Wonder Woman and Philosophy

The Amazonian Mystique

Jacob M. Held, William Irwin

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781119280750
• eBook ISBN: 9781119280743
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Wonder Woman and Philosophy: The Amazonian Mystique explores a wide range of philosophical questionssurrounding the most popular female superhero of all time, from her creation as feminist propaganda during World War II up to the first female lead in the blockbuster DC movie-franchise.

• The first book dedicated to the philosophical questions raised by the complex and enduringly iconic super-heroine
• Fighting fascism with feminism since 1941, considers the power of Wonder Woman as an exploration of gender identity and also that of the human condition – what limits us and what we can overcome
• Confronts the ambiguities of Wonder Woman, from her roles as a feminist cause and fully empowered woman, to her objectification as sexual fantasy
• Topics explored include origin stories and identity, propaganda and art, altruism and the ethics of care, Amazonians as transhumanists, eroticism and graphic novels, the crafting of a heroine, domination, relationships, the ethics of killing and torture, and many more.

Part I
You are a Wonder Woman

1
Becoming a (Wonder) Woman: Feminism, Nationalism, and the Ambiguity of Female Identity

J. Lenore Wright

More than 70 years have passed since the debut of Wonder Woman in All Star Comics. To the wonder of many, Wonder Woman remains one of the most popular comic-book superheroes of all time. As Jill Lepore aptly observes in The Secret History of Wonder Woman, “Aside from Superman and Batman, no other comic-book character has lasted as long.”¹ What, precisely, gives Wonder Woman her wondrous staying power in the American popular consciousness?

Her overt femininity (need I mention the bustier, boots, and bracelets?) coupled with her Amazonian strength and speed (“she was both stronger than Hercules and swifter than Mercury”) crosses gender and generational divides.² The raven-haired beauty emboldened a generation of men reared on pin-ups and promises to fight fascism in World War II. The lasso-wielding freedom fighter empowered women to leave the domestic sphere for the public sphere and take control of their lives and livelihood.³ The lone female founder of the Justice League of America (formerly known as the Justice Society of America) inspired countercultural Americans to voice stories of struggle and alienation. Today, the tiara-wearing heroine's combined fierceness and frivolity appeals to readers' fluid understanding of gender norms and identities.⁴ Ironically, it is Wonder Woman's ambiguity that makes her appeal so enduring.

Wonder Woman is a walking—and sometimes flying—paradox of attributions and images. She is, at once, a female sex symbol and feminist icon: physically enchanting, psychically vulnerable, morally virtuous, financially independent, self-determining, and, in tune with her womanly ways, self-sacrificing. “She was meant to be the strongest, smartest, bravest woman the world had ever seen,” writes Lepore.⁵ In short, Wonder Woman represents a robust modern conception of American womanhood.

This chapter explores the complexities of Wonder Woman's identity, as she navigates male and female spheres of existence to embody a modern American ideal.⁶ The French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) maintains, in the Ethics of Ambiguity (1947) and The Second Sex (1949), that sexual differences shape human existence insofar as society offers men and women different possibilities for expressing who they are and what they desire. Whereas man actively creates his destiny, woman passively accepts her uncertain existence. The critical feminist task is for women to transcend barriers to freedom so they can begin to forge their identities and enjoy self-fulfillment. Wonder Woman exemplifies this “woman of tomorrow.”⁷ “Wiser and stronger than men,” she gives up her right to eternal life and commitment to remain “aloof from men” to join her love interest, Captain Steve Trevor, an army intelligence officer, in America and defend democracy “and equal rights for women.”⁸ Wonder Woman challenges established social roles and the assumed facticity of life by creating her identity in the world, an identity born out of sacrifice and pain. In becoming who she is—in making a new life in a new country under a new name—Wonder Woman gives new meaning to Beauvoir's claim that “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”⁹

What is a Woman?

On the cusp of her 40th birthday, Simone de Beauvoir became preoccupied with the question, “What has it meant to me to be a woman?” Previously, she had insisted that women's lives were no different from men's lives. Beauvoir initially rejected the term “feminist” to describe herself and distanced herself from feminist thought. Yet, as she considered the condition of women further, she realized that being a woman had shaped her experiences in profound ways. Beauvoir writes, “I looked and it was a revelation: the world was a masculine world, my childhood had been nourished by myths formed by men, and I hadn't reacted to them in the same way I should have done if I had been a boy.”¹⁰

Beauvoir adopts the question “What is a Woman?” as the guiding question of her pivotal feminist text, The Second Sex (1949), in which she observes that despite significant social and cultural differences worldwide, women share the experience of being dependent persons. Men, by contrast, are independent; they are the creators and prime examples of absolute rules and values in a fixed patriarchal system. Man, then, defines humanity:

Thus humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being… And she is simply what man decrees; thus she is called ‘the sex,’ by which is meant that she appears essentially to the male as a sexual being… She is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute—she is the Other.¹¹

In defining humanity, man pursues a freely chosen future. He invents tools and creates values that allow him to transcend the repetition of life. Woman, bound by her body—bound by what Beauvoir characterizes as her immanence in reproduction—is imprisoned in the repetition of life. She is unable to subdue her body or control her future. (Historically speaking, pregnancy and childbirth reduce women's capacity for work and make them dependent upon men for protection and food. This was particularly true before the advent of reliable birth control. Of course, Amazons don't have this worry.) Woman is thus immanent rather than transcendent, dependent rather than independent, and, therefore, denied her very humanity. Beauvoir embraces the philosophical leanings of her romantic partner and intellectual companion, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980), who advances the existentialist idea that individuals are responsible for determining who they are and what meaning their lives bear. Similarly, Beauvoir maintains that women, like men, must look reality squarely in the face and assume a responsibility for changing it by engaging in a struggle for freedom. Marston anticipates and aides Beauvoir's call in the figure of Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman's feminist spirit originates in her ancestry. We learn in the introductory issue (All Star Comics #8, December 1941–January 1942) that Wonder Woman is the daughter of Hippolyte, Queen of Amazonia, an ancient Greek nation ruled for centuries by women. Threatened by the Amazons' autonomy and power, Hercules attempts to defeat the Amazons through combat. He loses. But through deceit and trickery, he manages to secure the magic girdle created by Aphrodite to ensure Hippolyte's success. The Amazons are enslaved until their degradation becomes unbearable. Aphrodite takes pity upon Amazonia and returns the magic girdle to Hippolyte, who overcomes the male captors, flees Amazonia with her female subjects, and establishes a new world on an uncharted island they name Paradise Island.¹² Like the historic path of liberation for modern women, the Amazons' liberation is not without conditions. “Aphrodite also decreed that we must always wear these bracelets fashioned by our captors, as a reminder that we must always keep aloof from men.”¹³ Wonder Woman, who later acquires the name Diana after her godmother, the goddess of the moon, threatens this newly established order when Wonder Woman falls in love with an American captain who crash lands his airplane on Paradise Island. Her mother warns, “So long as we do not permit ourselves to be again beguiled by men! We are indeed a race of Wonder Women! That was the promise of Aphrodite—and we must keep our promise to her if we are to remain here safe and in peace! That is why this American must go and as soon as possible!”¹⁴

Despite Wonder Woman's respect for her mother's authority and commitment to women's independence, romantic love prevails. Wonder Woman gives up eternal life (that's right, eternal life) and her beloved home on Paradise Island for Captain Trevor. Like modern women everywhere, Wonder Woma...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contributors: The Myndi Mayer Foundation
• Acknowledgments
• Editor's Note
• Introduction: In and For a World of Ordinary Mortals
• Part I: You are a Wonder Woman
• Part II: Dispatches from Man's World
• Part III: When I Deal with Them, I Deal with Them
• Part IV: God(s), Country, Sorority
• Part V: Tying Up Loose Ends
• Index
• EULA