Real Women Don't Wear Dresses/Comic Books

• A few years back brought the release of a miniature line featuring Mary Jane Watson of Spider-Man fame, in a rather absurd pose. While most laughed off the ridiculous skeleton-like anatomy, a certain portion of the comic community focused instead on the fact that the miniature portrayed Mary Jane (Spidey's then-wife) doing his laundry. The Unstoppable Rage over this grew to such an extent that one protester drew a picture of Peter Parker wearing much less than Mary Jane was in her miniature, doing Mary Jane's laundry. This was supposed to be a moral victory. The statue's designer later commented that the scenario he had intended was MJ discovering the Spider-Man costume in the wash, apparently thrown in without her knowledge. Not that anybody was listening by that point, though.
• Averted with Mary Jane Watson, the wife of Spider-Man. A model/actress who is never seen out of tight formfitting clothing, and often repairs Peter's suit and tends to his injuries. She also once beat the Chameleon half to death with a baseball bat. And a rapist with a cue stick. And shot Green Goblin. And learnt how to fight from many different trainers, one of which was Captain America himself. In short, MJ is a very feminine and loving wife, but is also very Badass for a model with a reputation for getting kidnapped.
• The creation of Wonder Woman was William Moulton Marston's attempt to address this in society:

"Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman."

• • Of course, his definition of "submissive" was a little more extensive than most people's.
• Parodied in Rick Veitch's Brat Pack, with Straw Feminist superhero Moon Maiden. As she teaches her sidekick Lunar Lass, emotion and weakness are one and the same to warrior women. Attachments and relationships are for little girls and weaklings. When Lunar Lass gets pregnant, Moon Maiden freaks and speechifies about how a warrior woman needs no one, especially not a child. So she forces her to give herself an abortion with a wire hanger because she can't be a strong or respectable woman if she has a baby.
• Events in Secret Invasion justifiably caused Spider-Woman I/Jessica Drew to lose a lot of confidence and become more submissive. Her post-Secret Invasion comics clearly show this, while she is at least more confident in the New Avengers. It doesn't take the mention of 'Bendis' to cause some fans to cry out that she's suffering Chickification and needs to get back to ass-kicking, going as far as preferring Skrull Queen Veranke to come back because at least she's more confident and self-assured while impersonating Jessica (never mind that she genuinely suffered and actually cried after experiencing what kind of shit Jessica would've been through if she is in the Marvel Civil War), and hoped she's not dead yet, and returns.
• Parodied as early as the 1950s, with "perfect little lady" Janie Jackson being teased and compared unfavorably to the superheroine Tomboy ("That's what I call a real girl!") by her older brother, who never realised that Janie and Tomboy were the same person.
• In the case of the Argentinian comic strip Mafalda, while Mafalda's ideas on women's rights were advanced by the standards of The Sixties and The Seventies, they come as more rude and stuck-up than well-intentioned to modern readers. Specially when she constantly and very rudely tells her Housewife mother Raquel that she's "useless" and "mediocre" because she chose to raise Mafalda at home than juggle with work/college and motherhood.
• Subverted in the furry comic, Albedo: Erma Felna EDF, where the title character, a scrupulously professional female military officer who has had to deal with sexist opposition at work, is convinced by her vivacious friend, Toki, to go shopping. In doing so, Erma finds that occasionally engaging such feminine activities like getting and wearing a sexy dress to attract the attentions of males is fun to do sometimes on her off time. However, she and Toki are no less Badasses for their fun considering the second they spot a potential terrorist, they instantly have him covered with their own guns.

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