Like many people my age, I was in love with the "Teen Titans" cartoon as a kid. That cartoon spurred a lifelong love of comics and comic lore. It is also why I only care about the sidekicks or lesser known characters. (Also, Tim Drake was the best Robin, end of discussion). Growing up, I always knew one thing to be true — comic books were for boys, not girls. Girls did not like superheroes, and girls did not read comics. To preteen me, that meant that I, an average white girl with an average interest, must be special to be into these things. I must be the only exception — the only girl to like comics.
That is a load of crap.
When I got to college, I joined and eventually became president of the campus comic book club. I was never, at any time, the only female member. In fact, our club has been predominantly female for the majority of my college career. Even Kelly Sue DeConnick commented on the fact we were mostly female when we spoke to her four years ago. I remember back in 2013, sitting in the nearly all-female club, discussing the fact that "The Big Bang Theory" was advertising an episode claiming that the women were going “where no woman has gone before,” simply because they were going into a comic book shop.
Comic book culture is sexist. Women are portrayed as sex objects. They are excluded from marketing and most cinematic adaptations. Fanboys riot when a series is given a female lead and attempt to discredit female heroes.
The problem isn’t that women don’t love comics. Women have always loved comics. The problem is that they’re not allowed to love them. Women are repetitively told that comics are for men, that they are just not something women like. Media still paints the average comic fan as the lonely bro living in his parents’ basement afraid to talk to girls. They haven’t caught up to the fact that nearly everyone loves superheroes – that reading a "Batman" comic isn’t going to get you picked on relentlessly or prevent you from ever having a date. As a result, that toxic mindset bleeds into the fans’ beliefs as well. Women start to think they’re the only ones into comics and men start to treat women like they don’t belong in the fandoms.
There are so many talented female comic writers out there today (Gail Simone, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Renae De Liz, etc,) and a plethora of female-led titles that I wish had existed back when I first got into comics ("Spider-Gwen," "The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl," "The Lumberjanes,"etc.). Comics book are evolving. True, it’s happening slowly — every time comics take a step to be more inclusive, there’s an army of fanboys waiting to beat them back down — but it is happening. Women love comic books, the media just has to catch up with us.
