Why have there been no great female comic books fans? Well, actually...
There is an argument that seems to be very popular in the world of comics bloggers when they are disputing feminist comic book fans. It's not a new one, and it comes up so frequently that Karen and Betty have already created a space for it on the comics feminist Bingo card. (If you don't get the Bingo card, please go here for Karen's explanation) That argument is basically these two:

If you don't like it, shut up and write your own.

And:
Sexism is a convention of the genre!

Now, telling feminists to take off their shoes and leave them at the door when they enter the realm of work by Important White Men is typical of anti-feminists. But that's not really the point here. The point is, these people act like women in comics, as fans, characters and creators, is this new phenomenon. It's not. It's happened before. There is room in this space for me. I have a history here.

For those of you who have read the work of Trina Robbins, which you SHOULD be doing, this won't be anything new to you. So I apologize to you for being redundant. But to those of you who are unfamiliar with Trina's awesomeness and still believe that comics aren't for women, this is for you. As all of us Americans know, lots of men had to fight in WWII. This left many trades devoid of its employees, and women stepped in to replace men in the workplace. Guess what one of those trades was? Yup, drawing comics! Freelance female cartoonists stepped in to replace the male cartoonists who were in the military. Until recently, there had never been that many female creators working in superhero comics.

And there were female superheroes too! LOTS of them!! Sure there was Wonder Woman, but she was most certainly not the first female superhero. Female superheroes wore masks, they could turn invisible, they even flew airplanes and fought Nazis, just like the men did. Right fucking ON, that's what I'm talking about!

There were also...you guessed it...FANGIRLS! They were gobbling up comics, just like the fanboys. We know this because there were paper dolls for female characters in the backs of comics, and advertisements where female comic book characters would endorse women's clothing brands. One comics publisher sold 12 month subscriptions for a female superhero named Miss America. You could buy a year's worth of Miss America's adventures for one dollar. So many dollar bills were mailed in for Miss America comics that the publishers were literally emptying out file cabinets in their office to make room for the dollar bills. And, we know that there were cuttings for paper dolls in the back of Miss America's books. Clearly, those dollar bills didn't just belong to fanboys. I'll bet that a lot of those belonged to fangirls, just like me.

Last fall, I was working on a paper about women in comics. I e-mailed Trina Robbins and told her what I was working on, and she wrote back with, "Well, since you're a local, feel free to call me any time!" I was sitting on my couch with my cell phone when Trina was explaining this history of comics to me, and I can't really describe what I was feeling. As a female fan in a space that typically excludes women, I've had a very complicated relationship with comics. I've walked away from comics before because I couldn't stand how the women were portrayed. But this was a new revelation. I belonged. Women have a history here. There is room for us. Comics ARE for us too.

And when I think about those fangirls during WWII, I think about what we have in common. Did they run through fields imagining that they were flying, just like I did when I was little? Did they tie blankets around their shoulders as a makeshift cape, and insist upon wearing them in public despite their parent's efforts to get them to leave said cape at home? When they missed their loved ones who were away at war, did reading comics help ease the pain, just like the death of a comic book character helped me cope with the loss of my grandmother? And when their fathers came home in a casket, did they wish that Miss America or Miss Victory had been there to help them? Did they wish that a superheroine had been fighting alongside their father, to protect him from the enemy soldier who had killed him, as I have wished for a superhero to be real so many times?

We shouldn't be asking if comics are for women. That's stupid. There is nothing about having a pair of X chromosomes that makes you dislike comics. What we should be asking is: What happened since then? Where did the cartoonists, the fans, the characters go? Did women suddenly become uninterested, or did the developing comics subculture exclude women?

During the second wave feminist movement when there was a feminist movement among art historians, Linda Nochlin asked a similar question in her famous essay, Why Have There Been No Great Female Artists? Nochlin pointed out that that the reason that there had never been a female Michelangelo had nothing to do with biology. During the Renaissance, a woman wouldn't have had access to the training that Michelangelo had access to. A woman wouldn't have been offered the commissions that Michelangelo had been offered. I mean, come ON! It really wasn't until the 20th century that it became acceptable for female art students to draw from the nude. How could you possibly hope to sculpt a David if you're not allowed to look at nude models?

Nochlin was a co-curator of several landmark exhibitions, including the first comprehensive exhibit of women artists from 1550 to 1900. I wonder if when Nochlin was tracking down works by Artimesia Gentileschi, Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana and many others, if she felt what I did. I have a place here. I have an identity here.

So you see, it's not all about the men. Women have a place here too. It has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with environmental factors. Saying, "But men's dollars make up the majority of comic book sales!" Is stupid. If you exclude women and minorities and do everything in your power to keep them out, of COURSE those are the only dollars you're going to get. There is no "Chicken or the egg?" question here, we know what came first.

I owe a lot to feminist art historians like Linda Nochlin. They still have a long way to go, but they've brought feminist discourse into the academic realm in a huge way. And when I walked into the LACMA in 2005 at the first landmark exhibition of comics artists, and didn't see ONE female artist in the show, I had to laugh to myself. Of course. The institution is slow to learn. Fortunately, thanks to Nochlin and Robbins, I've come in well armed. They haven't heard the last of me.

ETA: A commenter pointed out that I haven't named any of the WWII-era female cartoonists. This is a good point. So here's a few you can check out:
Nell Brinkley
Dale Messick, who created a strip about a globe-trotting reporter named Brenda Starr
Grace Drayton
Miss America, one of the Golden Age superheroines, was drawn by cartoonist Pauline Loth:
Miss America

If you want to read more, check out the work of Trina Robbins:
The Great Women Superheroes
THe Great Women Cartoonists