How Female Superheroes Empower Women to Lead
The luxury and effects of superpowered representation
Every year growing up, my dad took my siblings and I to the theatre to see the hot new superhero movie. They were fun, exciting, and I got to eat my body weight in hot, buttery, delicious popcorn. A perfect recipe for a good time.
My brother outdid us all, though. He’d get so excited during the big boss battles that he’d literally leap out of his seat. I caught my dad doing this a few times, too. I chalked it up to them being huge nerds and didn’t think about it any deeper than that.
Until I saw Wonder Woman.
Watching a woman kick ass and save the world was an inspirational masterpiece that I never knew I needed. I felt fired up. I felt excited. I felt powerful. I may have leaped out of my seat.
A woman in power was something I’ve needed my whole life but never knew until that moment. I left that theatre feeling motivated, strong, and like I could crush all my goals!
Wonder Woman gave me the biggest epiphany of my life: I need more strong women to watch. I like to call this my Wonder Woman Moment.
The effects of pushing female characters to the sidelines
There are over 2,500 teams of superheroes between DC and Marvel. 30% of these teams don’t include women, and only 4.8% have more women than men.
This isn’t to say there were no female characters to watch. I loved Raven and Starfire from Teen Titans and I loved Rogue from X-men, but none of them were able to do for me what Wonder Woman did. They weren’t empowering. They weren’t running their shit. They were written to support stronger, more important men.
“If the constantly repeated story is that women and girls are not leaders, are not working in professional settings, are not agents of their own lives but merely adjuncts to others, and are sometimes not even present at all, it can reinforce or foster societal undervaluing of women and girls.”
-Carolyn Cocca in her book Superwomen
The attitude created by the “strong superhero/damsel in distress” dynamic creeps its way from the media into our society. Society reinforces these ideas and the values they created. Then, when it’s set deep in our subconscious, we portray them in the media. It’s a vicious cycle.
This is an issue that has hard-hitting effects on careers, family life, and self-confidence of women and girls everywhere.
According to the Canadian Women’s Foundation, women are 30% less likely to get promoted out of an entry-level position, and 60% less likely to move into the executive ranks. This is true even though women have equivalent tenure, and statistically, are more educated.
Growing up with exposure only to the strength and intelligence of men may cause women to enter adulthood less confident, less ambitious, and less interested in the success of themselves. Without that Wonder Woman Moment, girls may never feel that motivational push they need to reach their greatest potential or overcome the obstacles repressing their self-confidence.
The result of a male-dominated genre
A study done by BBC America and the Women’s Media Center dug into the aftermath of just this: a life without equivalently strong male/female representation in the superhero genre. The study was done with an equal number of boys and girls aged 5–19.
Here are some key findings:
- 70% of girls feel confident compared to 81% of boys
- 57% of girls feel like they aren’t listened to
- 2/3 girls and 1/3 boys believe women have fewer leadership opportunities
- 2/3 girls feel there are not enough strong or relatable female characters
- 2/3 girls feel there are not enough female role-models on screen
- 100% of girls report that their favorite female superhero makes them feel strong, brave, confident, inspired, positive, motivated, and like they can accomplish anything.
If this was the type of character put forward in more movies, would women grow up stronger? More confident? Could it change the narrative on the potential of women to lead?
The ages included in this study are part of hugely formative years in childhood and adolescence. Years that are involved in the development of self-identity.
Although we chose our identities, we are heavily influenced by our environments, our peers, and our society. If all 3 of those things are saying women aren’t strong, aren’t intelligent, aren’t emotionally stable, what kind of identities are young women forming?
Girls will grow up idolizing their favorite characters. They’ll pull from them and the way they’re treated on-screen to determine how they should be treated in real life. If female characters are brushed off, not listened to, and never central to the story, women will grow up believing that this behavior is acceptable.
Girls need to see stronger women in order to become them. They need encouragement from women who are winning. They need to see examples of strong personalities to develop their own. This is how we can close the confidence gap and create more leaders.
Creating Stronger Women
Female superheroes have the potential to make a dramatic impact on the confidence gap. Girls are already saying that watching their favorite superhero makes them feel like they can accomplish anything, so why aren’t there more? How will girls ever know what they’re capable of if they never see it in other women? How will it ever be normalized if it’s never plastered om billboards, social media, big screens?
Girls need to see confidence, leadership, and accomplishment in other women to envision themselves with those qualities. According to the study by BBC America and Women’s Media Centre, 51% of girls look up to their mothers. Unfortunately, not all girls have this influence. For them, things like female-led superhero movies become exponentially more important for teaching that women are strong, smart, capable, beings.
On the other side of the coin, a better example of women in the media can help to sway the internalized misogyny already living in men. Since men hold 84% of executive-level positions in S&P 500 companies, the responsibility falls to them as well to change the narrative on women at work.
Getting there slowly but surely
Wonder Woman sparked a new age of film. She was the first female-led superhero movie in 15 years, and since then the numbers have been climbing. 2018 hit a historical high with 31% of the top 100 grossing films including female protagonists. 2019 grew even higher with 40%.
2020 is a promising year with a lot of great female-led movies in development. In the superhero department Black Widow, Wonder Woman 1984, and Birds of Prey are a few of many. We are being heard, and the world is beginning to wake up to the blessing that is women on-screen.
This may come in part thanks to women breaking into male-dominated professions, like directing and using their influence to create more women-centric movies.
Movies with at least one female director had 61% more writers, 24% more editors, and 17% more cinematographers than movies directed solely by men. This gap in numbers, according to Dame Heather Rabbatts, chair of Time’s Up UK, exists because “people tend to recruit in their own image.” If more women felt they held the power to break into a male-dominated profession, like directing, our voices would be louder and we could make it into more feature films.
“The more that we see women directors coming through, the greater encouragement that will give to other women to believe that they too can do these roles”
This comes full circle to the original point. If we can build women up and show them that our gender is powerful and capable of anything, we will see more confident women, and therefore, more women in positions where they can make meaningful decisions. We need strong representation. And what’s stronger than a superhero?
While Wonder Woman was arguably just a basic, average superhero movie, it blew everyone away because of one very unique detail: it was led by a strong, confident, woman. It was the first female-led superhero movie since 2005, and it has sparked something great.
I consciously seek out strong women to learn about now and I’ve had several other Wonder Woman Moments since I first saw the movie. I never put any effort into this growing up because I had no idea how important it was. I didn’t know because there weren’t any. I would have had to seek them out on my own, and what kid wants to spend time doing that instead of running around outside with their friends?
Girls need to see leaders to become leaders. Strong female role-models should be as common as the male ones. They should just be there. Wonder Woman changed my life, and the future of female superheroes will surely change the lives of many more.
