How about the thing that you always love in childhood? Namely, Justice League of America, Naruto, Pokemon, 7 Dragon Balls... of course, you should have known one of them. Let's ask how many men there 're in JLA.
Main characters in Naruto, Pokemon, 7 Dragon Balls are all male. That somehow creates masculinity in boys. Girls may not read those, but they read Moon Tailor, ... (that's all I know!). In conclusion, do you think that our gender view now was influenced by what we read in primary school?
What's sex got to do with... comic book?
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I think there is a lot that can be said about the image above. As far as defining gender and creating gender norms, the outfits on the superheroes play a major role. Although they are drawings, the outfits are shown to very clearly be tight and form fitting. With this, all of the men have extreme amounts of muscles and the women have small waists and large breasts. Physical features also include the men having sharp masculine features while the females have long hair and are very feminine looking. I highly believe that youth reading these magazines will be influenced by these images. It gives the images that men must look this way to be the hero and women must do the same. These images also enforce the idea that people must be “perfect” physically and attractive before they can start being important and saving the lives of others. They cannot appear to be common or else they will not be able to rise above and be heroes.
In addition to the images of the superheroes, we do notice there are significantly more men in the world of superheroes. It makes me curious as to who the first female superhero was, and around what year she was first introduced. Comic books are clearly given genders, and children are led to believe that boys and girls read about certain cartoons. Young children are the most impressionable. Those are the years that we dress up as superheroes for Halloween and play pretend games on the playground where we take on the roles of our favorite heroes. It’s unfortunate that in our day and age, it still would be an anomaly if on Halloween, a girl wanted to be Batman or a boy wanted to be Cat Woman.
I've been reading comics for many years now, and in fact still do. That being said, I would argue that comics have a strictly positive effect on the minds of kids. The characters, some would say, promote a false view of the way men and women are supposed to look and act. I would be more inclined to say that these portrayals act as a shooting-high point for children. By which I mean that the perfectly chiseled figures of the men and women, though unattainable, represent the epitome of physical health, and if a kid wants to be like the heroes in comics, with everything that goes with it, such as saving people and having a good moral standard, I say, all the better.
I've been reading comics for many years now, and in fact still do. If I had to argue, I would say that comics have a strictly positive effect on children. Many would say that the characters in comics propose an unreachable definition of male and female. That's partly true, but I prefer to think of it a as sort of shooting point for kids. If a kid wants to emulate characters in comics, that includes, among other things, a high level of physical fitness, high moral standards and general selflessness. I can't think of any better goal for a kid than to strive to become a superhero.
Love comic books and yes I agree that they teach great lessons to kids ie. morals/values/ethics. However comics are overtly hetero-normative. All the women are busty with long hair and perfect bodies. The men on the other hand are fast and strong. This is another way our society passes along ideals of what our gender rolls should be.