"Realize, too, that the term antifeminist is something one school of feminism calls another school of feminism."

Naaah, that's way too pat and ignores that there really are people who are opposed to feminism and female emancipation to a greater or lesser degree.

No, Martin, it's factual reality. The people that are actually opposed to feminism do not tend to call themselves call themselves "antifeminists." And the people that use the term "antifeminist" tend to be refering to people such as Sommers or Paglia.

Your objection is like saying the term "Protestant" ignores the fact that there are people who really don't think Jesus was the savior.

Now, unless you can give me some objective reality-based examples of someone like Phyllis Schafly claiming "I'm antifeminist," in the same way it is used to describe Sommers, for instance, just be quiet. This is a legitimate question of nomenclature, and you tend to bring down the level of discussion with inane observations such as that. (Schafly really is (was?) against feminism. She used to call herself "pro-family.")

Having never, ever read an issue of Warrior Nun Areala in my life (soooo not my genre), I'm entirely unqualified to make this comment--but hey, this is the internet, so I'm going to anyway. Is there some kind of context within the series that makes a story about a strong, beautiful, powerful woman who is a nun (and, according to a cursory reading of the Wikipedia page, fights evil--which is kinda what nuns do, on a less mythological scale) antifeminist?

I ask because my sister's a nun, and one the strongest women I know, and I just think that was a really odd and striking opening sentence for what the post turned out to be.

Concept art -- along with 8 jillion different angles on the statue -- can be found here.

The problem with using a term such as antifeminist in a context in which participants aren't intimately familiar with the ins and outs of infighting between factions of feminists is that it's just begging to be misunderstood. The construction of the word is precisely what any layperson would put together to mean "against feminism," and that's how laypeople reading this blog are going to understand it. Mike, I suspect that part of each response you make here is going to be spent defining the specificity of your use of the term and reiterating what it means in feminist theory.

The people that are actually opposed to feminism do not tend to call themselves call themselves "antifeminists".

Dave Sim does...

Doug, not really, because, you see, I have already explained it in the initial post. Indeed, that was the only purpose of the initial post. Therefore, as regards anybody who starts to argue that point, I will probably ignore it. They will asume I am conceding the argument to them, and they will be happy. And I won't waste any further time trying to educate a bunch of self-satisfied idiots, so I will be happy. It's win-win.

(But that doesn't necessarily mean that's why I ignore something. It may be that I haven't got time to respond.)

For instance, now someone is saying is saying in the other thread the statue should be used as a starting point to fight sexism within the industry. A starting point. For fight that's been raging for over a decade. Maybe we need to get FoL a publicist.

Katie, as I said, they put her into the convent. I don't necessarily agree with that interpetation of Warrior Nun Areala. But the claim among some schools of feminism is that antifeminists want to take women out of modern roles within a powerful man's society (such as the military) and try to put them into traditional roles (in this case, the convent.)

I am not endorsing that position. I am just explaining it.
There are, literally, dozens of a good arguments against that interpretation. I can provide you with them if you actually care, but they are outside the scope of this discussion.

Andrew: Oh, Dave Sim has something serious to say about feminism? Maybe he can teach a class. We'll put him right next to Neal Adams' geophysics course.

I never stated for a second that Dave Sim has anything to say about feminism that any rational person should take seriously.

What *you* stated was 'The people that are actually opposed to feminism do not tend to call themselves call themselves "antifeminists"' and went on to say 'Now, unless you can give me some objective reality-based examples of someone like Phyllis Schafly claiming "I'm antifeminist," in the same way it is used to describe Sommers, for instance, just be quiet.'

I provided you with an example of someone who is:
a) definitely actually against feminism
b) uses the term 'antifeminist' to describe himself
c) is actually in comics as well.

Googling 'antifeminist' provides links like http://www.freewebs.com/antifeminist/ , http://www.gabnet.com/lit/demoh15e.htm , http://www.angryharry.com/esangryantifeminist.htm , http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000/node/2

This seems to suggest that the term 'antifeminist' *is* actually in common usage by people who are self-avowedly against feminism to describe their own position. It is no doubt also used by one group of self-proclaimed feminists against another group, but given that that group don't use the term themselves, that that usage is different from common usage, and that that usage is also different from the intuitive meaning that would be assumed by anyone unfamilliar with the term, it is unfair to argue that the word can only mean what you say it means.

Andrew: I apologize. I honestly thought you were making a joke, so I was chiming in with the Neal Adams bit.

On a more serious level...

Jim Kalb is a special case, but I agree he is a counter example to an extent. The thing is that he does use antifeminist to mean the same thing, he just takes a sort of male chauvinist spin on it. As far as I can tell, he does mean the same thing, he's just bad at it, if that makes any sense?

The other sites...I'll have to look at later.

As for Dave Sim, I'm sorry, I just can't take him seriously as an example of anything in a serious discussion of feminist ideology.

As to it being unfair to expect people to use words within their firmly established meaning. I would term it, rather, "Curmudgeonly." I wish there was some way to indicate that people might run into such an attitude on this website...

It is possible, I suppose, that I am wrong about the firmly established meaning, though I doubt it after twenty years or so of reading on the subject. Though I do remember having an argument in grad school about whether John Barth or Jim Thompson was properly termed "post modern," and it turns out that both schools of literature laid claim to the term separately, and both of us involved in the arguemnt were simply unfamiliar with the other camp.

Google turns up 17,200 hits for "Phyllis Schlafly anti-feminist", the first screen of which appear to be genuine applications of the term to her, albeit not self-applications.

The Longbow Hunters is certainly misogynistic and quite probably counter-feminist; to my shame, it took me a long time to recognize how deeply flawed that work and Grell's subsequent run on Green Arrow was.

I wouldn't personally consider entering a convent to be counter-feminist. Certainly, forcing a woman to enter the convent against her free wish would be, but that's certainly rare if not non-existent these days. I don't know WNA, but I would think it most likely that she's not especially counter-feminist.

She is most likely a working-out of a nun fetish coupled with the female action hero sub-genre; but I think that the female action hero is fundamentally pro-feminist in nature, even though she draws a lot of male gaze, because in order to be a female action hero at all, she has to be free of pre-feminist constraints.

Lady Death is a wank book. However, I'm going to argue that sexual objectification is not counter-feminist per se. Counter-feminism, in my opinion, requires the promotion of pre-feminist subservient female roles other than purely sexual ones.

Angela, similarly, is an inverted female action hero (borrowing Coogan's terminology for the supervillain as inverted superhero), and hence no more counter-feminist than the female action hero herself. Under feminism, women are free to be as destructive as men. But compare to Sim's "female void", which is a kind of female destructive power used to advance a counter-feminist agenda. To be counter-feminist, female destructive power must be framed in specifically gendered terms.

Leastwise, that's my opinion.

And, Greg, those are some of the arguments against the antifeminist/gender feminist interpetation of the character. As I said, I don't necessarily agree with those interpretation. Personally, I'm more on the nun fetish side.

You liked Longbow Hunters?

At the time, I liked LH, yes. (Though there were certainly things in it that I disliked as well.) My opinion of it changed over the course of Grell's GA book, but didn't swing negative until Shado raped GA, and has continued to trend increasingly negative since then.

Mike, learn to explain better.

There is antifeminism, it's not just a catty term one group of feminists calls another and it is quite possible to determine who is and who is not a feminist.

You have a germ of an idea in your post, but right now it reads as the ramblings of a person who took one beer too many late last night and who posted just once too many after that.

More to comment, than to argue, as you said, you don't necessarily agree with the argument, With Warrior Nun Areala, at least the Ben Dunn written ones, the basic mythology was somewhat the reverse of stereotypes. The churches forces were Warrior Nuns, the physically powerful, weapon types, and the Magical Priests, who were the studious, magic tossing ones. I don't recall, actually the issue of beauty or sexuality, even being an issue...though being a Ben Dunn comic, I imagine there was some basic flustered crushes between Areala and one of the untouchable priests. DVD might recall better. (and I promise, Greg, I will be offended if they do a Dinah doing Ollie's laundry statue).

Now Lady Death, As I recall, her origin is something like her father sacrifices her to the devil, who she eventualy defeats and takes his power then uses her boobs to spread evil and destruction...or something.

Though in comics, what I'm currently thinking the feminist folks should focus on is the rumored plans for the aforementioned Black Canary, who after (as Gail Simone has bragged) was turned into more than just being GA's girlfriend...who has become the leader of the JLA...is about to become the second half of Green Arrow & Black Canary after marrying him.