Real Life Heroes

Beyond the Blue and Pink Toy Divide – Elizabeth Sweet – TEDx Talk

Elizabeth Sweet talks about gender and toys at a 2015 TEDx salon event at UC Davis.

Elizabeth Sweet is a sociologist whose research on gender, children’s toys, and social inequality examines this question. She has written about gender and toys for the New York Times and The Atlantic and her work has been featured in many national and international press outlets, including The Guardian, NPR, and MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry Show. Born and raised just outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico, Elizabeth spent a decade living in Oregon before coming to Davis, California for graduate school. She teaches sociology at UC Davis and at Sacramento State and is currently working on a book based on her research. She is the proud mom of a 13-year-old daughter and three feisty cats.

The Importance of Female Superheroes – Christopher Bell

Please take a moment to listen to this amazing TEDx Talk by Christopher Bell, a father and an Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. He specializes in the study of popular culture, focusing on the ways in which race, class and gender intersect in different forms of media. Dr. Bell’s primary research areas are young adult culture, particularly dystopian young adult literature and comic books. He serves as the chair of the Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association’s Harry Potter Studies division.

Celebrate Heroic Girl Hedy Lamarr’s 101st Birthday

The Google Doodle for today celebrates Hedy Lamarr’s 101st birthday.

In her day, Hedy Lamarr was widely recognized as a Hollywood icon and one of the most beautiful women in the world. What the world failed to see at the time, was that she was a brilliant inventor whose work laid the foundation for our modern wireless society.

From Wikipedia:

At the beginning of World War II, intent on aiding the Allied war effort, Lamarr identified jamming of Allied radio communications by the Axis as a particular problem, and with composer George Antheil, developed spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat it. Though the US Navy did not adopt the technology until the 1960s, the principles of her work are now incorporated into modern Wi-Fi, CDMA and Bluetooth technology, and this work led to her being inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014

Lamarr was a lifelong inventor, building an improved traffic light and tablet that made an instant carbonated beverage — although she later admitted the drink “tasted like Alka-Seltzer.”

During World War II, she wanted to devote herself full-time to discovering inventions that could help defeat the Nazis, but was convinced by the government that she could do more good by using her fame to sell war bonds, which she did with gusto.

If there was a Heroic Girl hall of fame, Hedy Lamarr would surely be in it.

Woman Starts Petition Asking the “Girls” of DC to Grow Up

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Early in the pilot episode of the new Supergirl television show, Kara confronts her boss, newspaper publisher Cat Grant, who has just dubbed the new hero “Supergirl.” Didn’t the word “girl” diminish the hero, Kara asked her boss? Cat replied.

And what do you think is so bad about “Girl?” Huh? I’m a girl. And your boss, and powerful, and rich, and hot and smart. So if you perceive “Supergirl” as anything less than excellent, isn’t the real problem you?

But Kara did put her finger on a very real problem. While male heroes are invariably “men,” female heroes created in the Golden and Silver Age of comics were often dubbed “girls,” instead of “women.” In Marvel Comics, Sue Storm, who was old enough to marry Reed Richards was the “Invisible Girl,” while Peter Parker, who couldn’t even drive, was dubbed “Spider-Man.”

Marvel “promoted” Sue to “Invisible Woman” with almost no fuss years ago, but she is an anomaly. The pages of comics are still filled with grown women who have been labeled “girls.” It’s an especially big problem at DC, who created many of their classic characters in the 1940s, when gender equality was not exactly a priority.

DC Super Hero Girls
DC Super Hero Girls

Comics fan Susan Grau had enough. So she started a Change.org petition to encourage DC Comics to call their grown-up heroes by the grown-up name of “woman” instead of “girl.” From the petition page.

…it can be offensive when used to describe a grown woman as a ‘girl.’  It serves only to lessens a character, treating them as less mature and capable than their male counterparts.  It’s a leftover of a bygone era where men commonly called their secretaries and their assistants ‘girls.’

Grau’s petition has already collected more than 500 signatures, and it raises an interesting point. Perhaps some of these characters are held prisoner by antiquated gender norms. On the other hand, we also have “Superboy” and “Robin the Boy Wonder,” so there is a history of youthfully named heroes of both genders.

I’m not sure there is a “one size fits all” solution for this issue. College-age “Batgirl” might be OK as a female analog to “Robin the Boy Wonder,” while Karen Starr, who is the powerful CEO of a company she founded and appears to be around 30 should probably go by “Power Woman” instead of “Power Girl.”

Or maybe, Like Cat Grant implied, the real problem is that we devalue femininity.

“What’s so bad about ‘girl,’ anyway?”

Wear Your Superheroes Day — Part 2

October 1st is upon us once again, and that means it is time for the second annual “Wear Your Superheroes Day.” Heroic Girls was one of the first to cover these two super-sisters last year, and we are firmly on-board for a second go-round.

We caught up with their parents, Tom and Mindy Nagel, and talked to them about why superheroes are important to girls, and why they are making this an annual event.

Why did you start “Wear Your Superheroes Day?”

Our daughters, Adalina (then 7) and Leanna (5), developed an interest in superheroes over a relatively short period of time last summer. Leanna in particular seemed to be captivated by the idea of superheroes and the virtues they represented, and she began wearing superhero shirts and Batman shoes to school.

One day, I picked her up from school and she had her jacket on and zipped up, even though it was hot out. She explained that some of her classmates had been telling her that superheroes were for boys, so she decided to cover up her new shirt featuring members of the Justice League.

That evening, we talked about what had happened, and Adalina decided that we needed to tell everyone to wear superhero clothes on the following Wednesday, October 1, to show people that superheroes are for everyone and not just boys.

What was the response like last year?

It was unexpected and overwhelming. One of our friends, Stacy Brannan-Smith, posted a Facebook event page to share the idea publicly. Word spread rapidly, and shortly thereafter, the girls were featured on a local television news broadcast. When the day arrived, we were pleased to see that many children at school wore superhero clothes, as did both of the girls’ teachers and other staff members. Later that morning, the school contacted us to get our permission to let a news crew film Adalina in her classroom. As I was walking to lunch, I passed someone wearing a Captain America shirt over a dress shirt. And in the evening, we sat down in front of a computer and browsed hundreds of pictures that were shared by people around the world, in support of Leanna. All told, there were more than 1,800 participants from around the U.S. as well as several other countries.

How have your girls responded to the media attention?

At first, it was novel to them, and they really enjoyed being on TV. Aside from that, they’ve been somewhat ambivalent, almost as if the attention was to be expected. They were more pleased that so many people participated at school and online.

What superheroes do the girls like now?

Adalina is into Phoenix, Wasp, and Black Widow. Leanna still likes Captain America and Batman. They’ve been reading Squirrel Girl lately too.

Why do you think it’s important that we give girls permission to like superheroes?

Well, I don’t think girls need permission to like superheroes in the first place — not from their peers, anyway. For us, as Leanna’s parents, it’s about being comfortable with who you are and being able to share that confidently with the world. It doesn’t just apply to girls, and it’s not even just about superheroes, although I think they can exhibit many characteristics that are worth aspiring to.

How To Get Involved

Follow Wear Your Superheroes on Facebook and sign up for the Wear Your Superheroes event.

Boys and girls who believe superheroes are for EVERYONE should wear their superhero stuff on Thursday and post a picture to Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag #WearYourSuperheroes.