And, a fair question raised in the previous thread: who better? It's a serious question. We can acknowledge that Joss' perspective on women is still problematic, but just because he's not the end of the path doesn't mean he's not a step along it -- and is anyone further along that can serve as a role model?

I just want to reiterate again that this conversation arose due to Black Widow's treatment in the marketing materials, not Black Widow's treatment in the film.

The women are presented in a way that is gratifying toward men primarily, or even exclusively. I.E. men are treated superior (they are not required to be objects of gratification primarily) and their desires are the dominant concern. I.E. sexism as defined.

Right. Sexism exists outside of comics, too. That doesn't make it not exist in comics, which is the topic at hand.

As Trey says, you guys are making creationist arguments, where no matter what I say in response you're just going to repeat the same thing you said the first time as if I hadn't spoken at all. If you go back to my previous posts, I've already addressed exactly these points: sexualized and sexy are not the same, the fact that someone may incidentally find an image sexy is not the same as it being the primary purpose of the image, some people find feet sexy but a barefoot character is not inherently sexualized, etc.

And this is why an Intermission on the topic would be a complete waste of time.

Again, idealization and sexualization are not the same.

All the men have muscles. Fine. All the women have big boobs. Fine. That's idealization. We can agree it's unrealistic in both directions.

The difference is that the male poses do get to just be normal poses, like standing or sitting there. Or if it's an extreme pose, it's meant to show agility or ferocity or power. Females, it seems, have to spread their legs and arch their backs and otherwise do absurd things when they're just standing there; most poses are extreme and they're meant to show nubility because their primary reason for being in a panel is to appeal to the male audience.

Men are ALSO there to appeal to the male audience, and appeal to (and reinforce) male sensibilities by being powerful and dominant. That is not sexualizing them. Sexualizing them would tend to make the generally-heterosexual-male audience uncomfortable.

Here's the cover of a Black Widow comic:

Here's the same pose with Iron Man:

Was your reaction "Well, of course he looks ridiculous posing that way, he's a man"? Yeah, that's called sexism.

Yes, men wear skin-tight outfits showing off perfect bodies. But they don't wear ones like this:

Or these.

Are both genders' portrayals sexist in their own way, reinforcements of unrealistic gender roles? Sure. Are they equally so? Fuck no.

Here's an interesting couple of posts comparing the way the two genders pose on fantasy book covers that might be helpful on the topic:

http://www.jimchines.com/2012/01/striking-a-pose/

http://www.jimchines.com/2012/04/posing-like-a-man/

As we pointed out on the episode, we were talking about the marketing.

EDIT: By the way, there's a lot of defensiveness around this topic and I want to be clear that having sexist ways of thinking doesn't make you a bad person. We're all taught to think in sexist, male-supremacist terms -- in the same way that heterosexual supremacy and white supremacy are an underlying part of the culture -- and it becomes our normal mode of thinking. It takes effort to see and break out of. I appear to be one of the most feminist members of the community and I still have a tendency to think in those terms a lot of the time if I'm not careful.

That was the reasoning when I said it in PULP FICTION, but I've since come to the conclusion that it was a mistake. It's got way too much baggage behind it, and unlike "fag" lacks the mitigating factor of at least one of us being a member of the group it's historically been used to oppress. Generally we don't worry about being "PC," as any listener would know, but I do worry about being unnecessarily hurtful, and I think in retrospect I crossed that line. I think there are perfectly good reasons to strike that particular word from the record, and can think of none for keeping it that don't smack of white privilege or egotism.

Actually no. This is the image (and the hypothetical version where the men pose as she does):

But I do want to make one point about this other one:

It's not.

Sexy and sexualized are not the same thing. Thor's pose is primarily intended to show strength, power, confidence, dominance. That these attributes could be considered "sexy" is not the same as his pose primarily functioning to subconsciously cast him as an object of sexual desire (and availability).

Black Widow is posed to appeal to men. Thor and the others are also posed to appeal to men. Her primary function is to look hot. Their primary function is to look badass; if they happen to look hot to certain people outside the targeted audience, that doesn't change the fact that it's not the primary purpose. Some people think feet are sexy. A character who is barefoot isn't necessarily being "sexualized" just because it strikes some people as sexy. Context has a lot to do with it.

And again, Black Widow's pose on the poster is one of a long string of female characters being forced to pose in absurd ways, and isn't the worst of them by far. It's easy to conclude this is blown out of proportion if you're only looking at the one, or I guess two, images in a vacuum. But what we're talking about is a clear pattern with a long and pervasive history.

Sexy vs. sexualized is the difference between Taylor Lautner fixing a motorcycle in the TWILIGHT movies -- he wears a sleeveless shirt to show off his guns but otherwise fixes a motorcycle in a perfectly sensible way -- and Megan Fox fixing a motorcycle in TRANSFORMERS -- she wears a halter top and shortie shorts AND leans, rubs, and stretches against the thing so that the only thing you're thinking of is sex.

That's fantastic. This should be a thread unto itself.

Yes, actually.