"Don't you know that 'sticks' and 'stones' can't harm a Supergirl?" (Supergirl)

"Don't you know that 'sticks' and 'stones' can't harm a Supergirl?"

"All women are Supergirl."

That was my simple premise when I began to write my article on the Maid of Might.

The picture above, and the one directly below this paragraph, are both of a friend of mine named Saranga.  Her Twitter account is @sarangacomics.  She's also got a pair of blogs:   www.paipicks.blogspot.com and www.paiwingsblogspot.com.  

If you're a regular reader of the blog, you've likely seen my post where I asked people to send me images of themselves dressed as Supergirl.  

Saranga was the first person to respond. 

I admire my friend's willingness to appear in this blog entry about the Girl of Steel, and I thank her.

I believe that it takes a great deal of courage to put oneself out there - to be willing to present oneself and one's image online.  I've written before about why I think that's necessary when you're talking about things that matter to you, things that are important to your life.

As I write this, I find myself thinking about what it takes to stand firm about one's beliefs.  I think about what it takes for us to  have the courage to represent ourselves.  It's not enough for me to say that we have to do that, I realize, for those prior statements to have real meaning.  I have to explain why.  And who better to use as an example than Supergirl?   

That's when it dawns on me - of course these traits are requirements for survival in the modern world.  Without them, we perish - intellectually, or even physically.  All women are Supergirl, yes - because women have to be Supergirl to survive.

To say "it's a man's world" is simply repeating a trope.  But it's a trope because it carries a fundamental element of truth, as most tropes do - about how people think and behave, if not about outright reality.

As I include the image from ACTION COMICS #252 - Kara flying up out of an escape rocket - I find myself admiring the brash simplicity of Kara's statement, but also recognizing a troubling fact about our current reality as women that's no less true now than it was when that comic book was published.  

Yes, Kara's being bold by virtue of the simple language of this era's comics.  "Look again, Superman!  It's me - Supergirl!" she says.  She's confidently telling Clark - and the world - that she's arrived, in the simplest and most direct way possible.  But then, her next statement is telling:  "And I have all your powers!"  

This leads me to one singular thought: the realization that, with Supergirl's first appearance, she's defined entirely in terms of a man's abilities.  

She isn't an amazing woman who can fly, who can change the course of mighty rivers and bend steel in her bare hands.  No - she's a woman "with all those Superman powers."  She's defined by the man in her life, because it's a "man's world" into which she's arrived.  

And the way the comics handled her character at the time only accentuates that viewpoint.

I'm not so much interested in cataloguing the history of Supergirl.  Detailed analysis of the origins of comic book characters has never been the purpose of this blog.  I'm always trying to focus on the human truths behind the characters - what they mean to me, to my real-life history.

But what strikes me about this point in Supergirl's origin story is that Clark decides that the best thing for Kara Zor El is to give her a human disguise and to place her in an orphanage.  

Of course, this led Supergirl into her own series of incredible adventures.

To be fair, I love these comics, despite the fact that many of Kara's adventures turned out to be  less-than-thrilling in terms of the stakes.  While Superman was busy rescuing the entire city of Metropolis, Kara was often tasked with saving kittens from trees.  But that didn't - and doesn't - matter to me.  

I read and those "classic" Supergirl stories, and I enjoy them without irony - because the stakes aren't what determine a hero to me.  

There's a troubling tendency in comic book culture, in fact, to always view the stakes as determinate of the innate value of the hero.  To many, a hero is judged by their "Rogue's Gallery" and nothing more.  In their view, a hero who rescues cats from trees can't possibly be truly heroic, because that hero isn't struggling against the awesome might of Darkseid.

To my way of thinking, this kind of approach leads to the concept of "The Ubermensch" - where we judge a person's worth entirely in terms of their accomplishments, judged only in terms of scale.  Thus, the "bigger" the accomplishment, the more important the person.  It's the kind of thinking that judges people solely on their capacity for output - which misses so much  

But I think comic books are, at their best, metaphors for the real world.  We don't find resonance with comic book heroes because they're fighting epic battles in space.  We find resonance in those space battles - when they're written well - because there's a human core to the story.  

That's not a core based on plot, either.  It's not about saying "People are doing this because this happened."  To me, it's about what those events would mean to a real person in the real world - and, in that very real world, there are real Supergirls everywhere.

As you can see from the banner in the bottom left, this picture comes courtesy of Chiquitita, whose website may be found here.  I likewise want to thank her specifically, here, for contributing to this piece, and for her courage in being willing to show herself openly on the internet.  It's that kind of courage I want to celebrate, and it's that kind of courage that I'm trying to say is a necessity any more for a woman's survival.  

It's necessary because we live in a real world that tries to act like Clark toward Kara in the panels I posted a moment ago.

It's a world where women are forced into a metaphorical orphanage for their own good, for our protection.  The men of the world are telling us that the real world is too dangerous for us, that we can't handle it, that we'd go to pieces if we had to face that threat with our own strength - which, of course, we must obviously not have enough of ... since we're so in need of protecting. Talk about a never-ending story.

I thought of that symbol, too - of the snake eating its own tail - because the dominant male narrative ignore a key, fundamental paradox that functions to keep the wheels of this lie spinning endlessly.  

Consider:  in this narrative, why do women have to be "protected?"  It's a fair question, isn't it?  And it becomes an especially important question when you think about the fact that the world that's so dangerous for women is a world that's crafted and controlled by men.  

Essentially, we're being told by a gardner that the garden is too dangerous because he's spread poison everywhere, but it's all right because he's going to protect us with all the poison he's spread everywhere.

Consider also: when men tell women they're working to keep them safe, the narrative always goes that we have to be kept indoors, kept out of the light, kept like a secret.

What's the constant?  

It's a key word:  kept. 

In case you can't tell, that's Supergirl in the image directly above this paragraph.  I chose it because, to me, it illustrates the truth behind the concept - it's all about control.  If you're a woman, this narrative is mostly obvious in nature.  You see it every single day in your regular life.  You hear it in music.  You watch it in movies.  

The world is a dangerous place, says the narrative, and far too dangerous for you. So stay in the control of the people who made the world so dangerous in the first place.  

And it was how Clark treated Kara.  He locked her away in that orphanage, out of sight and out of mind, with a promise to check up on her and an insistence that she not use her Kryptonian abilities - pretty much ever.  Disobedience was met with swift - and rather stern - punishment.

It's all about isolation.

It's worth noting that isolation is one of the most commonly-used techniques of mental and physical control - by cultists, by prisons, by abusers.  

There's the initial, obvious element of control of keeping the person in a specific location - under appropriate supervision, of course.

It's also because a truly isolated person, by definition, has no sense of community - and because community is vital to human sanity and survival for many people.

But that's precisely where being an everyday Supergirl comes into play, in those moments when the male narrative tells us to stay at home and out of sight.

Because we don't all listen.  And men can't make us listen.  No matter how they try to legislate our submission into the law of the land, we'll continue to stand tall despite all of this.  And these men know they can't possess us - can't keep us.

It happens because, sometimes, we can't be silent.  

It's because, sometimes, there's just no choice - the injustice is so egregious that we have to stand up for what we believe in and what's right.

We have to do it - even if we don't have the physical strength of a Kryptonian.  Sometimes, it's just too important.

When the cause is just, people often rise to the occasion.  It's that aforementioned sense of community, too - the recognition that all women are oppressed if one of us is oppressed.  

It's the recognition that if one of us is suffering, we can't say we're free.  And sometimes, the vast capacity of our strength together can surprise even ourselves, and even our heroes.  

"I can handle it!" we find ourselves saying, much to our surprise, and suddenly we can.  Of course, in the world of comic book superpowers, this often ventures into the realm of the fantastical.  

But the metaphor applies to the real world, and this is also why I completely reject the male narrative that the only heroism comes from what the male narrative decides are the big accomplishments.  

You don't have to stop a car with your hand to be a hero.  

If that were true, the biggest and strongest would always be portrayed as the most superior - as is most common in modern male-dominated comic book narratives where the capacity for damaging violence is equated with superiority.    

But it's not about Wolverine.  It's about the need for the dominant male narrative to not only possess any other narratives, but also to suppress them.  And it's about how that narrative is shifting the focus every day toward physical violence and aggression being the characteristic of characters portrayed as superior to peaceful characters.

But we can reject that.  And we do, every day.  By being strong in ways that defy this narrative, by finding our own ways to be Supergirl - whether they're big or small - we reject this narrative.  

To me, there are all kinds of heroism, and sometimes what seems like the simplest act can be hugely courageous.  And that makes us like Supergirl, every time.  

The image above comes courtesy of Romi Lia, whose webpage you may find at https://www.facebook.com/romicosplay.  Thanks to her for her contribution, as well.

In fact, since she's the third and final contributor to the piece, I want to thank all three of them for illustrating my central points in this piece, albeit in a metaphorical way.  

Dressing up like Supergirl isn't, in and of itself, any more or less courageous than putting on any outfit and going outside.  But the hostile nature of the male narrative that dominates so much of our lives makes it dangerous, because women aren't supposed to go outside in that narrative, or stand tall, or contribute.  We're instead supposed to live in our private orphanages, our Fortresses of Solitude.

The internet tells us that we ought to be ashamed of our bodies, that we ought to endure ridicule for the things we enjoy, that things that are "for girls" are simply pallid shadows of things that are "for guys."  

The male narrative, therefore, not only tries to suspend our expression, but fiercely ridicules us when we put forth our thoughts and ideas, express ourselves in any way disapproved-of by those dominant men.

And that same narrative also threatens violence when we disobey.

That's a real image that was created by a real person for the real purpose of threatening real women.  

Guess what?

It didn't work, and it won't work.

So here is the message to the dominant men who create that male narrative: 

Like Supergirl, we - all women - are far too strong for any sort of surrender to online hate.  We have to be.  We've had to be for centuries.  You set the terms when you set the conditions of the battlefield.  You just didn't count on our will to survive, which is stronger than yours.  It's had to be, to survive the hate you throw out every day.

And that's all I have to say to them in this piece.  Because I'm too busy living my everyday life, and keeping the spirit of Supergirl alive in the ways in which I live it.  It's expressed simply, with simple statements, but it's a collection of ideas in which I believe with a ferocity that comes from knowing they're wholly true, and wholly honest, and from deep within both my heart and my mind.   

I'm creating.

I'm writing.

I'm exploring this universe, like I always have.

I'm believing in myself.

I'm fighting for what I think is right.

I'm trying to be uplifting to others.

I'm keeping up my confidence.

I'm telling myself I can succeed.

And I'm succeeding.

I'm strong.

I'm capable.

I'm beautiful.

I'm working to live the life I want.

I'm working on being as free as I can be.

I feel free; in fact, I often feel like I'm flying.

I'm sure.

I'm certain.

I'm awake and aware.

I believe in integrity.

I believe in my own truth.

I believe in my community, in the unstoppable power of myself and all my sisters.

I fight injustice in my life, and in the lives of others.

I accept that I may not have the power to change the world, but that I can still change lives.

I accept myself as I am, because who I am is inherently good.

I struggle.

I falter.

But I persevere.

I believe in truth, justice and the American Way.

I believe in peace and freedom.

I believe in myself.

Most of all, though -  I avoid nearly all comments on the internet.