(no subject)

[greenygal]

Still back in the old comic issues, and reminded of something I think deserves comment...

Let's consider a scenario. Let's say that we have a superhero couple living together. Neither of them have any special powers; the woman is an experienced and effective fighter, especially with her weapons of choice, but the man is far better at straight hand-to-hand. And the woman takes on a job the man isn't too happy about, partly because the people involved are totally untrustworthy and partly because they want her to find a guy who's very dangerous and who the woman may have feelings for.

She goes on the job anyway, because she's being blackmailed, and in the course of it she is shot through the chest, nearly dying. A few weeks later, she returns home. The man greets her enthusiastically, then sees her start bleeding, the wounds having reopened. He insists on inspecting the injuries and rebandaging them.

And then, furious at the woman for getting hurt, he hits her so hard that he knocks her down, and starts shouting at her.

I suspect that people would find this scenario disturbing. I suspect that there would be consequences in the story itself, then or later, and if there weren't there would be general reader upset. I suspect that years later, there would still be people who remembered this story, and considered the man an abuser. (See: Hank Pym.)

When, however, the person getting hit is Green Arrow, and the person hitting him is Black Canary, it plays out without protest or apology (well, he apologizes to her but that's not quite what I'm looking for), seems to pass virtually unnoticed by the readership (one letter of protest), is totally forgotten afterwards, and furthermore is utterly drowned out by the general consensus that any wrongs that may have been committed in this relationship were all done by Ollie to Dinah. Which, you know, a lot of them were, but still.

Am I the only one who thinks this is all just a little disturbing?

Comments

[samy.livejournal.com]

Been that way forever. Women abusing men is accepted by society, the reverse is vilified.

[greenygal.livejournal.com]

Not entirely true--men abusing women was accepted for a lot longer than it's been vilified--but, yeah, I know there's a double standard in place. That's why I wanted to say something about it.

(Ollie seems particularly prone to this kind of discrimination; nobody ever seems to much care that he was raped, either, and sometimes I get a disturbing sense that Dinah actually blamed him for it.)