batgirl

Great links to keep you busy this weekend!

• The Rotund reports on Fat Ladies in Spaaaaaaaaace: A Body Positive Coloring Book. Someone get this for me please!
• Leticia St. Remy at Xhibit P compares the pop feminism of Beyonce and Tina Fey. 
• Talk About Equality explores the TSA's dehumanizing effect on transgender passengers.
• The Association of Black Women Historians presents an open statement on The Help.
• And speaking of The Help, check out Roxane Gay's "The Solace of Preparing Fried Foods and Other Quaint Remembrances from 1960s Mississippi: Thoughts on The Help" via The Rumpus.
• Hoyden About Town discusses anti-breastfeeding prejudice against an adult star and new mom.
• Eva Rivera shares A Day in the Life of a Web Cam Model on Womanist Musings.
• Echidne of the Snakes questions the stability of the Greater Male Variability Hypothesis.
• Sarah McKenney at Sociological Images discusses French child-model Thylane Blondeau and the sexualization of young girls.
• Bleeding Cool's Eric Glover tackles different reactions to his article on the Barbara Gordon Batgirl controversey.

Share your thoughts on these links as well links to articles you've been reading and writing this week!

I took your suggestions on your feminerd role models and tried to find instructions on making Miis for them for Nintendo Wii. There isn’t enough space to give full instructions on Miis here, but I’ll give you the list of the feminerd ones I did find on MiiCharacters, as well as a few I created, for which I’ve posted full instructions at my website.

Since those early days of running around doing Batman-themed dressup, Batgirl has been my favorite superheroine.

She’s less cutesy than the Sailor Scouts, nerdier than Nightshade, wears more clothing than Wonder Woman, and has a greater variety of super abilities than my second-favorite superheroine, Storm (but it’s really close, so don’t hate on me, X-Men fans).

While the decision to paralyze Barbara Gordon was certainly a misogynistic one, the way that her character develops after the shooting speaks to the transformative power of information and technology...and librarians! Last week we looked at Barbara Gordon's character prior to The Killing Joke. She was a librarian by day and Batgirl by night. Her role as a librarian disguised her alter ego as Batgirl; reasserting the stereotype of librarians as meek and the opposite of badass. But this all changes after The Killing Joke. Thanks to a few writers who decided to make the best of what had happened to Gordon, Gordon's character decides to embrace her identity as a skilled librarian. She becomes Oracle, a computer hacker who discovers that access to information is a pretty phenomenal superpower.

Meet Barbara Gordon, librarian at the Gotham City Public Library by day, and crime-fightin' wonder Batgirl by night. Gordon was first introduced to the Batman comics and TV show in 1966, as an attempt to bring in female readers and viewers. While previous female characters (Batwoman and Bat-girl) were introduced in an attempt to dodge accusations of homosexuality between Batman and Robin, Batgirl wasn't there for romance as much as she was for ass-kicking. And did I mention that she was a librarian?