Wonder Woman: Amazon Misandry is Logical

This is just something I had to get off my chest. I was browsing the YMMV page for Wonder Woman and there was a link there to a blog post about the sexist direction Wonder Woman and especially the Amazons have taken in the New 52 continuity reboot.

Now, I agree with a lot of what the author said, about the shame of erasing one of the very few long-lasting and strong Maternal Narratives and about how the new Amazons are completely unfitting as a feminist ideal.

However, the nu-52 Amazons being the misandrists they are? Well, as the title of this thread says, it actually does make sense to me that they'd be that way.

NOT because they are women, I hasten to add.

But because of another factor a lot of people are looking past. Culture Shock.

What many people skim past about the Amazons of D.C is that they are a Bronze Age culture thrust up against a Modern Age world.

This is a very politically incorrect attitude, I know, but cultures are different. Especially cultures of the ancient past in comparison to the modern day. Values Dissonance is a trope for a reason.

In all continuities, the Amazons began their existence in the Bronze Age, a period of great and often physically-enforced oppression of women. In the modern, pre-Nu 52 continuity, the Amazons are actually immortals from that time period, save the new recruits, who are all abused or victimized women who were brought in over the centuries.

Now let's look at it realistically: when the Amazons began to be Amazons, they were living in a world where "All men are out to get you" is a pretty accurate description of things as they stand. They have to live in isolation to avoid returning to the life of slavery expected of their gender, and if you know that this is on the horizon, naturally you're going to learn how to fight in order to violently resist efforts to take you back to this sort of life. Ignoring the continuities in which Paradise Isle has monsters roaming around on it.

The big thing one has to understand: cultures evolve through change. The seeds of the fall of feudalism were planted with the Black Death, when the rulers were decimated and peasants went from "easily replaced" to "valuable in their own right due to lack of numbers". The seeds of racial and gender rights were sown with the massive slaughter of World War One, and the subsequent desperate need for manpower in World War Two.

All of this? Passed the Amazons by. Paradise Isle was endless and unchanging, a procession into infinity where one day is much like the other. "Don't fix what ain't broke"; those words are hardwired into the human psyche. Paradise Island had no need to change from within, because everything was "perfect" as it was. Every woman was free to make her own decisions and do as she pleased, every woman was fed, clothed and sheltered. What need was there to alter things?

But what about change from without? Well, to not put too fine a point on it, what about it? Throughout their centuries, they have avoided all contact with the outside world. No trading, no diplomacy, nothing but, in the modern age, the occasional stealthy "raid" to liberate a new sister or, in New 52, brief dalliances with men to father the next generation.

This creates what is known as an echo chamber. Nothing new is brought in, everyone just keeps repeating the same old ideas and thoughts ad infinitum. So, those same Bronze Age beliefs and values are perpetuated and put forward from generation to generation, with no contrasting evidence or counter-momentum to force adjustments, amendments, alteration or any other form of evolution.

So, yes, the Amazons of New 52 aren't going to be enlightened feminist ideals made manifest. Because they are not modern-age feminists with their own country and super-powers. They are Bronze Age women given independence and the strength to protect themselves against the men who have proven capable only of abusing them, thrust up against the softer, gentler age in which we now live in.

The infanticide thing, horrible as it is, is still a reversal of what was standard practice in the Bronze Age - and, let's be honest, still happens today, at least in spirit, in some parts of the world.

I will certainly assert that DC could have handled it a lot better - yes, the original Amazons, those who had fled from the outside world, they could have sacrificed their sons gladly. But what about the younger generations, who have never known the harshness of the culture their ancestors are living in and mentally perpetuating? Couldn't it be that this makes childbirth a time of great sorrow, a source of shame for many Amazons - perhaps even resulting in Amazons, those whose moral fortitude outweighs their fears of the outside world, fleeing their "Paradise" so they may love their child regardless of what it is?

In all honesty, what perpetuates the "infanticidal" practices of the Amazons is Hephaestus himself. When the Amazons know that their sons will be given a long, productive life in his company, there is no attendant shame.

Remember, the Amazons are still a Bronze Age Culture: slavery, to them, is nothing morally wrong or to be ashamed of. It is the sheer cruelty and wantonness of men as masters that they loathe, hypocritical as it may seem.

Thusly, Hephaestaus robs any moral sting out of separating themselves from their male offspring. They know their sons will go to a good home, so what's it matter if they don't raise them?

Before anyone brings up "what about maternal love?", I want you to think about something: think about the many, many cultural aspects that require suppressing maternal love, from allowing infants to receive genital mutilation to allowing Arranged Marriage. More importantly, think about how sexist it is to boil all women's character and morals down to "must unconditionally love and sacrifice for something they gave birth to".

So, yes, the Amazons are terrible ideals to uphold for feminism (although, really, one could have pointed to the original Amazons back under Wonder Woman's creator as sexist by virtue of misandry + Positive Discrimination anyway). But the thing is, stripped of the "feminist icon!" banner, do the Amazons make sense as a culture, given their in-universe origins and backlore?

The answer, sadly, is yes. It's a terrible, ugly, truth. But if you lock a bunch of Bronze Age women on their own isolated island, where they can exist in total isolation from the outside world, with no impetus to change or to perceive men as anything other than the murderous, rapine brutes that they fled from. If you are going to free them even of the need to reconsider by allowing them to just hand over their sons to a benevolent immortal patriarch rather than to confront the ugliness of killing them. They are not going to become a gentle, peaceful culture advocating that all genders are equal. They are going to be violent, morally primitive xenophobes, whose love and compassion for their fellow women is matched only by their hate and scorn for males.

They are going to be the Amazons of New 52. Definitely not a symbol of female empowerment. But, horrifically, all too realistic, based on their own backlore.

At no point in the post Flashpoint continuity has it been shown that the Amazons were victimiized by men. We've seen plenty examples of the Amazons victimising men. If you were talking about the pre Flashpoint continuity you'd have a point, but the new continuity hasn't shown much about the Amazons beyond the fact that they despise men. Without any context to it, they just become a culture of complete monsters with no reason for the audience to care about and Diana's belief that they can change comes across as naive.

And no, selling them to Hephaestus as slave labor in return for weapons is no better. Especially since the Amazons don't visit the Forge to see how the boys are treated and have no reason to take Heph's word that he is treating them well.

The pre Flashpoint universe showed the Amazons as misandrists but there were still lines they wouldn't cross and there was differing in opinions among them. It showed how they developed those feelings to begin with and showed they were capable of change. I can't say the same for the New 52 version.

Also, interesting how Azz made the Amazons rapists but ignored that part when it came to Zeus instead making his sexual encounters consentual.

edited 30th Aug '15 12:24:19 PM by windleopard

As I understood it, Pre-New 52 Amazons didn't hate men, they were afraid of them.

Soooo is there a reason this couldn't just be in the DC Comics General thread? Or the Wonder Woman thread, for that matter?

edited 30th Aug '15 7:13:31 PM by Pannic

Also, in the Perez run, they didn't hate men. They mistrusted men. Mortal men, that is. They love Hermes, for one.

Frankly, I don't give two shits about DC right now. Image Comics worshiping potatoheads are in charge.

Just for the record, Hermes has a distinct advatange over his fellow male Olympians of being one of the original patron deities of the Amazons, and (IIRC) the only male deity to actually approve of the four Amazon goddesses' idea to create the Amazons to champion the cause of good. The Amazons distrusted Zeus for being the epitome of a Jerkass God, to be clear.

Considering Zeus post-Crisis wanted to fuck Diana...

And no, they never hated men pre-Crisis, nor did they hate men post-Crisis save for slaughtering Hercules' crew, and that got them punished by their patron gods and removed from the rest of the world.

The only time there's been hate has been severe Character Derailment. By male writers.

Tbf the current character derailment is being continued by a woman.