Ok, first, can someone please explain to me this whole thing where spambots “neg” your site to try to get you to post them or click their links or something, because this is just annoying the shit out of me.  What, like I’m going to go, “Oh, you had a criticism of my site, I MUST post you in the interest of fairness?”
A. No
B. Could you at least try to make the “criticism” germane to the post you’re “slamming.”  Seriously.
C.  To the one person who may have been a real person… I understand English isn’t your native tongue (location on their page), however…  Please refrain from commenting on something when you don’t actually understand what it was you were reading.  Seriously.  I read French  fairly fluently, and I follow a couple of French twitters.  Unless I know EXACTLY what they’re talking about, I don’t comment.  Because I have an aversion to looking like a stupid asshole.

Ok, bitching over.

The Hawkeye Initiative.

My heroes.

The Hawkeye Initiative started when several female fans who can draw, started drawing Hawkeye in the poses favored for female superheroes.  In particular, the infamous “boobs and butt” pose so favored by male comic artists.

So, since this began, the drawings have been pouring in.  If you go to the site, you will see the Hawkeye re-draw, followed by the original image.  The Hawkeye Initiative owes a lot to it’s predecessor Escher Girls, run by Ami Angelwings, which has for years been highlighting how impossible most of these sexy poses would be for women with bones and internal organs.  I mean, I do yoga and I’m pretty bendy, but I cannot see both my ass and my tits in the mirror no matter how hard I twist.

Of course there’s been a backlash, predominantly from men, but also from some women who I guess just don’t want to be seen as killjoys like the rest of us boner-killing feminists.  The arguments have been that of course female superheroes have to pose differently… Ok, really that’s the big argument and it’s bullshit.  Look, fighting stance is fighting stance and apart from lower centers of gravity and a slightly broader pelvis, there is nothing that’s going to change that stance from one gender to the other.  To paraphrase the founders of the Hawkeye Initiative, if Hawkeye looks ridiculous in that pose, so does a woman.  People have complained about the fact that sometimes when artists draw Hawkeye in those poses, they also exagerate his facial expressions or emphasize his eyes and lips.  You know, just the like the comic artists do to the female characters.  (cough, Greg Land porn face, cough) I repeat, if it looks ridiculous when you do it to Hawkeye, it’s just as fucking ridiculous when you do it to a female character.

I don’t know about ya’ll, but when I’m pissed off, I look pissed off, not orgasmic.  Or confused.  Or like startled fawn in a forest glade.  I look like I’m about to rip off your head and shit down your neck, and our female heroes should, too.

So, go check out both the Hawkeye Initiative and Escher Girls.  Show these awesome ladies some love to drown out the jerks of all genders coming down on the side of the patriarchal norm and sexist depictions of women.

First post of the New Year!  Go me!!!

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