Reblogging and ranting.

Tonight, I rant about gender in comics and whatnot.
I know plenty of people have done it in the past.

I watched this tonight, and I found it very intriguing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYqYLfm1rWA
I like to think that the woman doing it was very conscious of her outfit.

The one thing she did not mention, was that when a lot of creators make Female Characters, they have to feminize everything about them. Oftentimes this leads to an over-sexualization in outfits, and Aaron Diaz has posted about this plenty of times.
http://dresdencodak.tumblr.com/

 However, one of the greatest criticisms of the overly-sexualized and skimpy outfits is that they are entirely impractical. However, the over feminization of characters goes far beyond the outfits. One of the most bothersome tropes for me anyway, is the need to give a female weaker equipment. Men are given motorcycles while women are given motor-scooters. Men are given guns while women are given bows. The fmale archer isn't always a bad thing. In The Hunger Games, Katness uses a bow because it is the most effective weapon available, and big strong Gale uses it for the same reason. (Actually, until the 1860's the bow was easily the best ranged weapon in existence.) Also, motor scooters sure beat walking long distances, but let's be honest. Why would a female action-type person purposefully choose weaker equipment? Is it because it is elegant? Is she afraid she can't control the heavier equipment? If she is afraid of a 1000 cc engine, then why is she throwing herself into battle? It just bugs me.

One example is Kate from the Marvlel's "Hawkeye, My life as a Weapon" Series, which is an awesome series with beautiful artwork, great stories, and she is an amazing character. That being said, they do tend to over feminize her. Her color is purple, and she uses a bow. That is fine, actually. She is Hawkeye's apprentice/backup/heir apparent. Hawkeye wears purple and uses a bow. So, why would she do any differently? However, her vehicles are always dainty. Not really what you would expect from the leader of her own super-hero squad. She drives a VW bug and a motor scooter. Contrast her with Cherry in the series, who dresses in all red, is not afraid to shoot people, and is introduced with a Classic Dodge Charger. Now, Kate does drive the hell out of that Dodge Charger, but why would Kate not keep an adequate vehicle of her own?

Come on people. If Kate knows she is going to be getting in and out of trouble, then she needs something big, fast, and armored, not cute and dainty. She'd want the closest thing to the Batmobiel she could buy (she is loaded). If she were going to give up the safety of a steel cage for the mauverability of two wheels, then you can be sure as hell that she, like any practical superhero, would pick something with enough horsepower to make danger a distant memory.

There in lies the major problem of the issue. The writers stopped thinking like Kate. They started asking the wrong questions. They had these aspects of the characters that they wanted to portray, and they asked themselves "How can we make Kate dainty and reserved, and Cherry powerful and sexy?" and they did it with their choice of cars. They may be a decent metaphor, but it destroys the characters. Why would someone on the run, like Cherry, choose an attention-getting car? Why would Kate choose a dangerous vehicle for her adventures? The truth is that they wouldn't. Although these decisions may lead to some cool chase scenes, the point of the stories is the characters, and the writers missed an opportunity to get in their character's heads because they were trying to portray feminine aspects about their characters through their car choices. Characters are so much more cooler, when you understand what makes them tick, and just giving them stuff to match a troupe is a waste.
Now, thankfully, I said this is an awesomely written series, and even with these tropes, the characters shine through (both in how they think and their femininity). However, when I notice stuff like this, it makes me wonder what else I am missing in a story because the author went with some kind of gender-influence symbolism as opposed to getting into the character's head.

OK, this starting to get kind of long,and I think I am missing my main point. My point is, get in the characters head and their decisions will become your decision. If you don't your stories run the risk of being stereotypical and mildly offensive.