Angela D. Coleman, Ìbíyínká Oladojá Oyèwọlá, is a nonprofit executive, social entrepreneur, and scholar-practitioner dedicated to transforming communities through innovation, systems-level thinking, and equity-centered solutions.
The Marvel sisterhood of women superheroes is expanding. Yea!
I have always been a huge fan of science fiction, fantasy, martial arts, intelligent horror, and yes, Marvel Comics. When strong female characters are represented, particularly women of color, my interest peaks. Simply put, I like to see myself and women like me represented in these stories.
The women superheroes of Marvel are important: they help us visualize ourselves in exceptionally different worlds with varied experiences and often enhanced abilities to effect outcomes, especially justice.
I like to celebrate them throughout the year, not just during Women’s History Month or International Women’s Day. I love these women because they are heroic. If they are flawed, that is even better. We all have a learning curve and who’s perfect?
A few suggestions:
1. I would like to see women superheroes more often, featured on television, in movies, in comics, in books, and more multi-media platforms.
2. Let’s increase the diversity, not just in terms of race and ethnicity, but also with unique alien features, body positivity, and temperament.
3. It is time to move away from blatant sexual objectification: no more scantily clad women superheroes, women who fight for justice and peace wearing really tight, form-fitting clothes and finally, let’s eliminate women superheroes who go around with no clothes on at all. Please and thank you.
4. Let’s start expanding minds earlier by featuring girl superheroes that target girl audiences, for example, age 4 and up, which gives girls more options beyond Barbie.
5. Let’s redefine genre so that we do not get stuck there; the success of movies like “Get Out” and “Black Panther” demonstrate that films can be more than one thing and these hybrids are extremely successful.
6. Maybe this is too much to ask, however, you have to ask for what you really want and need… I would like to see more women superheroes addressing the widespread oppression of women and violence against women, including sexual abuse. I cannot imagine a woman superhero existing without this basic level of self-awareness. She can’t exist anywhere in our world without recognizing this issue and being inspired to use her superpowers to do make it better.
7. More sisterhood, of course! I like to see women working together to combat the stereotype that powerful women cannot work well together. These unions can be very powerful and model productive behavior.
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