Review: Superwomen: Gender, Power, and Representation by Carolyn Cocca

[helloladies]

Today we welcome Jenny from the delightful book blog & podcast Reading the End to Lady Business to discuss Superwomen: Gender, Power, and Representation by Carolyn Cocca. *\o/*

As a critical, feminist fan of (American) football and (mostly Marvel) comics, I fairly often hear the argument that people don’t come to football and comics for politics, they come to football and comics for fun. Social justice warriors and PC police are taking a thing that’s supposed to be fun, this argument goes, and making it grim and serious by getting politics all over it.

This is kind of like saying you don’t want to eat yogurt because you don’t like the idea of having bacteria in your body. The bacteria’s in there already, team. What you mean is that you don’t want these bacteria. You don’t want these politics, the ones that do not actively work to conceal systems of oppression in which you and your fun thing are complicit. Because—and perhaps you should be sitting down to receive this news—adherence to a perceived political norm is also political. ( Read more... )