So I’m past overdue for an introductory post (and overdue for an actual-content post, but I’ll worry about that later). My name is Miriam Libicki (the beetle part is an old nickname that follows me around Blogger). I write and draw autobiographical comics based on my experiences as the worst secretary in the Israeli army, as well as other short nonfiction pieces that you may or may not call comics, if you’re some sort of a definition-hugger. Here is a link to my most popular, I think, definitely my most controversial piece, marking the first time I got called an anti-Semite on the internet.*
I come out of a hippie-feminist background, an Orthodox-Jewish background, and a wannabe-intellectual-art-school background all at once, so that might give you a bit of an idea of things I’ll posting about. I have never written for the Comics Journal. I’m a self-publisher who works the con circuit (I exhibited at at least a dozen comicons this year, and my schedule for next year is already filling up), so I may do some self-promotion, but I’ll try to keep it tasteful. I also may badmouth the comics of some people I’ll have to apologize to later at a show, and that could be entertaining for everyone.
What I read mostly these days are North American alternative/”literary” type comics. I have ingrained prejudices against manga, but I asked for Nanas vol. 1 and 2 for Winter Holiday**. We will see if I like them, or if I get quickly divested of my utilitarianhood. And finally, I will introduce myself, following Tom, by explaining how reading superhero comics as a child screwed me up for life.
I think the worst lesson I learned from growing up on Marvel comics is not that women are sex objects, but that women can dress in lingerie and not be sexualized by those around them. No one talks down to them, talks to their chests, tries to grope them, or makes winking insinuations (or if they did, in the eighties, it went over my head). Ororo could be a tough, smart team leader in a leather onesie with cut-outs.
This made me want to dress up everywhere in lingerie or bondage gear*** (cause it’s pretty!), and be treated the same as a man. I was cruelly acquainted with reality at age fourteen or so, but aesthetic preferences are a hard thing to shake.
Which leads inevitably to getting in fights with my mother over clothes every week during high school, despite being an introvert who never dated, to nobody believing I was religious when I lived in Israel, to being my own conflicted booth babe at comicons across the nation (see below for my favourite pictorial depiction of same).
* for the record, I did not write the little introductory blurb at the link, just the actual pages.
** I’m Jewish, my in-laws are Christmas-loving Buddhists. It’s a bit complicated, but working out ok so far.
*** yes, our favourite comics were Chris Claremont-penned X-men and New Mutants.
I didn’t know you were married! Mazel Tav!
The linked piece is interesting, though the format is maddening. Not sure you touched on this but…I think the main reason Jews (and especially Jewish men) are desexualized is because that’s more or less how this culture handles assimilation. Ethnic minorities who transfer to being ethnic majority retain a trace of their past, and that trace gets read as nerdishness. It’s what has happened to Asian men as well….
noah, i’m not sure i follow you. every scary minority that manages to assimilate gets its men desexed? what about, oh say, italians? or any population that is not jews or asians? (i totally agree with you about asian men, though. i have ranted in the past about how an asian guy is never the romantic lead in american media.)
i feel like there must be something else going on, especially how jewish women (at least jewish women with cultural/physical markers) are also popularly undesirable, which is certainly not the case with asian women.
Yeah, Italian men are a good counter-example…though most other assimilated groups don’t have any particular sexualized stereotype associated with them, I don’t think. (Eastern European men? Even Irish men….)
It probably has something to do with the approach to education….
Oh, thank goodness someone put that niggling feeling into words.
I think the younger you was very much onto something about the way women were – and I guess, what, continue to be? – treated in comics.
Yeah, the way the characters were drawn was idealised – but easily as much for the men as the women – but generally speaking the way spandex comics are written is so flat and soapy that applying particular advanced or overwrought gender politics to them seems like a bit of a waste of time.
On another note, was listening to Erika Moen talking to Dresden Kodak on her vidcast the other day, and they touched on the whole “girl on the internet” thing as being something that he was glad he didn’t have to deal with. And that’s all about audience.
So maybe the reason that sometimes comics as a field is a bit misogynistic is because the audience brings it, not the medium itself? Dunno, just thinking out loud…
Nick, I think it’s letting the industry off way too easy to just blame the misogyny on the readers. I mean, sure you wouldn’t have misogyny if misogyny didn’t sell; there’s a reinforcing loop and everything. But that’s the case with any kind of art or statement.
Also…just because it’s not high-brow doesn’t mean that it’s genderless.
Noah> Of course, you're right. I was making the intellectual mistake of taking one area of experience and applying it across the board.
Having said that, I think the reinforcing loop that you're talking about is probably weighted on the audience side.
Certainly, as a male-child growing up around the same Marvel comics that Miriam was talking about, I didn't really register a sexuality to it, and that was a time period during which I was registering a sexuality in everything. Romita Jr era Kitty Pryde was my one real comic crush, and I don’t know if she ever even had curves back then.
I should also state that I don’t really believe that comics in general are misogynistic – just that sometimes, in some areas of them, they are. Sometimes.
Also, I should clarify that “…just because it’s not high-brow doesn’t mean that it’s genderless.” is applying a interpretation to my words that wasn’t my intention. I wasn’t making an assertion about high or low-brow entertainment. My point was one about content: in soap, and in soapy superhero comics – especially the shallowly written and safe ones, which is most of them – I don’t tend to see much real difference in the way one or another character is written, along gender, race or any other lines.
At most, you’ll see a distinction between character archetypes – the idealist, the cynic, the brawler etc – before you’ll see one along a gender line. Certainly, to follow Miriam’s example, there were points where Storm could have been male, or Cyclops female, and you’d never really know it. Solo books would tend toward male protagonists, but that seemed incidental to me – Peter Parker didn’t seem particularly masculine in his behaviour, and the women in his life seemed to pretty much run rings around him.
So to apply a gender-centric reading to most of these comics – and again I have to say that I’m mainly thinking about those eighties Marvel books – is to either look solely at the character design/costume choices – which is a problematic reading of a medium that should rely so much on it’s plotting and writing – or to suggest intent that comes from the observer more than the originator.
Which is a perfectly valid critical approach to this stuff, as it can be an interesting discussion of where society was at that particular point, or why Marvel comics had such a broad appeal, or whatever.
But I wasn’t suggesting that it was genderless because it isn’t high-brow, I was suggesting that it was genderless because it was written without enough depth to apply gender to the characters – and there are plenty of examples of high-brow media featuring characters who lack that particular depth.
Jeez, I really shouldn’t post comments when I’m supposed to be doing something else – I apologise if this is a bit rambly – I’m just kind of enjoying thinking about this stuff, because I don’t often get to!
Hey Nick. I have a response of sorts here
nick, i appreciate what you're saying, & i guess i'm still conflicted about my eighties marvels. cause i think the women *were* to some extent there to be sex objects, hence the costumes, but it didn't register to pre-pubescent me.
i don't think the women were interchangeable with the men… i think the women were much more likely to cry, or feel lonely, or like shopping, but they were the same when it came to heroing or moralizing. i think in many cases it's fine, progressive even, to have a woman take on a situation the same way a man does (especially if they both have the same job, you know, defeating evil mutants), & not widening the perception of gender difference.
i would *love* a world, still, where how a woman dresses doesn't dictate how men get to treat her. but the comics certainly didn't seem to be sowing any seeds of anti-sexism among their male readership, if you go by the message boards or comicons frequented by guys of my generation.
i get the feeling that today's superhero comics are worse, but there is the factor of me having grown up & knowing what those clothes & those poses "mean" in real life. also the fact that i don't read 'em anymore, & am more likely to see what gets picked up by the comicky internet, the rapes & the porn-tracing, & doctor doom calling a woman a whore or whatever.
Miriam> Totally relate to what you're saying about your relationship with newer superhero comics.
Thinking about it, I only remember very occasional day-to-day lifestyle stuff from those comics, except in exceptional circumstances – like the two side-by-side issues of X-Men where the women went shopping and the guys uh… did something more traditionally manly? – but I think you're probably right, and my memory is just bad.
Certainly, I remember always being impressed at the time by how ordinary the lives of Marvel characters seemed to be between brawls, so it’s interesting that I’ve zoned out on any details. I tried reading those old Claremont X-Men since, and actually found them impossible to get through!
I understand your clarification that they were there to some extent as sex objects, though I’ve always struggled with the idea that much of that can be drawn from the art, because as I touched on before, almost everything that can be said about the way women are physically idealised in spandex comics can be applied to the male characters, too – especially when the difference between bare flesh and skintight costumes is often little more than a colouring choice.
But obviously you’re not just talking about the art!
As far as your comment about comics not sowing seeds of anti-sexism among the readership, well, of course, you’re right. But of course, you probably already know that comic-reading or fandom men aren’t unique in the behaviour patterns you’re talking about, just probably less canny about hiding it!
Men, when together, often degenerate into juvenile or obnoxious, and often quite misogynistic behaviour – in some ways, it’s more about how we relate to each other than to women, but of course the distinction can be redundant when it spills out into public rudeness.
I absolutely agree with you about how the clothes a person chooses to wear shouldn’t dictate how they are treated in unsolicited exchanges, but I’m wondering now – is there a discussion to be had about the dischord in our cultures where some people wear clothes because they like how they look, but others choose clothes for a specific effect?
At which point, I realise that I’m probably going waaaay off-topic, and should maybe just post about it in my own dang blog!