Originally published at: Red Sonja artist Frank Thorne dead at 90 | Boing Boing
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No cause of death listed, so I’m going to assume it was “smothered to death by an enormous pair of chain-mail-clad breasts,” for his sake.
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an artist who progressively developed his style into a more and more personal expression
…of sexist objectification.
I’m sure he was a great artist, but it’s time to stop pretending that fighting crime in your underwear is somehow empowering. 
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Different people find different things empowering.
Many women don’t find being objectified and judged by our bodies particularly empowering.
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Nor should they. I was just pointing out that many women find/found Red Sonja empowering.
To what end? A woman was expressing her views that they do not find it empowering to constantly be objectified. Is that a “wrong” opinion that needs to be countered by another?
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Had it been stated as an opinion, then no, it wouldn’t need to be countered. But it was stated as a fact (and one that implied a necessity to recognize it), and so I countered it with a fact, which is, that it’s demonstrably true that some women find the character of Red Sonja (not to mention a bunch of other superhero characters who fight crime in what often appears to be underwear) to be empowering.
That doesn’t mean anyone ought to find them empowering, only that many people do.
So it does need to be countered? @VeronicaConnor is wrong and needs to be “countered” when talking about her experience as a woman in the world?
funny it’s only deployed to “correct” women’s opinion to the right one.
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I didn’t read her comment as “talking about her experience as a woman in the world” so much as expressing exactly and precisely that it was “time to stop pretending that fighting crime in your underwear is somehow empowering.” By taking her at her word, I thought her comment deserved a response, pointing out that the comment relied on an untruth as its basis.
If a woman who had negative experiences in trying to raise a family and pursue a career said, “it’s time to stop pretending that women can be happy as mothers and professionals,” it would be reasonable to point out that there are a good many examples of women who are happy as mothers and professionals. This comment would in no way diminish her “experience as a woman in the world.” It would simply correct a demonstrably untrue assertion.
Gosh, you’re right. What would a woman know about being objectified? Good to know that it’s okay to reduce women to their tits and ass… So empowering! GIRL POWER!!! /s
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Can confirm that is genuine bullshit and not empowering.
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I think you’re being disingenuous about what I wrote, which was only that many women find comic book super heroes to be empowering. I think their experiences are as valuable as the experiences of women who disagree with that.
I don’t find comic book super heroes to be empowering, so I’m not sure why you’re disagreeing with me, personally. I simply stated a fact which you seem to find very annoying. But I didn’t make the fact up. It exists all by itself. I will insert an appropriate gif here!
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Plenty of women don’t know very much about sexism (we’re all raised in the same sexist society, you see) and they would no longer find it empowering if they did.
This is a kind of false power (“sexual power over men”, as defined by the male gaze being the judge of value) that men have trained women to believe is valuable. This is all sexism 101 stuff.
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This is not what I said, and is a false analogy to what I said. Let this go, please. You clearly don’t have a dog in this fight, so go pick another hill to die on.
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Not all women and not all superheroes.
You’re also conflating the original character and Gail Simone’s take on the character. I have not read her version of the comic, so I don’t know how she dealt with that issue. It might well be empowering, but in the article YOU posted, she notes how women superheroes have generally been written as a male fantasy, not as a form of empowerment FOR women (even the original wonder woman, who was written with a much more feminist perspective in mind, to some extent still is about male fantasies).
You posted the article as if anyone who does not find them empowering is wrong. You’ve come out said that it’s wrong to have that opinion. You were basically telling @VeronicaConnor that she was WRONG to hold that opinion and were using other women’s views to do so.
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Yet MOST women don’t appreciate random dudes deigning to speak for us. Go figure…
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Was it in a book with lots of pictures, and were they boobs?
Ones you drew don’t count.
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