic before? I new that mustache was fake...



Thanks

It's feminist in the sense that her power is not only removed from physical prowess, which is generally a trait attributed to masculinity, but also in that her femininity and femininity as a whole are what empower her. This is opposed to her getting her power from a man, as Captain Marvel does or she used to. The source of her power being male would only be feminist if she discovered her own source of power and stopped using it. Her power now comes from being a woman instead of a link to a man. It's feminist now and wasn't before. Which is interesting, as it makes a statement about feminine power simply through her actions. Now, it would be REALLY feminist if she were able.to reconcile the two and draw equal power from both.

And duality is not a feminist concept, really. Feminism is about the equality of the sexes and the stupidity of gender roles. Without the concept of duality those stupidly defining roles wouldn't exist. So it's actually kind of counter to feminism, which is more about unity.

This all, of course, only refers to feminism as a theory. The behavior of the political groups of the same name varies much more wildly and is far less useful for the analysis of fiction.

And like the quote from the book I took said, it doesn't outright say she isn't using multiple sources of magic.