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.
Wonder Woman, sisterhood, and women’s empowerment go hand-in-hand. Right now the world seems fascinated by Wonder Woman. At Sisterhood Agenda, we have been fascinated by her for a long time.
Wonder Woman is the epitome of women’s empowerment. She has been a comic book collection, a television series, a UN Ambassador (before she was unceremoniously fired), and now she is a movie star. You know that you are something special when you shake things up this much.
Sisterhood Agenda honored Wonder Woman in our Girls Guide: How To Be A Sister, published in 2015. Even though she is a fictional character, she is someone we can all learn from and grow. She inspires our girls’ perceptions of womanhood and power, and she was created with purpose.
Did you know Wonder Woman has a twin sister of African descent named Nubia?
William Moulton Marston, an American psychologist and writer who was already famous for inventing the polygraph (forerunner to Wonder Woman’s magic lasso), struck upon an idea for a new kind of superhero, one who would triumph – 18 – not with fists or firepower, but with love. “Fine,” said Elizabeth, his wife. “But make her a woman.”
The superhero that Marston created became known as Wonder Woman. We can look at Wonder Woman as an archetype of female empowerment. In the comics and also in an older television series, Wonder Woman is portrayed as a superheroine. Created by Marston and published by DC Comics, Wonder Woman fights for justice, love, peace, and gender equality. Wonder Woman is a warrior princess of the Amazons tribe, native to Paradise Island, a secluded island in the middle of a vast ocean. In her homeland, Wonder Woman is a Princess, known as Princess Diana of Themyscira.
“Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who should, I believe, rule the world.” Further, in a 1943 issue of The American Scholar, Marston wrote: “Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don’t want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women’s strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.”
A little-known fact: Nubia was Wonder Woman’s Black sister, created from black clay, just as Diana was created from white clay. Like Diana, Nubia, appearing in almost twenty DC Comics issues, has superhuman strength. Nubia also possessed a magic sword, the only weapon on Earth that could counteract Diana’s magic lasso. She could also glide on air currents. Nubia’s magical armor with a raised embossed lion’s head on its breastplate enabled her to time travel to mystical realms. Diana and Nubia universally transcend human limitations through wisdom, knowledge, and use of natural forces for good such as her sun energy shield and chest emblem.
Sisterhood matters because we need more women like Wonder Woman and Nubia. We all have the capacity to be them with a collective responsibility to promote justice, love, peace, gender AND racial equality. Our sisterhood is a tribe and each of us is gifted with something unique, our own arsenal of knowledge, skills, and weapons (not literally, but figuratively) to assist us in our mission. Our tribe is a diverse sisterhood exemplified in the many shapes, colors, and textures of our physical selves.
In this world of fiction, the Amazons are a healthy matriarchal tribe. Some of them have titles, they have competitions, but they are simultaneously able to respect, care for, and co-exist with men. The women are beautiful, talented, and powerful. Nevertheless, why does this world have to be fictitious? We have to see this vision and want this type of sisterhood to be a reality for us and our families. It does not exist in a vacuum since we do not all live on a secluded island of women in the middle of the ocean. However, with sisterhood, we can manifest this reality of empowered femininity within our communities.
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