Big Love for the “Little” Woman

September 5, 2008 on 9:27 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments

Thanks to those of you, many of whom were kind enough to write me over the course of this week, who actually trudged all the way through my loooooooooooooooooong kick off entry!

Your reward? Something (hopefully) short–but sweet? Your call.

In case some of y’all haven’t heard of him, there’s a totally fabulous, schooled, thorough and insightfully analytical dude out there named Les Daniels whose written a very cohesive series of books on superheroes. In each, he profiles a single major mainstream hero, from conception to “today” (well, at least his publication date anyway, lol). And while his Superman and Batman books are both totally engrossing reads, he even dares to get political and dabble in feminist discourse in his Wonder Woman: The Complete History.

But it’s not really him I’m writing about. It was in Les Daniels’ book that I first came across some truly fascinating details about Wonder Woman’s creator, William Moulton Marston.

This man was a Harvard graduate and lifelong academic. In fact you all know-him-but-didn’t-know-you-did as the inventor of the modern systolic blood pressure test.

But didja know he’s a freak?

The man lived in a polyamorous relationship with his wife Elizabeth and a woman named Olive Byrne. But this man was no sultan ordering these little women around, he honestly believed, “Give [men] an alluring woman stronger than themselves to submit to, and they’ll be proud to become her willing slaves!” (qtd. in Daniels’ DC Comics, pp. 58).

So, since I did plenty of talking last time, I will shut up and ask you this: Is he right?

And more importantly: is he a freak?

Remember, Marston was living his unconventional, ferociously pro-female lifestyle at a time when women had only recently received their ability to vote; a time many of us teen and twenty-somethings today think was all “Leave it to Beaver” interspersed with a couple of clear-cut, easily win-able World Wars.

Freak or fashionable ahead of his time? I’m not saying where I stand; maybe I’ll wax a little more philosophical about this on Monday. But if you do have time this weekend, I encourage you to go find the nearest library, bookstore or credible website (wikipedia’s entry honestly isn’t bad) and read up more on this guy, particular in Daniels’ book. Marston sure loved women–but what do you think of HOW he loved them?

And lastly–why the heck does sex kink stuff like D/s play and bondage always seem to get mixed up in comics? I’ll likely talk more about that soon too.

Send any comments or questions of course to me at knapolitano@wizardent.com

Have an awesome weekend!