Abstract
Cultural and psychological perspectives have been used to examine the characteristics of modern fictional heroes, but rarely if ever has an evolutionary approach been applied to this topic, an approach that could be quite enlightening. Evolutionary psychology suggests that sexual selection will have shaped differences in the underlying behavioral tendencies of males and females. Specifically, the higher parental investment of females makes establishing dominance more valuable to males and the helping of family members more valuable for females. If this is true, evolved differences manifesting themselves in the subconscious could influence the characteristics of the fictional heroes created by each sex. Here, I use a preliminary examination of female superheroes from the popular media to help frame an exploration of these predicted sex differences, which is followed by a more systematic approach examining heroes found in recent children's fantasy novels. If there are evolved differences, the female heroes created by men are expected to be more physically powerful and exhibit more displays of physical power than those created by women. In addition, the primary goal of the two types should also differ, with female-generated heroes displaying more concern for family members. Analyzing these characters using evolutionary psychology is compared to previous approaches. If the evolutionary approach proves to be valid, this new method of hero comparisons should be of interest to those studying gender issues and role models for girls.
In the 1990s, two powerful fictional females, Xena Warrior Princess (1995) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997), appeared as the primary characters on weekly TV programs (Early & Kennedy, 2003). Buffy was without a doubt a superhero, possessing among other traits enhanced strength and reflexes (Whedon, 1997). Xena technically lacked superpowers, but leaping into the air and spinning to kick a dozen armed mercenaries into unconsciousness is just one example of acts she performed that no real person could (Raimi & Tapert, 1995). After the début of both Xena and Buffy, commentaries from various quarters applauded and discussed the arrival of strong role models for young women (e.g., Tung, 2004). For example, Wilcox (2003) admits that during her childhood, “the pickings were slim” (p. ix) when looking for female role models, but recently Xena and Buffy “are among the most noteworthy of a proliferation of TV series that highlight protagonists who might be called Athena's daughters: strong, intelligent, heroic warriors who defend the right as they see the right” (p. ix). There has been, however, little-to-no commentary on the fact that these female heroes were created by male writers. Does this matter? Is the reason why important, ultrapowerful female characters have not been created by women explained by the lack of females involved in the TV and comic book industries, or is there another explanation?
It is possible that Xena and Buffy are simply anomalies, and other female characters on TV that possess superhuman abilities have been created by female writers; however, a survey of TV programs fails to support this claim (Muir, 2004). Although women writers have created several series along with important female characters (examples include The Golden Girls, Designing Women, and Murphy Brown; Marc & Thompson, 1992), the only program staring superhuman female characters credited as being created by a woman is Charmed (created by Constance M. Burge), a series in which three sisters discover they are witches (Kern & Berge, 1998). All of the other programs featuring superhuman females, which include the live action series Wonder Woman (1975), The Bionic Woman (1976), and Dark Angel (2000), along with animated series like the Powerpuff Girls (1998) and Kim Possible (2002) came from material created by men (McCordle & Schooley, 2002; McCracken, 1998; Muir, 2004). Even though there always have been female cartoonists (see Robbins, 2001), surveying the available literature that focuses specifically on powerful fictional females, such as Action Chicks (Inness, 2004), Athena's Daughters (Early & Kennedy, 2003), The Great Women Superheroes (Robbins, 1996), and Wonder Women (Robinson, 2004), has revealed that almost all of the characters described were created, at least in their original form, by male writers. If the lack of female writers in TV and the comics does not explain why men are the predominant creators of female superheroes, then a viable, alternative explanation is that evolved sex differences influence the type of hero created by each sex.
Evolutionary Theory and the Evolution of Sex Differences in Behavior
Recent scientific research has produced a wealth of data supporting the hypothesis that human males and females possess different behavioral tendencies, which are now starting to be traced to differences in brain structure and activity (see Blum, 1997; Geary, 2010, for extensive reviews and examples). According to evolutionary theory, the human brain is the end product of millions of years of evolution, and selective pressures that differ between males and females have caused some subtle but noticeable differences in behavior (see Alcock, 2009; Geary, 2010, for expanded explanations of this subject). To summarize the argument, any genetically based variation in physiology (including brain anatomy and function) that would increase an individual's probability of passing on his or her genes would be likely to continue into future generations. Given that males and females face different obstacles to successful reproduction, the selection of some characteristics will differ for the two sexes (a process termed sexual selection as first described by Darwin, 1874). In general, a male will increase the number of genes he passes into the next generation by mating with many fertile females, but the opposite tends not be true, especially for placental mammals in which females have an especially high parental investment (i.e., because the female gestates and then must nurse the offspring, she invests more time and energy per offspring than the male; Bateman, 1948; Trivers, 1972). For example, a dominant male elephant seal may produce more than 100 young as the result of one mating season, while a female, producing only one baby per year, can never meet that number within her lifetime (Fabiana, Filippo, Sanvito, & Hoelzel, 2004). This ability to acquire the reproductive effort of multiple females also deprives other males of having any reproductive success. Even though the differential is less for primates, dominant males still get to produce more offspring than females and subordinate males (Dixson, Bossi, & Wickings, 1993). Thus, any male that can dominate others is likely to have better reproductive success than those they dominate for two reasons. First, they may be able to monopolize a group of females, and second, females are likely to prefer them because they will tend to have more grandchildren if they produce sons that can dominate other males and because the female may acquire a powerful male who will protect her from the aggressive acts of other males (Archer, 2009). These two versions of sexual selection (male–male combat along with female preferences) have resulted in both physical and behavioral differences in males and females in many species. In situations in which the winner of a male–male combat gets many mates, males tend to be more muscular and more aggressive than females (Alcock, 2009), and possess weaponry not found in females of their species (Emlen, 2008). The fact that human males are statistically larger and more muscular (and more physically aggressive) than human females and that males take longer to mature than females is just some of the evidence that humans evolved from ancestors in which male–male competition gave the winner better reproductive success (Archer, 2009; Geary, 2010). Additional evidence includes data indicating that males engage in more risky behavior when in the company of other males (Daly & Wilson, 2001), that both vocal and facial features of males appear to be shaped for aggressive displays (Archer, 2009), and that males have a higher mortality rate than females at all ages (Archer, 2009; Kruger & Nesse, 2006).
If it is beneficial for males to be physically aggressive, why is the same not true for females? Certainly, even for females, being able to dominate others is helpful (King & Allainé, 2002; Pusey, Williams & Goodall, 1997; Setchell, Lee, Wickings, & Dixson, 2002), but given that there is plenty of sperm in the population, fighting over it is not worth the risk of bodily damage that might impede the female's ability to carry and care for her offspring (A. Campbell, 1999). Studies have found that although human females and males experience the same level of anger (Archer, 2009), females engage in less physical aggression (Archer, 2009), enjoy physical aggression less than males (Benenson, Carder, & Geib-Cole, 2008), and fear physical danger more than males (A. Campbell, 1999). In contrast, females generally benefit more than males from helping their offspring and other relatives. Although part of this may be due to the fact that females have better information concerning who they are related to (i.e., if the baby came out of my body, it is mine), probably more important is the fact that the most successful females have fewer offspring than the most successful males (Betzig, 1986). As a result, each offspring and each relative represent a larger percentage of the successful female's inclusive fitness (total genetic contribution to the next generation; Hamilton, 1964) than each does for a successful male. For example, if the most successful female has 10 children while the most successful male has 20, each child represents a greater percentage of the female's total fitness as compared to the male.
If these selective pressures acting over the generations have produced subconscious differences that influence the behavioral tendencies of males and females, it is quite possible that these differences will manifest themselves in the fictional characters created by the two sexes. In short, men and women will, unintentionally, create subtly different characters having different abilities and interests. If this is true, males, as a group, are predicted to create heroes who are ultrapowerful and can therefore physically control those around them, whereas female-generated heroes, although also powerful in their own way, are predicted to have less physical strength than the male-generated heroes. This should be true not only of the male heroes each creates, but also the female heroes. In other words, if males are subconsciously concerned with obtaining the top position in the hierarchy, and the primary method for obtaining this position is to be able to overpower all other males, then that excess of power should be expressed in any hero they create, irrespective of the sex of the hero. This prediction does not mean that a complete separation is expected in the traits of male- and female-generated heroes. Rather, in the same way that it is correct to state that men are taller than women even though an individual female may be taller than an individual male, the differences in the hero characteristics should display some overlap. Note that this approach does not discount the influence of culture, but predicts that cultural influences will manipulate already existing behavioral tendencies. Thus, females that live in very violent societies, or societies that encourage violence may be more aggressive than men coming from pacifist societies, but within a culture, statistically, male aggression and obsession with power will exceed that of females (Daly & Wilson, 1990a).
Previous examinations of superheroes and fictional characters have focused on cultural influences and various psychological aspects, and have either ignored or blatantly denied any biological influences stemming from the sex of the author. Here I suggest that such an examination would illuminate aspects of hero traits not satisfactorily explained by other approaches.
Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman: Their Characteristics and Creators
Fingeroth (2004) points out that “there have been heroic myths for as long as there has been human communication and storytelling” (p. 37), but the modern superhero age is generally agreed to begin with Superman in 1938 (Reynolds, 1992). It seems that the audience was ready for this new form of hero, as Superman is quickly followed by the other two most recognizable and long-lasting superheroes: Batman and Wonder Woman (Packer, 2010; Reynolds, 1992). World War II was imminent, and all of these superheroes were involved in fighting Nazis. Even though characters such as Batman (and later Xena, Warrior Princess) are technically humans, they can be classified as superheroes because they perform acts no true human could achieve and survive situations no true human would survive. The contrast between the creation of the male superheroes and Wonder Woman is of greatest interest here. These first male superheroes were conceived by relatively young men possessing no more than a high school education (Fingeroth, 2004; Reynolds, 1992). For example, Superman was first imagined when his creator, Jerry Siegel, was still a teenager, and Siegel has described his character as a combination of Hercules and Samson, inspired by characters that were both “god and man” (Fingeroth, 2004, p. 14). Although the original 1933 version was a villain who, “rose above right and wrong and forged his own moral code that was not bound by Christian (or Jewish) ethics” (Packer, 2010, p. 20), the character was remodeled into the more familiar hero by 1936 (Misiroglu, 2004) and became an instant success when presented to the public in 1938. The psychology here is quite interesting, given that these young men who created Superman and Batman (Siegel and Shuster, and Kane, respectively) were the children of immigrants (Fingeroth, 2004). Superman is the perfect immigrant, important to his adopted society, absorbing their values, and hiding his true identity to assimilate; “the immigrant wants to excel but stay anonymous” (Fingeroth, 2004, pp. 53–54).
In contrast, Wonder Woman was created by William Moulton Marston, a middle-aged man with a PhD in psychology from Harvard University (Robbins, 1996). Marston believed that women were superior to men (in fact, he was so fond of women he had children by both his wife and his assistant/mistress, and everyone lived together in the same house; Fingeroth, 2004) and felt that the comics were overly masculine, devaluing important feminine traits such as love, tenderness, and a desire for peace (Brown, 2011; Packer, 2010; Robbins, 1996; Tate, 2008). Although it appears that Marston's wife was involved in some manner in Wonder Woman's creation (Packer, 2010; Robbins, 1996), there is no doubt that Marston had a powerful personality and was ultimately responsible for the creation of the first version of Wonder Woman (Robbins, 1996), and all of her credited writers from 1941 to 1998 have been men (Tate, 2008). According to Robbins (1996),
The most powerful humanistic message in Wonder Woman, and the one most constantly repeated, is that superpowers are not necessary for a girl to become a superheroine; the Amazon princess herself does not really possess super powers. Her incredible strength, speed, and agility are the results of superior Amazon training, and with comparable training any woman or girl could become a wonder woman. (p. 10)
However, an examination of the original stories shows that Wonder Woman performs feats no human could, and in fact, she is not human, but the princess of the Amazons created when Hippolyta molded a child out of clay and the goddess Aphrodite breathed life into the clay figure (Robbins, 1996). Thus, despite the differences in the age and backgrounds of the creators, Wonder Woman, along with her male counterparts, has extraordinary powers; she can be found leaping over a moving train carrying a half-grown child on her back, deflecting bullets with her steel bracelets, contacting her invisible plane telepathically, and using her golden lasso to make others tell the truth (Robbins, 1996).
Despite Wonder Woman's success, Fingeroth (2004) feels that her stories came across as too “good for you… as if she were created by a psychologist with a social agenda” (p. 88), and the multiple changes to her character and her story lines suggested that “nobody really knew what to do with her” (p. 88). Here, I suggest that none of her male authors knew what to do with her, and many authors have noted that, at least until the 1990s, most female characters with special powers were evil, turned into an evil character after obtaining great power, and/or were destroyed (Crosby, 2004; Fingeroth, 2004). Although Fingeroth (2004) may find Wonder Woman (one of those few powerful females that never turned to evil) less than compelling, claiming that she was not allowed to be as “over-the-top” (p. 81) as her male counterparts, it is certainly true that she has been a successful character, lasting through the decades and becoming well recognized. Tate (2008) suggests that Wonder Woman's popularity was based on the fact that she is “gender atypical” (p. 147), but also claims that Wonder Woman writers had a problem because Wonder Woman's characteristics went against U.S. gender stereotypes. Tate (2008) pointedly rejects evolutionary theory claiming that “biological differences do not cause social and psychological differences” (p. 149), that our gender roles were completely determined by how society was structured, and that “Wonder Woman [is] driven more by U.S. societal stereotypes than the logic of Wonder Woman's nature and upbringing” (p. 148). However, I would argue that an evolutionary approach can help us understand aspects of the characteristics of Wonder Woman and how fictional females are treated in the popular media that are not easily explained using other approaches.
A careful reading of Tate's (2008) argument is that expected evolved sex differences should be based on the division of labor and the arbitrary tendency for males to become the hunters (leading to aggression, etc.), but he never considers sexual selection as a possible factor driving the formation of sex differences in humans. He then uses isolated examples of historical strong female warriors such as Joan of Arc and Ng Mui to support his argument (Tate, 2008), but fails to point out that these individuals represent single female warriors within populations full of male warriors. How does social structure analysis account for these isolated examples? If the nun Ng Mui did develop the “most famous Kung Fu style… to save her monastery from consistent raids by marauders” (Tate, 2008, p. 151), then why is this battle technique used by more men than women? (And note that the combat style was developed for defense and not for attack.) Tate (2008) concludes that “women can be just as effective as men, if given the opportunity” (p. 151). I would not debate this last statement, but would ask, do females as a group show as much interest and inclination as males in learning and making use of these combat techniques designed specifically for human battle? Buss (2009) points out that although history contains many examples of male coalitions battling with other male coalitions for access to territory, mates, and resources, there are no examples of female collations battling other female collations for these same reasons.
In Tate's (2008) analysis, he often mentions that the U.S. stereotype of a typical female is of a passive person, a vision that is most likely not supported by any substantial evidence. In many different cultures, the labors of females in most families are essential to the family's survival, and females, although rarely the leader of a group, often have political power, especially in societies that exist in small groups (as would have been characteristic for ancestral humans; Haviland, 1990). Recently, careful historical research has begun to overturn the view of U.S. women as economically dependent, finding instead that businesses run by women prior to 1900 were not uncommon (Lewis, 2009). Koenigsberg (2006), commenting on sex roles in Japan, claims that, “in their supposedly male-dominated society, the woman, privately, hold tremendous sway” (p. 296). According to the predictions of evolutionary psychology, females are expected to be less likely to engage in physical conflict, even with other females (which for humans is supported by cross-cultural studies; Daly & Wilson, 1990a), but that does not necessarily mean that females are passive. In the primate literature, it was originally assumed that female primates were nonpolitical and uninterested in status and only interested in their offspring (Small, 1993). Careful examination proved this wrong (although battling can occur and is generally over resources that allow the production and/or maintenance of offspring; Hrdy, 1981). Females have dominance hierarchies and jockey for position, but more often then not, they avoid overly physical conflicts (Hooks & Green, 1993; Hrdy, 1981). This is hypothesized because the cost of injury due to fighting (physical damage that could decrease future fertility) outweighs the potential benefit of occasionally or eventually winning (A. Campbell, 1999).
In the end, Tate's (2008) approach results in some confusion, as he discusses Wonder Woman's personality as it relates to her history (as a princess of an all-female society) as opposed to being the product of Marston's mind and Marston's psychology (e.g., she is not a real person who is therefore the product of her own experiences). Tate (2008) points out that given Wonder Woman's (fictional) history, she (1) should swagger (because she is the best warrior of her culture), (2) should find the United States a somewhat backward culture and be somewhat ambivalent to U.S. women as they seem “complicit in their own lack of equality” (p. 153), and (3) would be expected to wear more clothes (like a warrior rather than a sports fighter). Tate (2008) then argues that if a woman defies the U.S. stereotype by being strong and aggressive, these qualities must be balanced by making her sexy, but what truly popular fictional females are not sexy? The theories that are the foundation of evolutionary psychology predict that males should find cues of youth and fertility attractive (Buss, 1994; Buss & Schmidt, 1993; Singh, 1993), and that would include traits commonly shared by healthy females from their late teens into their early thirties. For example, in addition to being vibrant and active with good skin, they should have small facial features (except for large eyes), a waist-to-hip ratio of approximately 0.7 (Jones & Hill, 1993; Singh, 1993), and recent studies have found a correlation between the combination of large breasts with a narrow waist and fertility in human females (Jasiénska, Ziomkiewicz, Ellison, Lipson, & Thune, 2004). There do exist nonsexy fictional female heroes (Agatha Christies' detective Miss Marple comes to mind), but how many were created by a man as opposed to a woman, and how many are found in the visual media? Tate (2008) points out that the characteristics of Wonder Woman have more to do with stereotypical views of women than her (fictional) upbringing. I would agree, but I also note that every Wonder Woman writer up to 1998 was a male, and that Wonder Woman combines two basic traits associated with an evolved male psyche: a hero should be ultrapowerful, and a woman should be healthy and show signs of fertility. Finally, Tate (2008) argues that Wonder Woman is the equal of Superman, and appears to believe that a fully clothed Wonder Woman (more warrior than model) would be far more popular than the one we know with the skimpy costume. Given that the primary consumers of Wonder Woman comics have been males (Packer, 2010), and that skimpy clothing may act as a signal for sexual availability (Buss, 1994; Buss & Schmidt, 1993; Cashdan, 1993), evolutionary psychology predicts that covering Wonder Woman with more clothing should make her less popular, at least with males. Would we predict a significant increase in Wonder Woman's popularity with females if her skimpy outfit was replaced by a warrior costume that covered her body? Certainly, young females in the United States appear to be interested in dressing in such a way as to attract male attention (Hill, Donovan, & Koyama, 2005), and in the ancestral environment, that occasional male attention may have given the female a potential weapon to wield against competing females, or may have garnered her a few extra resources (Hooks & Green, 1993). Thus, would we expect young females to admire a less sexy heroine over a more sexualized heroine? I believe evolutionary psychologists would predict, “no.”
Female Superheroes Created by Women
The modern superheroine, as exemplified by Buffy, Xena, Ripley [of the Alien film series], and Sarah Connor [of the Terminator film series], is allowed to be powerful and angry and in control. This new archetype is also allowed to cry and wear makeup and heels, and still credibly take on the most powerful forces of villainy. And she does not have to be evil to be powerful. (Fingeroth, 2004, p. 93, italics in the original)
All of the female heroes listed in the quote above were originally created by male writers. If the human psyche has been influenced by sexual selection, female heroes created by men should differ in subtle but predictable ways from those created by women. The challenge is to find female-created female superheroes for the needed comparison.
After surveying numerous sources, including Robbins' (1996) The Great Women Superheroes, and reluctantly including a list of more than 300 female superheroes found on Wikipedia (“List of Superheroines,” n.d.), I have thus far been able to identify 11 potential female superheroes (or superhero groups) created by women writers not working in a team that included a male writer. In chronological order they are: Miss Fury, the Power Pack children (two girls of four siblings), Skids of X-Factor, various females created by CLAMP (the all-woman manga/anime team), Sailor Moon (composed of five teenage girls), Action Girl and her friend Flying Girl, the Fallen Angels (includes two teenage girls), the three Halliwell sisters of the TV show Charmed, the new Spiderwoman Araña, and the new Spy Smasher Katrina Armstrong.
It is worth noting that Tarpe (aka June) Mills created male action heroes (the Purple Zombie and Daredevil Barry Flinn) before creating her female hero, Miss Fury, who appears before Wonder Woman, and lasts from 1941 until 1952 (Robbins, 1996).
Miss Fury was Marla Drake, a beautiful socialite who bore an amazing resemblance to Mills herself. In the first episode of the comic strip, Marla discovers that another woman is planning to wear a costume identical to the one she has chosen to a masquerade ball. She rips off her costume and, at the suggestion of her French maid, dons a panther skin brought back from Africa by her explorer uncle. The skin, which fits her like a glove, supposedly belonged to a witch doctor, and carries a curse with it. In Marla's case, the curse immediately propels her into a series of adventures that take her to Brazil and pit her against Nazis, beautiful adventuresses, fiery female resistance leaders, and mad scientists. (Robbins, 1996, p. 18)
Miss Fury does not appear to have any specific superpowers, but she performs unbelievable feats, swinging through the air on a rope to kick robbers in the face while avoiding multiple bullets and using her panther tail to snap a gun out of someone's hand.
The next female-generated female superhero does not appear for more than 40 years, when in 1984 Louise Simonson first creates the four Power Pack children. Julie (aged 10 years) has superhuman speed and Katie (aged five years) can emit “powerful energy blasts from her hands” (Misiroglu, 2004, p. 389), but the oldest sibling is male, and takes on the leadership role of the four. The comic was written for younger children to provide a less violent option at a time when other superhero stories were becoming progressively dark, and offered “relatively realistic characterizations of children and their sibling relationships” (Misiroglu, 2004, p. 389). Then in 1986, Simonson creates a mutant character called Skids (Sally Blevins) for the comic X-Factor (a spinoff of X-Men, the brainchild of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby; Misiroglu, 2004). Sally lives in a darker world and was obviously written for an older audience. Her power, a protective force field, emerges after she has been abused by her stepfather.
In 1989 CLAMP is formed, a group of all-female Japanese manga artists who have produced numerous series that possess mystical elements and fantastic situations including RC Veda, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles, and xxxHOLiCor (Clements & McCarthy, 2006). Given that the stories are serialized and complex; they require a more detailed analysis than can be provided here.
In the early 1990s five teenage Japanese schoolgirls emerge in the personae of Sailor Moon and her Sailor Warriors, which appear as both manga and anime (and are eventually translated for American audiences in 1995; Misiroglu, 2004). Created by Naoko Takeuchi, each girl has her own power, and “the five heroines were always victorious when working together” (Misiroglu, 2004, p. 412). According to Koenigsberg (2006), Takeuchi created Sailor Moon specifically for teenage girls, and the character was based on her own personal desires and outlook. Usagi, the 14-year-old central character, is a “klutzy screw-up” who, by saying “Moon Prism Power Makeup” causes the appearance of makeup, nail polish, and breasts, turning her into the woman, Sailor Moon, who possesses one power, “to destroy a monster or get rid of a monster that has taken over a human” (Koenigsberg, 2006, pp. 294–295). According to Koenigsberg (2006),
Ms. Takeuchi has said on many occasions that she was like Usagi but wished to be like Sailor Moon. Western audiences catch on to most of this, but often jump to the conclusion that Usagi transforms into a superhero. To Japanese girls, she transforms into a woman who (eventually) is in control. That alone is enough. This is why it isn't necessary for Sailor Moon to have a lot of superpowers. She can't fly, isn't strong, and certainly would never want to be invisible. Many women already feel that way in Japan. Sailor Moon's girlfriends… all have some sort of superpower, but it is usually singular. Most of the time, they need to work together as a team, and in almost every story they need Sailor Moon to win.… This series instructs little girls that achieving power does not have to come at the expense of fighting men. In fact, in the original comic book, or manga, Sailor Moon fights nothing but men… only to discover that their leader is a woman… and she in turn reports to another woman… The lesson? You can fight all the men you want, but the real power is held by women. (p. 294)
Also of interest is that “unlike some (but not all) women warriors, Usagi has no problem with her parents” (Koenigsberg, 2006, p. 295).
In 1992, Sarah Dyer, to satisfy her desire to showcase the work of women, starts an anthology that includes her own character, Action Girl. According to Misiroglu (2004), Action Girl did not become a superhero until 1995, but the superpower of her and her support team was simply “superheroic determination” (p. 2), except for her friend Flying Girl (who can fly!). The creator of Flying Girl, Elizabeth Watasin, “has taken time to flesh out their friendship—devoting and entire story to the girls discussing their motivations as heroes—Action Girl having chosen her profession, Flying Girl reluctantly pursuing it” (Misiroglu, 2004, p. 3).
In 1997, Jo Duffy (or Mary Jo Duffy) creates a team of superhuman teenage pickpockets called the Fallen Angels (a series that ran for eight issues). Two are female; Ariel can teleport and Chance can enhance or inhibit the powers of other mutants (“Fallen Angels,” n.d.).
In 1998, soon after the success of the TV shows Xena, Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, there premiered Charmed, a story about three young women, the Halliwell sisters, who do not discover they are witches until they are brought back to their grandmother's house soon after her death (Kern & Berge, 1998). Constance M. Burge created the show and wrote the script for the first episode. In its original incarnation, each sister has a different power: one has telekinesis, one can freeze time, and one has brief visions of impending events, allowing the sisters to change the future. As revealed in the pilot, they are stronger together than apart, and thus, because of the “power of three,” they realize they must live together.
Although a new take on Spiderman (created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko), Araña (2004) by Fiona Avery parallels Buffy the Vampire Slayer in many ways. A reading of the first issue (Avery, 2004) reveals that, like Buffy, Araña begins her adventures as a fairly normal teenage girl attending high school, and through a mystical event, ends up infused with special powers. She is also guided by an older man who works for a mysterious organization, but unlike Buffy's original librarian, Araña's male authority figure is tough and able. Also in contrast to Buffy, Araña plays field hockey rather than being a cheerleader, and she is a tough girl, not afraid to back down from a physical fight even before her mystical conversion. Araña's powers include super strength, and she can sail though the sky using wristbands that extend a version of a web. She also learns to generate a hard and very creepy exoskeleton (and when in this form, is one of the least sexy looking of the female superheroes).
Most recently, in 2007, Gail Simone creates Katrina Armstrong as the new Spy Smasher, an antiterrorist government agent. This character is a revised version of a male character from 1940 (who was created by male writers), and like Miss Fury or James Bond, technically has no superpowers (“Spy Smasher,” n.d.).
Without doubt, I have not discovered all of the female-generated female superheroes, and it is not reasonable to claim any type of trend based on these 11 examples. It is interesting that of the 11 heroes (or hero groups) described above, three have no particular superpowers, two are superhero families, and for at least three (and possibly more) there is a distinct emphasis on teamwork, such that the characters cannot succeed unless they work together. These observations correspond to the predictions that females will be less interested in displaying extreme power, that females should be particularly interested in helping family, and that group cooperation is very important for females. Although no real comparisons can be made using only three of the more than 300 male-generated female superheroes, in their original incarnations, Wonder Woman has no biological siblings and leaves her Amazon tribe to follow a human male back to the United States (Robins, 1996), while Buffy (from the original 1992 film) has no siblings and useless, self-absorbed parents (and no gang of helpful friends) (Kuzui & Roseman, 1992). When Xena is first introduced as a temporary character on Hercules, The Legendary Journeys, her family is not present in the story, and the only reference to family is Xena's revelation that her father and three brothers were all killed in battle (Schulian & Green, 1995).
Finding the above examples of female-generated female superheroes was not especially easy, many of the names on this list are probably not familiar to most readers (i.e., Action Girl), and some of these characters had fairly limited runs (i.e., Fallen Angels). Several other female superheroes exist that have a woman listed as a cocreator with one or more men, and it is obvious that the creation of superheroes, especially in comic books, involves complex interactions between writers, artists, and editors, including influences from previously created characters and contributions from individuals who may not be credited. That along with the fact that it is difficult to determine exactly how many male and female writers were actively working in the field within each decade make any type of rigorous analysis (to see if female writers are underrepresented in superhero creation and to compare hero traits) extremely difficult.
Female Heroes in Recent Children's Fantasy Novels
A more systematic comparison of female heroes created by women and men can be achieved by turning to children's fantasy novels. Unlike TV or comic book heroes, who are predominantly created by men, many fantasy series for children have been written by both men and women. Most books have a single author, and the characters can possess any type of special power, as they are limited only by the imagination of their creator. Also, by focusing on books deemed appropriate for children, sexual situations are either absent or somewhat concealed, allowing the story to focus on the tasks and abilities of the heroes. My initial research in this area used books published between 1994 and 2006 (Ingalls, 2010), and the oldest authors in this group were in their twenties during the 1960s women's movement (with the majority born after 1960). (For this research, only the first novel in a series was used because I believe the first book is likely to represent the most pure vision of the author, before commentary or the problem of what should happen next begins to shape the story.)
Based on evolutionary principles, I formed the following predictions:
Prediction 1: Male-generated heroes will possess more physical and extreme power than female-generated heroes irrespective of the sex of the hero, and as a result, male writers will create female protagonists with more extreme powers than those created by females. Prediction 2: Male-generated heroes, as opposed to female-generated heroes, will be more likely to solve their problem in a physical battle and will be more likely to use weapons, which act to enhance physical power, particularly at the climax of the story. Prediction 3: Female-generated heroes will have more family members, and family relationships will be more important to these heroes.
Again, the hypotheses that generate these predictions stem from the premise that males are (subconsciously) more interested in extreme physical power and are more willing to engage in physical combat to establish their dominance because males in the ancestral environment who refused to fight would have had little-to-no reproductive success. In contrast, females would benefit more from (unconscious) psychosocial mechanisms that encourage one to aid relatives and avoid physical conflict (as even subordinate females usually produce some offspring, and physical damage could eliminate the ability to produce any).
Although the central character in the majority of these novels is a male, most of the recent children's fantasy novels have a central boy–girl hero team, allowing comparisons of the central female in stories written by each sex. Thus far, I was able to examine 18 books that have a central boy–girl (or girl–boy) hero team, nine by men and nine by women, and within these stories I found a tendency for the central female in male-generated stories to be more powerful than those in female-generated stories (supporting Prediction 1). For example, out of the nine books written by men, at least four of the central females have extraordinary powers compared to other characters in the story. Specifically, these include an adult elf-princess warrior with superhuman strength and skill and psychic abilities (Paolini, 2002), a half-god daughter of Athena trained in combat (Riordan, 2005), a girl who can instantly freeze and unfreeze a person or an entire building and its contents with a touch (Skye, 2005), and a girl who can see past events by touching stone or metal (which also creates a strong physical disruption in the local area; Fletcher, 2006). A possible fifth character for this group would be a fairy trained in combat skills who is able to effectively use modern weapons (Colfer, 2001); however, even though within her group she is an extraordinary soldier, she is surrounded by other somewhat capable soldiers of mystical origins (other fairies and centaurs, etc.). Thus, within the nine books written by men, three of the central females are trained warriors, five are not even human, and none are completely normal human girls (Ingalls, 2011).
An examination of the nine books written by women reveals that, although two of the characters are trained warriors, none of the central females have extraordinary powers not shared by others in their worlds, all are essentially humans (although some have magical abilities), and two are completely normal girls who find themselves in abnormal situations. To illustrate this point, consider the female character that is, perhaps, the strongest in this set. Hermione Granger from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Rowling, 1997) is very talented and good at doing spells (although it is made clear that Harry is the one who is truly special), and at the age of 11, during her first year at Hogwarts, Hermione is not more powerful than the capable adult wizards that surround her (i.e., Dumbledore, Snape, and McGonagall). The next two strongest central female characters created by women writers are warriors (Collins, 2003; Farmer, 2004), but unlike the male-generated characters that are an elf or a half-god, both are human and have simply practiced and perfected their fighting skills (admittedly, to an amazing degree). Another special female-generated female character is a princess who can communicate with a dragon boat, but she cannot motivate the boat without the help of her male counterpart, and she has limited magical abilities in a world full of powerful magicians (Sage, 2005). Others are a girl who is good at math and can thus crack codes (Kingsley, 2006), and a girl who, like her father, can by reading aloud cause items and people to exchange between the fictional story and the “real” world (but with limited control, producing an unreliable power that is potentially dangerous to her own family; Funke, 2003).
In addition, the central female character in the books written by women makes use of a crafted weapon in only two stories (both in which the central female is a trained warrior; Collins, 2003; Farmer, 2004), whereas in male-generated stories, the central female uses a crafted weapon in four of the novels (Colfer, 2001; Nix, 2003; Paolini, 2002; Riordan, 2005), thus supporting Prediction 2. The difference in the importance of crafted weapons is more obvious when one considers the acts of the central character of the story, independent of the sex of that character. Most stories have a male hero, even in female-generated stories (which could be due to market pressures; girls are probably more willing than boys to read stories where the hero is of the opposite sex). When I examined how the hero (male or female) solved their conflict at the end of the novel, I found female-generated heroes were less likely than male-generated heroes to end their story with a battle and using a crafted weapon. This was true even in female-generated stories that were very violent, such as The Sea of Trolls (Farmer, 2004). In this novel, set in 793 A.D., a boy from the British Isles and his sister are captured and enslaved by the Vikings. They witness several brutal murders by their captors, and eventually meet the central female figure of the story, a teenage girl who wants to die in battle to go to Valhalla. Yet, at the end of this novel, the hero, Jack, simply does as he is asked. He presents the evil half-troll queen of the Vikings with the magical spell that will restore her hair. The queen does not follow the specific directions of the spell (she is told to shave off one third of the fur of her troll cats, but she shaves off all of their hair), and her greed leads to her demise, and freedom for Jack and his sister. In contrast, one of the mildest of the male-generated stories, Fablehaven (Mull, 2005), ends with a violent battle. Of the nine male-authored stories that I read, this is one of only two with a female hero, and one of only two where the first goal of the hero is to save her family (making it more similar to the stories written by women than by men). At Fablehaven's climax, in an attempt to save her brother and grandparents, Kendra goes to the shrine of the Fairy Queen and cries. When her tears fall into the shrine's silver bowl, the Fairy Queen appears, telling Kendra to mix a magic potion and feed it to the fairies. Doing this, the tiny fairies pop into full-sized, beautiful, athletic women brandishing swords, spears, and axes, and fly off to defeat the evil forces. Thus, although Kendra does not use the crafted weapons herself, her solution lies with these weapons and the battle than ensues. Overall, all of the stories written by men posses a climatic battle, and in more than half, crafted weapons are involved (Ingalls, 2011). For the stories written by women, approximately half of the stories end with some type of battle, but none of the heroes use crafted weapons. When the female-generated heroes use weapons, they are magical or common objects (such as a rock in The Shadow Thieves; Ingalls, 2011; Ursu, 2006).
Data from my preliminary study (Ingalls, 2010) also supports Prediction 3 in that family will be more important to the hero in stories written by women. This analysis revealed that (independent of the sex of the hero) most of the heroes created by women had one or more parents and siblings, that all parents were essentially positive, and all sibling relationships were positive, or at least, loving. In contrast, most heroes created by men did not have siblings, and for the few that did, it was possible for the sibling relationship to be quite negative. Although having a hero who is a complete orphan is rare for both male and female-generated stories, the male-generated heroes were more likely to be functional orphans (to have no potentially helpful parent or parent substitute), and the hero sometimes has a problematic parent (i.e., one that is insane or evil). In fact, 63% of the living mothers in the male-generated stories are problematic in some way, an interesting contrast to the stories written by women, in which all the mothers and fathers are positive.
The same study revealed differences in the importance of family when considering the major goal of the hero (Ingalls, 2010). In more than half of the stories written by women, the primary goal of the hero is to save a close family member, usually the hero's significantly younger little sister, while the saving of a family member is rarely the primary goal of the male-generated heroes. In the stories written by men, the driving force behind the hero's actions may be revenge, a desire to advance the hero's own image or power, or a desire to save everyone, even if it means sacrificing the hero's close relative, motivations that are not shared with any of the heroes in the stories written by women.
Given that my goal was to examine the depiction of powerful fictional female heroes, I also looked for older, strong female characters in these stories. Not surprisingly, older, powerful (and not especially beautiful) protagonist females can sometimes be found in the novels written by women, and on rare occasions, these older women (who are supporting the hero) can be some of the most powerful characters in the story (see Magyk, Sage, 2005). In contrast, in the rare instances when a powerful older female exists in male-generated stories, she is often specifically described as looking young and beautiful despite her age, as is true for the elf princess in Eragon (Paolini, 2002) and the witch queen in The Golden Compass (Pullman, 1995).
Discussion
The Hero and Power
Assuming that the books selected for the preliminary examination described above are an accurate representation, one would conclude that evolutionary theory can be used to predict the characteristics of fictional heroes based on the sex of the author. One of the most interesting revelations is that men tend to create more physically powerful primary female characters than do women. This may also help explain why males, more so than females, have been responsible for creating the female superheroes and possibly why female-generated female superheroes occasionally lack any real superpowers (although not enough data have been collected to comfortably support this last statement). Again, these observations are predicted by the hypothesis that evolution has shaped a male psyche that is focused on having and displaying power. This subconscious desire to be ultrapowerful evolved because, in the ancestral environment, males in dominant positions tended to have high reproductive success whereas subordinate males were likely to have little-to-none, making fighting worth the risk of injury or even death. To illustrate this point, Betzig (1986) presents several examples of traditional societies that allow men to have harems, giving the men of high status many more children than others in their group and creating a situation in which some men had no wife at all, and there is some DNA evidence suggesting that in the past successful warriors had many children (Zerjal et al., 2003). Even in modern societies where monogamy is the only legal form of marriage, men of high status have more sexual partners (Pérusse, 1993), divorce allows some men to have a sequence of wives that tend to be successively younger than their husband as the man ages (Buss, 1994; Buss & Schmidt, 1993), and remarried men tend to have more offspring than remarried women (Fosberg & Tullberg, 1995). The hypothesis that the male psyche differs from the female's (and is not the result of cultural factors, otherwise known as social role theory; Archer, 2009) is supported by studies demonstrating that, cross culturally, the desire to exert dominance through physical aggression expresses itself in men more than women, that physically aggressive behavior is especially prevalent in male children, that sex differences appear even in infants, and genetic males who are raised as girls still display male-typical behavior (Geary, 2010; Reiner & Gearhart, 2004). Studies that have examined the patterns of male aggression also conform to the predictions of evolutionary psychology. The findings that young men who are unmarried are much more likely to commit violent crimes than married men of the same age (Daly & Wilson, 1990a), and that a high male-to-female ratio is correlated with social unrest (Hudson & Den Boer, 2002) both suggest a connection between physical aggression and frustrated reproductive effort.
As previously mentioned, although dominance also benefits females, overt fighting may actually decrease a female's fitness because her reproductive success is influenced by the maintenance of a good physical condition (A. Campbell, 1999). Dominant female chimpanzees appear to have better fitness because they are healthier (and thus more fertile); these dominant females mature sooner, wean their young sooner, and live longer than subordinate females (Pusey et al., 1997), a pattern seen in other primates (Silk, 1987). In a similar fashion, human females who have more resources (generally because they have wealthier husbands) tend to have better reproductive success (Borgerhoff, 1990; Mace, 1998). Thus, for primates in general, a male's health is primarily valuable because it helps him get a mate, and even if he dies soon after mating, it is possible that his children will survive. The same is not true, however, for females. They do not need to fight for sperm. They could fight for food or to protect their current offspring (and sometimes do), but it is their continued health that is needed to allow for the slow production of offspring that will live past weaning and on to self-sufficiency. Chimpanzee fights can end in severe injury, and male chimpanzees are known to aggressively attack females under certain conditions, while adult females have been known to attack and injure a chimpanzee mother while she was trying to defend her infant from their infanticidal attempts (Goodall, 1990). Thus, injury is a real possibility, but an injured female, if she survives, will need to recuperate, taking time and resources that could have been invested in the next (or current) offspring. As a result, the subconscious tendencies of women should be to avoid physical conflict under most circumstances and rely on other methods of competition (Buss & Dedden, 1990). Recent studies have begun to support this hypothesis, demonstrating that young adult women are more inclined to express their aggression in a nonphysical manner (such as attacking the competitor's reputation), while in the same situation, males express a strong desire to retaliate physically (Hess & Hagen, 2006).
Given the prediction that males will create more powerful heroes than females, it is noteworthy that the female authors of fantasy novels, unlike the male authors, occasionally created a completely normal central female character, and their heroes never employed crafted weapons at the climax of their stories. Defeating supernatural forces with no special magical or physical skills (or inflated intelligence) represents a form of power, but this is the point. The female-generated heroes are more likely to overcome the odds without extreme “power” to help them. As with almost all heroes, their heroes use curiosity, cleverness, and determination, but they accomplish their task without skills (or weapons) that give them an initial advantage to those around them, and in the end, most of the female-generated heroes simply try to escape, solve a problem, reveal the truth, or sacrifice themselves without a physical fight (Ingalls, 2011).
This explanation of the extreme power given to male-generated heroes conflicts with that of Reynolds (1992), who claims that Superman is not “an adolescent fantasy of omnipotence” but is “all about powerlessness” (p. 66). He points out that Superman's physical powers are useless against many of his enemies (e.g., the brilliant Lex Luthor), claiming that this represents “the theme of atonement with the father” (p. 66), and thus, “there is some kind of riddle to be solved before the world can be set in order again, and the hostile father-figure put in its place” (p. 66). However, once the mind imagines this ultrapowerful character, some sort of dilemma must be invented, or there would be no drama, and the series would not have been able to last. Also, is Superman's arch enemy a father figure, or is it more likely that the enemy is the competing male, someone who must be beaten in some manner? Acknowledging that the comics are created primarily for an adolescent male audience, Reynolds (1992) states that, “it is significant to bear in mind how deeply the Oedipus myth is embedded in the mythology of many of the key male superheroes” (p. 81). In contrast, Daly and Wilson (1990b) have proposed a revised interpretation of the Oedipal complex using evolutionary psychology, pointing out that, in societies in which a man can have more than one wife (such as that of our ancestors), a young adult male might compete with his father for a young adult female (and not over sexual access to his mother). Also, when very young, the son may try to push the father away from the mother to delay the birth of the next infant, garnering more resources for himself.
The fact that there may be inherent differences in the characters and stories males and females find interesting is reflected by observations made by women working in the comic book industry. In a interview quoted by Robbins (2001), Carol Kalish, a vice-president at Marvel comics, stated,
Comic Books now are mainly oriented toward boys: they mainly deal with boys' power fantasies, so they might not be very attractive to a female creator. It's not that you have to create books for women before you have women creators who could work in the industry. You also have to have a change in the attitude of female creators… that this is a commercial operation, and that if they want to play in the comic book industry they're going to have to bend their creative talents… I've been in a lot of discussions with female creators who keep finding that their style of art isn't something that the comic book companies want to see. Instead of saying, well, I can work in a variety of styles, they say, well, I don't want to work for you at all… We don't have a lot of female creators who are willing to compromise. (p. 107)
Additional quotes from several other female cartoonists confirm these observations, illustrating a basic difference in the storytelling interests of men and women (Robbins, 2001). It is worth noting that along with the scarcity of female-generated female superheroes, there exists a wealth of female-generated detectives (Heising, 1996), and that one of the most famous comic-strip heroines created by a woman was Brenda Star, an investigative reporter (Robbins, 2001).
The Hero and Family
The preliminary data using children's fantasy literature also support the hypothesis that family is more important in female-generated stories (Ingalls, 2010). Although it is intriguing that two of the 11 female-generated female superheroes/superhero groups were composed of siblings, a much more thorough investigation is needed of all superheroes and their family relationships. It is, however, interesting to compare anecdotally the male-generated heroes from the children's novels to the comic superheroes. When the young Bruce Wayne's (Batman's) parents are killed, he is “allowed to live on his own in a large mansion, attended only by Alfred, the family butler” (Fingeroth, 2004, p. 66). This situation also occurs in the (male-authored) children's fantasy novel Artemis Fowl (Colfer, 2001). In this story, when the reader is introduced to the 12-year-old Artemis, the father has vanished two years previously, and the mother has lost her grip on reality; however, in this first story, Artemis manages his own life with the help of his butler, who although an adult, is still his employee. Fingeroth (2004) comments, with reference to superheroes, “That's a great fantasy: alone, with no help from anyone, you become tops in a variety of fields” (p. 66). Thus, this male-generated hero is fairly independent, even in a situation where, in real life, he would not be allowed such freedom.
Fingeroth (2004) also claims that the fantasy that your parents are not your real parents is a common element in classic fairy tales along with some superhero tales, suggesting that being an orphan opens up the possibility that you are not ordinary, but actually have an unrevealed heritage of some special nature (powers, money, and/or position). He further suggests that by being an orphan, the hero has no family connections, and is therefore “free, in the fantasy conception of things, to do and go as one pleases” (Fingeroth, 2004, p. 69), including having “no annoying siblings with whom to vie for parental attention” (Fingeroth, 2004, p. 67). He then says of Jack Kirby, who was involved in creating and writing many of the classic superheroes,
Although he has recounted loving and tender memories of his family, one can imagine the future King of Comics feeling most alive when on those streets [New York's Lower east Side], not having to answer to anyone, being the individual at war with a hostile world. No mother calling him for supper. No father reading him a bedtime story. He, one boy, creating himself into the man who would emerge daily to slay the dragons of the world, whatever form they may take; the urban cowboy, each day reaffirming his status as top gun, or at least as a survivor. That's the side to which the orphan myth plays. The idea, so emphasized and mythologized in American popular culture is: we are all alone. We fight our own battles, make our own rules, defy those who would destroy us. We are alone to succeed or fail, to triumph or succumb. We make our own destinies. (pp. 70–71)
Again, note the male attitude to family and how it differs from what is most likely the typical attitude of female-generated heroes. If the patterns revealed thus far are accurate, female heroes are not orphans, they have and love their siblings, and helping their immediate family is often their most important task.
The Impact of Cultural Influences
It is important to remember that evolutionary mechanisms do not create hard-wired behavioral responses, but simply tendencies, or behavior bias, and we do expect to see the influence of culture on these fictional characters. As stated by Fingeroth (2004) “As society evolves, so does its fantasy life as refracted through popular culture” (p. 93). One of the reasons superheroes survive is that they change with the times. If the stories stood still, they would perish; thus, the writer must come up with new ideas to keep the audience engaged, and the stories will be more effective if they touch the concerns and desires of that audience. Since 1938, superheroes have become more complex, more rebellious, more troubled, and occasionally, morally ambiguous (Misiroglu, 2004; Robbins, 1996). Along with an increasing display of violence in movies, TV, and comics, female characters (primarily created by men) also have displayed more violent actions and a greater willingness to be violent (Neroni, 2005). Over the same period, and based on my own unsystematic observations, the fantasy stories written for older children and younger teens also have become progressively darker, and the stories subject the child hero to more peril and more adult responsibility than in the past.
However, if evolutionary forces have helped shape our primal likes and dislikes, and what we care about, these stories should have some unifying features despite changes due to cultural shifts, and cultural influences are expected to simply modify the evolved sex differences. Despite the women's movement, current western culture appears to value powerful men more than powerful women (Brown, 2011), and although one could claim that this explains some of the results reported here, culture is a weak explanation for the following reasons. First, there are numerous studies demonstrating that humans are not blank slates, and Pinker (2002) made a comprehensive case that the sex differences we observe in human violence cannot be accounted for by purely cultural factors, stating that “children are violent well before they have been infected by war toys or cultural stereotypes” (p. 350). In their extensive literature review, Lytton and Romney (1991) concluded that, at least for young children, “knowledge of sex stereotypes and categories is not a necessary prerequisite for sex-appropriate play preferences,” pointing out that “findings such as these are at variance with cognitive-developmental explanations of the development of sex typing” (p. 288). Lytton and Romney also found that, contrary to common knowledge, there was no significant difference in the way North American parents treat their sons and daughters. The one exception was that parents do reinforce sex-typical activities (i.e., they give boys trucks and girls dolls to play with); however, they admitted that this may be due to parents responding to the inherit desires and demands of male and female children rather than independent parental choices. Although Lytton and Romney found no evidence that parents encouraged more aggression in boys than girls, there is some evidence to suggest that adolescent boys in the United States are more likely to experience more coercive control by parents (Longmore, Manning, & Giordano, 2001). However, this could be in response to established sex-based differences in the basic temperaments of male and female children (Geary, 2010); if males are more likely to be rebellious, they are more likely to be punished. In addition, there are some sex differences in the brain that can be explained by evolutionary psychology, but not by culture (Platek et al., 2004), and cross-cultural studies have indicated that sexual selection, and not cultural factors, explain the higher mortality rates of human males (Trivers, 1985), universal patterns in mate selection and human sexual behavior (Buss, 1994), and the greater emphasis on the physical attractiveness of females (Gottschall et al., 2008).
Although superheroes are overwhelmingly created by men, women create heroes all the time. As mentioned above, there is no lack of female-generated detectives, and women have been steadily creating detectives for decades. These characters are smart, bold, flawed, foolish, and in the end, solve the mystery while, sometimes miraculously, saving their own skins. And females create fictional heroes who battle all forms of supernatural evil, as found in modern children's stories, but despite the growing rhetoric that females and males are equal and should be treated equally, and despite the noted increase in bold and violent women in the media, the female-generated heroes found in the fantasy literature seem to blend in more with their respective worlds. They can do magic as others around them rather than being the only person with magical abilities. They are sometimes completely normal children surviving and succeeding against supernatural enemies. They are truly powerful, but they succeed without superpowers!
Modifications of the Basic Hypotheses Based on Evolutionary Theory
The differences I have suggested thus far represent the most basic differences between males and females, but predictions concerning the characteristics of male-generated heroes should be modified by the key experiences the male author has had while maturing. In particular, if the male receives signals indicating that he is one of the most dominate males (if he successfully bullies others and/or is often sought after as a playmate, etc.) then he should follow a “dominant male” developmental path. That male should be willing and eager to display his power, and he should also attempt to court multiple females (Waynforth, 1999; Wright, 1994). If, on the other hand, the male receives signals that he is low in the hierarchy (if he is often bullied and/or ostracized), he should develop a different behavioral strategy. In this case, he should be very cooperative (showing his worth to others), he should be more willing to help his family, and he should attempt to bind strongly to one female, offering support and assistance to her and her (mostly future) offspring (Trivers, 1972; Waynforth, 1999). This dominant/subordinate behavioral dichotomy should be expressed primarily in males, although individuals of both sexes may engage in what Geher and Miller (2007) term mating intelligence. In this case, individuals should cognitively assess how they compare with others in their group along with considering the composition of the group (what is the male/female ratio, etc.) and should modify their mating strategies based on the current environment. Again, such strategizing is expected to modify the basic predictions described above. Given that the strategy of subordinate males should be more similar to the basic female strategy (e.g., helping the family) and that individuals should have somewhat flexible strategies, we might find more overlap between male and female characters than would be expected if all male authors possess a dominant psychology. Given that I lack this information and it should be a confounding factor when comparing the male and female-generated heroes, it is noteworthy that there were trends in the children's fantasy novels (Ingalls, 2010). Still, if the environment of a male changes, and he is now in a position to be the dominant male, he should be prepared to behave as a dominant (Tooby & Cosmides, 1992; Wright, 1994). Thus, at their core, all males should find power very desirable.
Using Evolutionary Psychology to Explain Previously Confusing Observations
I believe an evolutionary outlook can help explain some otherwise confusing observations. For example, these sex differences may help explain why Wonder Woman may not appeal to females as much as anticipated by her creator, and why Wonder Woman comics are consumed primarily by males (Packer, 2010). Girls and women seem to have responded positively to a strong female character that could take action without the assistance of a man (Robbins, 1996; Robinson, 2004), but have found other aspects of her story troublesome.
I always skipped the secret-identity parts of wonder woman comics, those segments in which she wore a blue military uniform and rimless spectacles instead of the star-spangled costume designed by the Amazon Queen, her mother. Although Wonder Woman's boyfriend, a blond army intelligence pilot, also appeared in the action segments, to my mind he represented a real menace in the scenes in which retiring “Diana Prince” was merely a WAC clerk with a terrible crush on him. With good reason, moreover, since he was responsible for Wonder Woman's double identity in the first place. For after Steve Trevor crash landed… on Paradise Island, he was nursed by the Amazon princess, who fell in love with him and insisted on following him back to the United States. (Robinson, 2004, p. 12)
Robinson (2004) also felt that Wonder Woman's secret identity “threatened to overwhelm and swallow up the heroic reality” (p. 12), fearing that one day the comic would claim that Wonder Woman was only a dream. This troubling quality may be explained by Marston's image of his perfect female hero. He felt that the positive qualities of females had been lost in the male superhero stories, claiming that when female characters lacked force, strength, and power (which he recognized as important even to girls), girls did not want to express the positive female qualities of being “tender, submissive, peace loving, and good” (Marston, 1944, p. 42). Note that “submissive” is one of these desirable traits. Is submission ever considered a desirable trait in a male superhero? Although males might want a female who is submissive to him (loyal and one who will not interfere with his attempts to mate with other females), according to evolutionary theory, females should not be interested in being submissive for the reasons already stated. Although little has been written on the subject, males, if forced to choose, should prefer as mates females who can dominate other females in addition to possessing the physical cues associated with fertility. Given that the male's death prior to old age was a likely event in the ancestral environment, and given that females who are able to dominate other females are likely to acquire better resources and are better able to protect their offspring (Pusey et al., 1997), males should prefer these capable females as mates. In this regard, there should be no sex difference; the heroes created by both sexes should not be submissive, and neither males nor females should wish to emulate submissive characters.
Another confusing observation is that, despite the women's movement and greater equality for women, the superhero female is still scantily dressed and offers an impossible body image. (Although note that the female-generated Miss Fury's skin tight panther suit covers her literally from head-to-toe; Robbins, 1996.) Fingeroth (2004) claims that the most recent generation of superhero creators adopted and used feminist attitudes because the culture had changed. “Their mothers were doctors, their sisters, lawyers, their female cousins ran corporations. To this new generation, [that] a woman could be in a position of power was not unusual or ‘a credit to her sex,’ but just the way things were” (Fingeroth, 2004, pp. 81–82). Research has supported this observation, indicating growing support for women's rights in U.S. college students between 1970 and 1995 (Twenge, 1997). My personal belief is that males as well as females can be feminists, but even if a male consciously attempts to produce a feminist female character, his subconscious may still influence that creation. When discussing Wonder Woman, Brown (2011) noted,
The fact that a single character could simultaneously epitomize both female strength and sexual objectification some 30 years after her creation is remarkable.… With Wonder Woman as the archetype of action heroines in popular culture it is no surprise that fetishization has remained one of the most obvious character traits in the depiction of active women given that she was conceived within a genre catering to masculine fantasies and adolescent fears of female sexuality. (p. 237)
Given the reality that these traits of Wonder Woman have remained stable despite dramatic changes in culture suggests basic underlying behavioral tendencies. Specifically, for the male mind, a hero must be ultrapowerful, females should display signs of fertility, and females (that you are not planning to marry) should act in ways that suggest the possibility of a sexual encounter (e.g., dress in a provocative fashion; Buss & Schmidt, 1993). Even Reynolds (1992) noted that “any feminist critic could demonstrate that most of these characters [Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Supergirl, She-hulk, and so forth] fail to inscribe any specific female qualities; they behave in battle like male heroes with thin waists and silicone breasts” (p. 80). These observations can be compared to the primary characteristics of Lara Croft of the Tomb Raider computer game series (Herbst, 2004). According to Herbst (2004), this wasp-waisted, overly buxom, violent female in her twenties who carries large guns is her male creator's “dream woman” (p. 22). Although Herbst (2004) first claimed that Lara represented “changing definitions of gender” (p. 22) and a “popular new imagine of women” (p. 23), she later admits that Lara is a sex symbol, mentioning that there is an unofficial program that can be downloaded from the Internet, allowing “a player to watch Lara fight her way through the different levels of the game naked” (p. 25).
When introducing modern warrior women, Early and Kennedy (2003, p. 4) point out that, when considering TV warrior women of the 1960s, “[i]n each case, the woman warrior's heterosexuality played a fundamental role in constraining her agency and liminality.” Again, all of the warrior women referred to in this case (Agent 99 from Get Smart, Wonder Woman, the women of Charlie's Angels, the Bionic Woman, and Batgirl) were characters created by men (Brooks & Marsh, 2007; Muir, 2004). By the 1990s, the warrior woman, “was not restricted in how she used her body or her weapons. She could match any man's physical prowess, command of technology, rationality, and leadership… [and] often used her sexuality as an offensive weapon” (Early & Kennedy, 2003, p. 5). Yet, she has, “evinced ambivalence about the political goals of feminism,” and “[d]espite the popular press's depiction of the female just warrior as a feminist icon, the new virago appears to hold feminism in distain” (Early & Kennedy, 2003, p. 5). Again, these latter observations are not surprising if one realizes that these female characters were created by men.
Conclusions
Careful, psychological analysis of modern superhero stories is somewhat scarce. Fingeroth (2004) notes there was “little written in recent decades by mental health professionals about superheroes” (p. 23) and no “major specific studies of superheroes by psychiatrists or psychologists” (p. 23), while the jacket cover of Packer's, 2010 Superheroes and Superegos claims that her book is, “The first book about superheroes written by a psychiatrist in over 50 years.” Based on the preliminary observations presented here, evolutionary psychology, and specifically sexual selection theory helps explain differences in the described male- and female-generated heroes that may not be well explained by other, more traditional approaches. Even though it is acknowledged that cultural values and practices will help shape an individual's behavior, according to evolutionary theory it will be extremely difficult to produce a culture in which the same traits are equally expressed and valued in men and women.
The grand majority of familiar fictional female heroes in popular culture routinely discussed in books and articles have been created by men, and thus, all analyses are of characters that have been shaped by the male psyche, one that is expected to produce a slightly different hero from one that would be formed by the female mind. This does not suggest that one hero type is superior or more worthy than the other; they are simply different. All heroes must overcome evil in some form, and they often enter dangerous situations to help others, but it appears that the more typical female-generated female hero does this without extreme physical power, without crafted weapons that would accentuate the hero's power, and without her hero living in isolation. The female-generated hero has a family, the hero may actually be stronger when working with other family members, and the needs of the family often stimulate the courageous acts of the hero. Xena has amazing strength and her sword, but she leaves her village and family. Buffy has her superhuman strength and her stake, but her parents are not in position to support her, as their own narcissism makes them unaware of what is going on in her life. These are traits born from the male's psyche, the ultrapowerful hero separated from family concerns. If we want to use a female-generated female as a role model, how would she differ? Although she is prepared to fight, the typical female hero is not a warrior or militaristic; she does not carry a sword or other crafted weapon. She lacks superhuman strength, but she has a family, and her family relationships are important. She does, however, share many hero traits with the female heroes created by men. All heroes must be clever to outwit their enemies. They are incredibly brave and loyal, and are not (in the end) swayed by the enticing arguments of evil forces. The female-generated hero is one who displays these traits without also possessing extreme physical power or solving her problem in a conventional battle.
If evolutionary forces have produced sex differences in the human psyche, what has been presented as a universal hero figure is actually the male vision of a hero. Thus, if Jobling (2001) is correct, and works that describe the cross-cultural traits of a hero (such as J. Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces, 1968) are flawed because they were written before a true understanding of human behavior, a different, but equally valid hero vision exists for females and deserves to be revealed.