Firstly: why aren’t there more girl super heroes? Secondly: why do they all have to wear pink and purple?
Thirdly: girls care about this stuff and it’s about time that the purveyors of comic books caught up.
Here is the full text of Rowan’s letter. It was posted to journalist and public speaker David Perry’s blog.
Dear DC comics,
My name is Rowan and I am 11 years old. I love superheroes and have been reading comics and watching superhero cartoons and movies since I was very young. I’m a girl, and I’m upset because there aren’t very many girl superheroes or movies and comics from DC.
For my birthday, I got some of your Justice League Chibis™. I noticed in the little pamphlet that there are only 2 girl Chibis, and 10 boys. Also, the background for the girl figures was all pink and purple.
I remember watching Justice League cartoons when I was really young with my dad. There are Superman and Batman movies, but not a Wonder Woman one. You have a Flash TV show, but not a Wonder Woman one. Marvel Comics made a movie about a talking tree and raccoon awesome, but you haven’t made a movie with Wonder Woman.
I would really like a Hawkgirl or Catwoman or the girls of the Young Justice TV show action figures please. I love your comics, but I would love them a whole lot more, if there were more girls.
I asked a lot of the people I know whether they watched movies or read books or comics where girls were the main characters, they all said yes.
Please do something about this. Girls read comics too and they care.
Sincerely, Rowan.
Rowan joins a chorus of seriously cool girls who’ve voiced their opinions on the bum deal girls get when it comes to toys and, you know, portrayal of women in the media.
Like 7 year-old Charlotte Benjamin, whose letter to Lego about how there weren’t enough girl Lego characters and the ones available were pink, boring and “had no job”, went viral last year. And 13 year-old Olive Bowers, a keen surfer, who wrote to surfing magazine Tracks with her concern about how the women in the magazine were basically just beach babes and not surfers.
Since Charlotte’s letter, Lego have released a female scientist themed Lego set, and of course there’s a Wonder Woman movie slated to be released in 2017. However we need girls like Rowan, Charlotte and Olive to keep speaking up, because girls deserve better. To quote Charlotte Benjamin’s letter:
“I want you to make more Lego girl people and let them go on adventures and have fun ok!?!”
