@v_scarlotte_rose:
Stats might not be the only factor though. There's advantages either of them could have in the location they're in, clever use of gadgets, etc
I'm not talking about just physical stats. I'm talking about his tech, his preparedness, his paranoia, his physical abilities, etc Anything you can compare, he has her beat.
I suppose some people might call it misogynistic if Batman wins, but I don't know if that would be fair, seeing as there's this notion of "Batman beats everyone".
Trust me, they'd have that. I'm not 100% confident in this. I can only think of a few times that I have seen a woman full out blasted by a man, often times when they do the woman is shown to be victorious, but more often than not when there is a fight there is almost always a buffer zone of some sort. Minions, weapons, or "equal men" that take the hit and then somehow the woman is captured or just gives up. This type of stuff is hateful to both sides. It's not right for Ivy, Harley, Selina to always be portrayed as ultimately reasonable and give themselves up... where as I'm pretty sure you'd be hard pressed to see a fight between Batman and his male villains end with anything but a fight...which by the way, if you think about it, it's sickening. Almost all of the male villains are no where near as strong, fit, fighters, etc as the female villains. Out of the 30 some villains I can think of, there is like 4 or 5 strong males, followed by all the female characters and then all the rest of the males in terms of strength.
Without knowing the circumstances of the fight, we don't actually know if she has no way of beating him.
At best, she is as strong as a Year 1 Robin with a few interesting toys that wouldn't work against Batman, that I can think of, even if you surprised him with it and it hit him 100%, everything she has, they'd be ineffective. There might be something she could do, but I doubt the creative team would ever be able to pull something off that would work.
Maggie Sawyer is her name. I don't think I could call this misogyny, as there isn't a clear indication that a demotion is anything to do with her sex/gender. Or is there?
There is no reason to do it. That is the thing. You should never make those types of changes without a significant reason for doing it. Their thinking is likely, "well she's younger so she wouldn't be that rank any more", ok but then she also wouldn't be in Gotham and that eradicates her character in general and all you are doing is using a lose template (this is a problem throughout the new52) of the character and not the actual character...and then you have to turn to why did her and Renee break up? Why make that change? And then you get "Well she's no longer The Question so the story is different" ok...so what? No matter what you are changing the story, why not implement it in the least depowering way? And that leads to thoughts like maybe the reason they did that is that 3 gay character might be a problem and we want to use Maggie as the police contact since she's female so we have to throw out Renee. So the chain of trying to figure out why they'd make these changes ends with the thoughts that the creative team is likely homophobic and sexist... which is weird considering the content.
In the end the fact is, there is no reason for the demotion, so we have to look at what's left if not for legitimate story reasons and it ends up being sexist/homophobia. Of course there is always the possibility of just an incredible level of stupidity, but Maggie is one of those important unimportant characters that most people probably don't know much about and so decisions involving her likely has to be discussed by the higher ups but in broad terms and I'd bet that the thinking ended up being something close to what my line of reasoning was and it ends up being about her being female and gay unfortunately rather than anything about her actual character.
There aren't really many women who are portrayed well either though. Apart from Batwoman herself there's pretty much just Flamebird/Hawkfire, Maggie and Wonder Woman. Jacob is shown to be kind of flawed, but with her best interests at heart, and particularly supportive of Bette. Abbot was shown as a good guy, even sacrificing himself in the fight to save Gotham. And just last issue there's the Murder Of Crows who trained Batwoman, and now Hawkfire.
Plus, Killer Croc had a whole issue dedicated to him, and showed him to be a deep character, even doing some good in the end to protect the people he cares about. Even Mr. Freeze was shown as protecting Gotham.
And if the series was really so anti-men, wouldn't more of the villains be men?
Jacob = is chastized early about his financial position within the family, Abbot = villain and dogmatic, croc = villain and very broken, Freeze = villain and crazy, Murder of Crows... there are so many problems with that scene, but that entire scene is pretty much "we're all big strong skilled men and even though she appears to do everything wrong, looks week, and all these other negative things, she bested us so she must be awesome" Taken into context with everything we know it's insulting. She was a hero for longer than Kate and got nearly killed because she was "incompetent" and then even that is the case she still somehow is better than these 6 men? one of which is training his daughter to be a criminal and "can't stop telling dirty jokes" and one who has anger issues...not to mention the incompetency they are showing in the panels and what they are saying... yeah >.> I know it sounds like I'm nit picking but I'm really just thinking it through and wondering why these guys are being portrayed in x way vs these other characters. It's hard to say whether these guys are just bad at what they're paid to do or have a whole bunch of views that are stereotypical which have these horrible assumptions about everyone. To me this looks more like a series of "Black people like chicken and watermelon" type stuff one after another and I'd be just as angry if I saw those as I am when I see it when they're done with men and women.
Feminism is about equality, so is there really a problem in a title appealing to feminists?
I know that is the general lie that is told, but people who think that are wrong. Feminism is not about equality. Feminism is about women's rights. From there, there are different sects that claim that they are about equality. And I say claim, because I've never met a feminist that acts in accordance with promoting equality. They'll say they do, but when you look at their actions they aren't. Even if we strip them down to the base and they were, like MRAs (Mens Rights Activists) generally are, there are still 2 problems with both groups. Within the 2 viewpoints the argument is that all men/women are more priveleged/oppressed in all areas. This is idiotic to even suggest and there is no point to talk to anyone that believes this schlock. Luckily...most people don't, but they still subscribe to an ideology that does have that inherently in their definition. The 2nd problem is similar to the first. It's that no matter how well intentioned a person might be while maintaining these ideologies/viewpoints they are trying to solve issues that are either a) inherently unsolvable or b) only solvable by taking into account both groups honestly and formulating solutions, but both groups are inherently opposed to this by definition.
Some try to argue this is just a sub sect of humanism and to some degree that is right, but it's a bastardized incorrect form, that is largely dishonest which is generally cause by feminist propaganda and MRA reactionary speaking points. I'm personally moving beyond Humanism, because humanism doesn't seem correct to me when you take into account the reasoning capabilities of humans vs other humans and thinking about non-human animals mental capabilities vs humans, the prospect of aliens, and thinking about ethics, but that's probably a much longer deeper philosophical debate that very few people will likely to have for the next 30 some years.
And considering the lower number of female solo titles, and often less representation on teams, is it such a bad thing for a few titles to represent women well?
Here's the thing... They don't show women well.
Batgirl = Based on the worst depiction of the character and continues the worst part of that depiction.
Birds of Prey = I haven't read much of, but I don't think boring is representing women well...especially not when 3 of the women characters on there that I know of are villainous, crazy, broken in some way
Catwoman = Kleptomaniac Psycho thief with anger issues that has a fixation on shiny things and has other major emotional issues.
Katana = Crazy mercenary with a romantic relationship with her sword
Supergirl = Incompetent lost child even though she is technically adult and has a major problem accept reality.
Wonder Woman = I haven't read it past the 3rd issue... From what I read it wasn't about her and it was inferior to all her other appearances...
World's Finest = There is so much wrong with this title
Batwoman = I find it generally disrespectful to DC, it legacy, and to be poorly written, and bad art for a comic (it's not bad art, just wrong for a comic)
Voodoo = Awesomely strong female character who is comfortable with her sexuality and treats people as people while comfortably dealing with a pretty cool issue... oh wait... it was canceled v.v
I agree that there needs to be more female solo titles. I agree that there needs to be more female representation, and I think they are letting a lot of their best characters go to waste as most of their best characters in my estimation are in limbo or not being used to their maximum ability. The fact is that if you look at the sales charts the way that they flow is pretty much Triple A character titles first 20ish titles, All the women titles are between 20 and 40. (all but 2 are above 35) and then the rest. I think they should be putting out more female titles, but DC is bad at business it appear so meh.
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