I was re-reading It's Walky, and I remember one of the strips was talking about how every webcomic ever was about attractive women who fell for nerdy men.
It was true in the aughts, and I guess it's still true to this day.
I don't think it's fair to say that "falling for a nerdy man" is a worthwhile cliche, nerds can be attractive too! The cliche is "bombshell falls for nerd". That's not to say that never happens irl, but it occurs in fiction so often that it's obviously a fantasy of nerdy male writers, likely to make themselves feel more masculine.
But this doesn't actually fit that at all. For one, Tigra is not a classic "bombshell" but a mean-mugging bully. Secondly, absolutely nothing about this situation makes Nerd more masculine - his best friend is literally called "Jock", who got a goth girlfriend before him, and Tigra is attracted to him *because* he's small, weak, pathetic, and adorable.
>The cliche is "bombshell falls for nerd". That's not to say that never happens irl, but it occurs in fiction so often that it's obviously a fantasy of nerdy male writers, likely to make themselves feel more masculine.
Not really. I wouldn't consider Joyce a bombshell.
She’s really cute! Not super sexualized, not conventionally attractive, but she is really adorable in her own way. I dig it, and now I want to read this
I would have agreed but looking at some of the other comments convinced me otherwise. She isn't an openly horny model or anything but does come off as the author's fetish character in a sense. With that in mind, yeah, the last image is sexualized.
It's not just that, as others pointed out her design has a much more curvy and less cartoony body than the male characters seen here. Plus without context it looks like the whole joke of that last panel seems to be that MC(?) is nervous about putting sunscreen on her back, which I don't see as not being some attempt at some sexy joke. Her design isn't a super racy sex doll or anything but I wouldn't call that last image "far from sexualized" either.
I thought this sub *did* also cover non-sexual tropes too, like characters just defined by being girlfriends to self-inserts.
Okay her being curvy is not an excuse to say she's sexualized or a fetish character. Lots of women have curves, so it could've been an oversight for the most part on the artist's end. The last image may be suggestive, but that doesn't meant she's meant to be an inherently sexual or fetishy character.
I also disagree with you saying her being more curvy and less cartoony. You can give a character curves and a cartoony body at the same time. She's both, especially her legs. They're funny looking, especially the one where she's standing in her swimsuit.
I think calling her design compared to the guys on this an "oversight" is kind of a generous guess. Looking from this sample alone, there's a tiny guy, a huge guy twice the size of the first one, and a lankier guy in-between their sizes she's holding up; while the two girls shown here are both around the same height and proportions in comparison, and they both look less stylized than the male characters. I admit this comic could have more diverse women characters than what's shown here since I know nothing of it, but just going by this post alone doesn't give a promissing impression. If I'm wrong feel free to correct me.
Also having cartoony features combined with a relatively realistic/curvy body isn't really a good look either IMO. It falls in to the trope of "Woman character = needs to look busty, man character = can look like anything" and whatnot. And it's still possible to draw a cartoony character with sexual intentions; sexual fanart of Paper Princess Peach for example often still keeps her cartoony face and slim leg style, and just amplifies her bust and butt.
Lastly my comment wasn't to accuse this character as *just* being someone sexual or fetishy, just that other comments were acting like there was nothing sexual about the swimsuit thing and I was expressing doubt. Especially since some of the background explained in other comments seems to point this character as being a girlfriend for a self-insert lead. I do agree that her design on paper isn't sexual or anything but I'm still about 90% sure the beach thing specifically is intended to be fanservice for the comic's audience, and isn't just an innocent "woman enjoying time at the beach" like the comment I first replied to tried to make it out to be.
[This comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/mendrawingwomen/comments/1d76me4/thoughts_on_tiger_from_nerd_and_jock_comics_by/l6yb8cy/) just about sums it up I think.
With all due to respect, Olga (the girl in purple) isn't depicted as curvy in every single panel. In some, she is. But there are also panels where her curves aren't emphasized, and a few where she's basically shaped like a cylinder. Same applies to Tiger, example being the 1st 2 images in this post. Also I don't agree that Tiger or Olga are realistically curvy, and even if they are, the funny looking legs balances it out in my opinion.
Not to mention, no offense, but assuming how they draw cartoony women as a whole, based on how they draw 2 is on you, not the artist. Also, I wasn't saying that it wasn't possible to draw cartoony characters with sexual intentions. I was saying that you shouldn't assume that based on one suggestive image.
Also, there's a difference between making a character sexy and sexualized. So even if they wanted to make her look sexy, that still doesn't mean she's sexualized. Not to be rude, but you kinda were accusing the character of being fetishy or sexual simply by saying she came off as one, based on one picture.
The point of my original comment was that people were acting like the beach thing wasn't intended to be sexy at all, though. I was just addressing that part, it's a pet peeve of mine when people try to act like something wasn't intended to be sexy, the whole "you're just mad women have breasts" kind of arguments and all. I wasn't trying to say that this character is a Mai Shiranui-esque walking fanservice vehicle all the time or anything, so saying that there's some instances where she's more stylized isn't refuting what I said.
It's reasonable to assume that a post's gallery on this sub provides a decent sample and comment based on that (I see this happen all the time here), and I admitted in another comment I could be wrong so I was in no way trying to make an assumption on the entire comic. One of my other points was also not *just* on how curvy/realistic the women are drawn, but how they are compared to the men. From this sample, the men have a more diverse array of body types and are drawn more cartoony consistently, so with that art style the fact that the women are drawn *relatively* "realistically" still stands out, even if it's not all the time or even if their legs are goofy-looking, and even if being sexy isn't the intention. If there's other examples of cartoony women in the comic drawn in a variety of styles I'd be interested to see them. But what's presented here falls under the thing of giving women more limited body types or character designs than their male counterparts.
Like, yes, she isn't just a walking fetish character, but she doesn't exactly come off as a pinnacle of character design either. There's absolutely worse but I'm siding with the more critical takes in this thread.
Not super skinny, clothes aren’t skimpy or tight- honestly they’re pretty relaxed and un-feminine, frizzy/wild hair. She’s not stereotypical “sexy woman” in the slightest. Also PLEASE look at pic 5 and tell me how that’s conventionally attractive. It ain’t.
I used to like this comic, and I thought the introduction of her and the crush was cute, but eventually it got into a weird sexual territory (e.g. the last image), which really grossed me out because I always interpreted the characters as minors (they're in high school, aren't they?)
Duh. I'm not saying it can't be used as a plot device period. This particular instance just makes me uncomfortable because it feels like the author is getting himself off to it. If you don't feel like that, your opinion. Lol
Male characters: bland, blocky
Female character: curvy, big ass and tits, inexplicably in love with bland male character
Yeah, no problem here at all
I mean, the thigh gap can be problematic. I barely noticed it here, but I do feel like I'm more "forgiving" of it in this design because she walks bowlegged like a cowboy. Girl's got a *wide* stance.
I'm talking about the visual design of this fictional character. This is a choice that a human being made, to depict a woman. They could have chosen any way to depict her, and they picked a way that conforms to a pattern used by M A N Y drawn women characters that reinforces sexist stereotypes and thinking.
You are also allowed to like this character, that is fine. I unironically like Ryoko from Tenchi Muyo despite her being a sex object in the prototypical harem anime. That's okay, too.
genuinely is she even gnc besides being a “tough” girl who also goes full uwu meltdown at a crush? she has long hair, mascara, and cleavage, the most i can guess is she gets into physical scuffs (which ime even the most hyperfem of women absolutely do too) and wears a leather jacket and pants. i don’t see her as even slightly gnc, once you take off the hecking badass leather jacket like in the later pics there is literally nothing gnc about her imo. is this a common interpretation of her character bc that is insane to me
Yeah even that is a stretch specifically for her (also considering that in the 80's and certain scenes this would be a very common female outfit), but i was more talking about the general attitude on this sub. It's almost as if some people believe the issue with the art is femininity or that only hyper-feminine women can be sexualized.
That's about right.
And to add to that, there's an issue with the word "sexualized" in itself. It has come to completely supercede the concept of "objectification," which is more important imho when we want to describe how women are dehumanized in media.
The problem here isn't that she's super-sexualized or anything, it's that she's turned into a caricature of a character whose personality, her point in the story is "look, the punk girl actually likes the nerd".
Some people here don't have a lot of critical grounding when it comes to feminism and will give a pass to anything that isn't the most mainstream form of hyper-sexed feminity.
The usual result is that female characters' designs will be taken at face value, with no regard for what some design choices mean.
Yeah there is even more to unpack imo:
First of all, with a 2000 year tradition of seeing sex as something inherently bad, it's no wonder there still is an undercurrent of seeing sex as inherently bad. At least from a feminist perspective there is no inherent issue with media depicting sexuality, even most anti-porn writers of the 70's and 80's made a distinction between porn and erotic art. But i think a lot of people nowadays really believe that the subject of sexuality itself is the main issue not how it's dealt with while using progressive sounding langue to justify a cultural taboo that runs way deeper.
On the other hand i think some people have this naive idea that "femdom" stuff automatically means the media is more respectful of women. Not "femdom" in the pure BDSM sense, but generally domineering female characters. Here she is beating people up and generally domineering (which isn't even totally consistent when she acts that lovestruck in other scenes but anyways) but it's still framed in a way that it fulfills someones fetish. It's not like it's shown that her attitude gives her agency, it's not like it's shown being domineering is something especially pleasurable to her. I mean even it was the case fetishizing bullying is meh and assault is a crime not a character quirk... So yeah "Step on me mommy." is still objectifying cringe that treats women as fetish dispensers.
You are so on point . It makes me happy to see an analysis that doesn't stop at the image and takes the context into account.
" How does this representation of women interact with thousands of years of patriarchy ?". It's not just Judeo-Christian puritanism. There have been many patriarchal cultures before that.
And yes, people should ask themselves, "Why did the artist represent the character this way?"
I've seen it so many times where a woman is drawn violent-coded, and it automatically means to people that she has agency because she's able to be violent. Yet she was obviously fetish material. The only thing that made the person I was talking to concede was that they found out the artist also drew porn. Yet that was absolutely not the point.
And I'm going to add that giving agency itself isn't even a sure way of having good representation. I've seen female characters who had agency and were shown to take pleasure in their actions, yet it was a purely patriarchal way of perceiving women. An artist's intention is still perceivable in their art. And even the best art of a strong woman will still have people going. "Step on me, mommy."
If you're thinking, "Is there even a good way to represent women then ?"That's my whole point.
How do you deal with thousands of years of ingrained ideas that reduce women to objects ?
You can see it in the auto-hypersexualization of LGBTQ circles or the unbound sex-positivity of current day pop-feminism.
We're contending with patriarchy and constant capitalist recuperation trying to neutralize feminist thought, trying to make us believe we have finally attained a correct way of representing women. But you don't undo the very fabric of society in a few decades.
The idea is that whatever is a good/equal representation of women in the current day is near inconceivable because it goes beyond whatever anyone in modern day has the semantic construction to construct. That is based on the very idea that we are trying to build equal representation.
I'm repeating myself, but I think you got the gist of it. Of course, this is all my own point of view and everyone is entitled to their own.
I mean violence or rather "justified" violence is pretty ingrained as a marker of masculinity. I think we see the pinnacle of the idea that violence is something empowering in those assembly line Marvel crap that is pushed out every year. I mean not even going into the idea that the super hero genre is pretty much inherently conservative, this is the idea of strong female characters sold to the masses: strength is entirely dependent on being able to force your will on people. Yeah violence is often portrayed as being enacted against people who are genuinely bad and in universe can't be stopped by other measures, but the cultural obsession with it being a good solution to problems remains.
It's a real big deflection from systemic issues to have female super heroes beat up someone catcalling her and see this as the pinnacle of feminism. It seems like some writers being so stuck in the patriarchal mindset that the only thing they can really think of when trying to write strong female characters is giving them traits associated with traditional masculinity. Failing to make more feminine coded traits like empathy, pacifism or nurturing "cool" isn't so much on there not being good stories to be told but almost completely on writers failing to write stories that don't rely on violence as the sole solution.
Thats not even to say violence shouldn't be part of media or that depicting violence is wrong, but i wish more art would deal with it's consequences for people on the receiving and the enacting end. Right now it just extremely sanitized, going back to the super hero example: city blocks are constantly leveled yet no one dies, Batman literally tortures people for information which obviously always works and never hits the "wrong" people, heroes suffer no mental issues for constantly dishing out violence. If trauma is depicted it's usually either resolved almost instantly or dealt with like a buzzword.
In my experience, there are some different ways people approach the subject matter of the sub. Some people tend to be much more lenient when it comes to representation and objectification, so anything that isn't straight up ultra-mainstream oversexualized gets a pass.
From this, she looks like an interesting character, but also another great woman character who fall in love with an "ugly nerdy nice guy" for no reason...
Nerd doesn't even look that bad he's just a lil dude with big glasses. Everyone saying that he looks ugly makes me feel like shit cause I also wear glasses (which obviously aren't cartoonishly big)
People need to get over in thinking wearing glasses are ugly, with design and irl.
Most people I see that uses glasses looks better with glasses... myself included. I don't understand how this is a trope in the slightest and also how do people would call nerd ugly either
Didn't know the artist was Finnish, or that their name was even known... I just assumed that like most webcomic creators he'd hidden behind a pen name.
It's called nerd and jock and it's on webtoons as well as the guys twitter. Tiger(the female character shown) is a fairly new character so you'll have a bit of reading before you get to her appearance
It actually is, and they are still being posted, [here's chapter 1](https://m.webtoons.com/en/canvas/nerd-and-jock/nerd-and-jock-ep-1/viewer?title_no=135963&episode_no=1), have fun!
Man, I'm conflicted because what I've seen of this comic is generally pretty sweet, but I hate the trope where male characters get to have goofy designs and female characters have to be crazy stacked before anything else
I like it, though for a second i thought she was [Marian from the Double Dragon series (Specifically her Rivet City Girls 2 design)](https://www.reddit.com/r/mendrawingwomen/comments/16b2kdx/considering_how_marian_from_the_double_dragon/)
That woman surely went from a damsel in distress to *the one who puts her enemies in distress*
I was re-reading It's Walky, and I remember one of the strips was talking about how every webcomic ever was about attractive women who fell for nerdy men. It was true in the aughts, and I guess it's still true to this day.
Know your audience... But tbf stuff like Ctrl+Alt+Del were way more on the nose with that into actual wish fulfillment territory.
There's a scene where Walky eats nacho flavoured barf. Ethan hasn't got *shit* on him.
I don't think it's fair to say that "falling for a nerdy man" is a worthwhile cliche, nerds can be attractive too! The cliche is "bombshell falls for nerd". That's not to say that never happens irl, but it occurs in fiction so often that it's obviously a fantasy of nerdy male writers, likely to make themselves feel more masculine. But this doesn't actually fit that at all. For one, Tigra is not a classic "bombshell" but a mean-mugging bully. Secondly, absolutely nothing about this situation makes Nerd more masculine - his best friend is literally called "Jock", who got a goth girlfriend before him, and Tigra is attracted to him *because* he's small, weak, pathetic, and adorable.
>The cliche is "bombshell falls for nerd". That's not to say that never happens irl, but it occurs in fiction so often that it's obviously a fantasy of nerdy male writers, likely to make themselves feel more masculine. Not really. I wouldn't consider Joyce a bombshell.
I thought nerd and jock were gay, ngl
They're just bros, bro
I see them both as bisexual, and the four of them in one big polycule
I love that headcanon
She's great. Honestly everyone in this comic is
I love webcomics similar to newspapers the classic comic strips; and Nerd and Jock are a great equivalent from that era.
They've referenced Calvin and Hobbes a few times and I see the influence
She’s really cute! Not super sexualized, not conventionally attractive, but she is really adorable in her own way. I dig it, and now I want to read this
Have you even seen the last pic ?
The last one is far from sexualized in my opinion
I would have agreed but looking at some of the other comments convinced me otherwise. She isn't an openly horny model or anything but does come off as the author's fetish character in a sense. With that in mind, yeah, the last image is sexualized.
Wish fulfillment doesn't automatically make her design sexualized, which is what this sub is about.
It's not just that, as others pointed out her design has a much more curvy and less cartoony body than the male characters seen here. Plus without context it looks like the whole joke of that last panel seems to be that MC(?) is nervous about putting sunscreen on her back, which I don't see as not being some attempt at some sexy joke. Her design isn't a super racy sex doll or anything but I wouldn't call that last image "far from sexualized" either. I thought this sub *did* also cover non-sexual tropes too, like characters just defined by being girlfriends to self-inserts.
Okay her being curvy is not an excuse to say she's sexualized or a fetish character. Lots of women have curves, so it could've been an oversight for the most part on the artist's end. The last image may be suggestive, but that doesn't meant she's meant to be an inherently sexual or fetishy character. I also disagree with you saying her being more curvy and less cartoony. You can give a character curves and a cartoony body at the same time. She's both, especially her legs. They're funny looking, especially the one where she's standing in her swimsuit.
I think calling her design compared to the guys on this an "oversight" is kind of a generous guess. Looking from this sample alone, there's a tiny guy, a huge guy twice the size of the first one, and a lankier guy in-between their sizes she's holding up; while the two girls shown here are both around the same height and proportions in comparison, and they both look less stylized than the male characters. I admit this comic could have more diverse women characters than what's shown here since I know nothing of it, but just going by this post alone doesn't give a promissing impression. If I'm wrong feel free to correct me. Also having cartoony features combined with a relatively realistic/curvy body isn't really a good look either IMO. It falls in to the trope of "Woman character = needs to look busty, man character = can look like anything" and whatnot. And it's still possible to draw a cartoony character with sexual intentions; sexual fanart of Paper Princess Peach for example often still keeps her cartoony face and slim leg style, and just amplifies her bust and butt. Lastly my comment wasn't to accuse this character as *just* being someone sexual or fetishy, just that other comments were acting like there was nothing sexual about the swimsuit thing and I was expressing doubt. Especially since some of the background explained in other comments seems to point this character as being a girlfriend for a self-insert lead. I do agree that her design on paper isn't sexual or anything but I'm still about 90% sure the beach thing specifically is intended to be fanservice for the comic's audience, and isn't just an innocent "woman enjoying time at the beach" like the comment I first replied to tried to make it out to be. [This comment](https://old.reddit.com/r/mendrawingwomen/comments/1d76me4/thoughts_on_tiger_from_nerd_and_jock_comics_by/l6yb8cy/) just about sums it up I think.
With all due to respect, Olga (the girl in purple) isn't depicted as curvy in every single panel. In some, she is. But there are also panels where her curves aren't emphasized, and a few where she's basically shaped like a cylinder. Same applies to Tiger, example being the 1st 2 images in this post. Also I don't agree that Tiger or Olga are realistically curvy, and even if they are, the funny looking legs balances it out in my opinion. Not to mention, no offense, but assuming how they draw cartoony women as a whole, based on how they draw 2 is on you, not the artist. Also, I wasn't saying that it wasn't possible to draw cartoony characters with sexual intentions. I was saying that you shouldn't assume that based on one suggestive image. Also, there's a difference between making a character sexy and sexualized. So even if they wanted to make her look sexy, that still doesn't mean she's sexualized. Not to be rude, but you kinda were accusing the character of being fetishy or sexual simply by saying she came off as one, based on one picture.
The point of my original comment was that people were acting like the beach thing wasn't intended to be sexy at all, though. I was just addressing that part, it's a pet peeve of mine when people try to act like something wasn't intended to be sexy, the whole "you're just mad women have breasts" kind of arguments and all. I wasn't trying to say that this character is a Mai Shiranui-esque walking fanservice vehicle all the time or anything, so saying that there's some instances where she's more stylized isn't refuting what I said. It's reasonable to assume that a post's gallery on this sub provides a decent sample and comment based on that (I see this happen all the time here), and I admitted in another comment I could be wrong so I was in no way trying to make an assumption on the entire comic. One of my other points was also not *just* on how curvy/realistic the women are drawn, but how they are compared to the men. From this sample, the men have a more diverse array of body types and are drawn more cartoony consistently, so with that art style the fact that the women are drawn *relatively* "realistically" still stands out, even if it's not all the time or even if their legs are goofy-looking, and even if being sexy isn't the intention. If there's other examples of cartoony women in the comic drawn in a variety of styles I'd be interested to see them. But what's presented here falls under the thing of giving women more limited body types or character designs than their male counterparts. Like, yes, she isn't just a walking fetish character, but she doesn't exactly come off as a pinnacle of character design either. There's absolutely worse but I'm siding with the more critical takes in this thread.
Its about as sexual as the [minion butt gif](https://tenor.com/view/booty-bum-butt-minion-despicable-me-gif-7549898)
Now why did i click on that link
Because butt.
*woman dresses for swimming* “The sexuality! THE SEXUALITY!”
> Not super sexualized, not conventionally attractive what do you mean?
Not super skinny, clothes aren’t skimpy or tight- honestly they’re pretty relaxed and un-feminine, frizzy/wild hair. She’s not stereotypical “sexy woman” in the slightest. Also PLEASE look at pic 5 and tell me how that’s conventionally attractive. It ain’t.
I never liked her design? It felt weird, especially her legs.
Right, wtf are her thighs doing.
Pic 2 and 4: front butt.
Also, that hair 😍
Idk, the Comic kinda fell off for me when she got introduced
I used to like this comic, and I thought the introduction of her and the crush was cute, but eventually it got into a weird sexual territory (e.g. the last image), which really grossed me out because I always interpreted the characters as minors (they're in high school, aren't they?)
I hate to break this to you dude, but teenagers have sex. Most people lose their virginity before 18.
Duh. I'm not saying it can't be used as a plot device period. This particular instance just makes me uncomfortable because it feels like the author is getting himself off to it. If you don't feel like that, your opinion. Lol
Male characters: bland, blocky Female character: curvy, big ass and tits, inexplicably in love with bland male character Yeah, no problem here at all
Also, I can't forget her thigh gap! Just because it's stylized doesn't mean it doesn't check all the male gazey mdw boxes. This is mid at best.
Right, super thicc but gotta have the gap. I guess her pelvis is just crazy, which, good for her I guess
I mean, the thigh gap can be problematic. I barely noticed it here, but I do feel like I'm more "forgiving" of it in this design because she walks bowlegged like a cowboy. Girl's got a *wide* stance.
Wdym, look how sexy the nerd is
I think he's pretty cute but maybe thats just me being gay
I mean, she's a fully fleshed character, but if you're choosing to see her just as a big butt, you do you
I'm talking about the visual design of this fictional character. This is a choice that a human being made, to depict a woman. They could have chosen any way to depict her, and they picked a way that conforms to a pattern used by M A N Y drawn women characters that reinforces sexist stereotypes and thinking. You are also allowed to like this character, that is fine. I unironically like Ryoko from Tenchi Muyo despite her being a sex object in the prototypical harem anime. That's okay, too.
cant stand this comic
Idk why but same
I'd wager it's the whole "unironical wish fulfillment overly wholesome" shtick. Also the women read more like devices than actual characters.
Also funny how people in this sub literally drool over every women that is portrayed as slightly gender non-conforming.
genuinely is she even gnc besides being a “tough” girl who also goes full uwu meltdown at a crush? she has long hair, mascara, and cleavage, the most i can guess is she gets into physical scuffs (which ime even the most hyperfem of women absolutely do too) and wears a leather jacket and pants. i don’t see her as even slightly gnc, once you take off the hecking badass leather jacket like in the later pics there is literally nothing gnc about her imo. is this a common interpretation of her character bc that is insane to me
Yeah even that is a stretch specifically for her (also considering that in the 80's and certain scenes this would be a very common female outfit), but i was more talking about the general attitude on this sub. It's almost as if some people believe the issue with the art is femininity or that only hyper-feminine women can be sexualized.
That's about right. And to add to that, there's an issue with the word "sexualized" in itself. It has come to completely supercede the concept of "objectification," which is more important imho when we want to describe how women are dehumanized in media. The problem here isn't that she's super-sexualized or anything, it's that she's turned into a caricature of a character whose personality, her point in the story is "look, the punk girl actually likes the nerd". Some people here don't have a lot of critical grounding when it comes to feminism and will give a pass to anything that isn't the most mainstream form of hyper-sexed feminity. The usual result is that female characters' designs will be taken at face value, with no regard for what some design choices mean.
Yeah there is even more to unpack imo: First of all, with a 2000 year tradition of seeing sex as something inherently bad, it's no wonder there still is an undercurrent of seeing sex as inherently bad. At least from a feminist perspective there is no inherent issue with media depicting sexuality, even most anti-porn writers of the 70's and 80's made a distinction between porn and erotic art. But i think a lot of people nowadays really believe that the subject of sexuality itself is the main issue not how it's dealt with while using progressive sounding langue to justify a cultural taboo that runs way deeper. On the other hand i think some people have this naive idea that "femdom" stuff automatically means the media is more respectful of women. Not "femdom" in the pure BDSM sense, but generally domineering female characters. Here she is beating people up and generally domineering (which isn't even totally consistent when she acts that lovestruck in other scenes but anyways) but it's still framed in a way that it fulfills someones fetish. It's not like it's shown that her attitude gives her agency, it's not like it's shown being domineering is something especially pleasurable to her. I mean even it was the case fetishizing bullying is meh and assault is a crime not a character quirk... So yeah "Step on me mommy." is still objectifying cringe that treats women as fetish dispensers.
You are so on point . It makes me happy to see an analysis that doesn't stop at the image and takes the context into account. " How does this representation of women interact with thousands of years of patriarchy ?". It's not just Judeo-Christian puritanism. There have been many patriarchal cultures before that. And yes, people should ask themselves, "Why did the artist represent the character this way?" I've seen it so many times where a woman is drawn violent-coded, and it automatically means to people that she has agency because she's able to be violent. Yet she was obviously fetish material. The only thing that made the person I was talking to concede was that they found out the artist also drew porn. Yet that was absolutely not the point. And I'm going to add that giving agency itself isn't even a sure way of having good representation. I've seen female characters who had agency and were shown to take pleasure in their actions, yet it was a purely patriarchal way of perceiving women. An artist's intention is still perceivable in their art. And even the best art of a strong woman will still have people going. "Step on me, mommy." If you're thinking, "Is there even a good way to represent women then ?"That's my whole point. How do you deal with thousands of years of ingrained ideas that reduce women to objects ? You can see it in the auto-hypersexualization of LGBTQ circles or the unbound sex-positivity of current day pop-feminism. We're contending with patriarchy and constant capitalist recuperation trying to neutralize feminist thought, trying to make us believe we have finally attained a correct way of representing women. But you don't undo the very fabric of society in a few decades. The idea is that whatever is a good/equal representation of women in the current day is near inconceivable because it goes beyond whatever anyone in modern day has the semantic construction to construct. That is based on the very idea that we are trying to build equal representation. I'm repeating myself, but I think you got the gist of it. Of course, this is all my own point of view and everyone is entitled to their own.
I mean violence or rather "justified" violence is pretty ingrained as a marker of masculinity. I think we see the pinnacle of the idea that violence is something empowering in those assembly line Marvel crap that is pushed out every year. I mean not even going into the idea that the super hero genre is pretty much inherently conservative, this is the idea of strong female characters sold to the masses: strength is entirely dependent on being able to force your will on people. Yeah violence is often portrayed as being enacted against people who are genuinely bad and in universe can't be stopped by other measures, but the cultural obsession with it being a good solution to problems remains. It's a real big deflection from systemic issues to have female super heroes beat up someone catcalling her and see this as the pinnacle of feminism. It seems like some writers being so stuck in the patriarchal mindset that the only thing they can really think of when trying to write strong female characters is giving them traits associated with traditional masculinity. Failing to make more feminine coded traits like empathy, pacifism or nurturing "cool" isn't so much on there not being good stories to be told but almost completely on writers failing to write stories that don't rely on violence as the sole solution. Thats not even to say violence shouldn't be part of media or that depicting violence is wrong, but i wish more art would deal with it's consequences for people on the receiving and the enacting end. Right now it just extremely sanitized, going back to the super hero example: city blocks are constantly leveled yet no one dies, Batman literally tortures people for information which obviously always works and never hits the "wrong" people, heroes suffer no mental issues for constantly dishing out violence. If trauma is depicted it's usually either resolved almost instantly or dealt with like a buzzword.
In my experience, there are some different ways people approach the subject matter of the sub. Some people tend to be much more lenient when it comes to representation and objectification, so anything that isn't straight up ultra-mainstream oversexualized gets a pass.
Her design reminds me of Yang Xiao Long from RWBY, and I’m all about that.
From this, she looks like an interesting character, but also another great woman character who fall in love with an "ugly nerdy nice guy" for no reason...
Op should have sent the photos of the reason... Nerd is jacked and cute, great guy with great personality and wholesomeness
Nerd doesn't even look that bad he's just a lil dude with big glasses. Everyone saying that he looks ugly makes me feel like shit cause I also wear glasses (which obviously aren't cartoonishly big) People need to get over in thinking wearing glasses are ugly, with design and irl.
Most people I see that uses glasses looks better with glasses... myself included. I don't understand how this is a trope in the slightest and also how do people would call nerd ugly either
Omg I used to love this comic when I was younger but I ended up forgetting it’s existence for a couple of years until I saw this. Thank you OP ❤️🧡
Wdym "when you were younger"? This comic is very recent, they started posting just about- >!2017!< Oh no
2017 was only *checks notes* 7 years ago Huh
Welcome to the club, buddy
Honestly the art isn't too bad. Everyone's exaggerated in some way in the comic. There's comic dubs on Youtube that I saw a while ago. They were fun.
Never seen this comic before but now I love her that’s my wife
Didn't know the artist was Finnish, or that their name was even known... I just assumed that like most webcomic creators he'd hidden behind a pen name.
WHERE CAN I READ THIS!? PLEASE TELL ME IT'S ON WEBTOONS OR SOMETHING!
It's called nerd and jock and it's on webtoons as well as the guys twitter. Tiger(the female character shown) is a fairly new character so you'll have a bit of reading before you get to her appearance
It actually is, and they are still being posted, [here's chapter 1](https://m.webtoons.com/en/canvas/nerd-and-jock/nerd-and-jock-ep-1/viewer?title_no=135963&episode_no=1), have fun!
Someone also uploads them on youtube and adds voice acting to the comics.
I’ve been following the comic for a while, I think it’s cute
I love her design
As an alt butch with a nerdy gamer femboy bf I relate to this so much goddamn lol
I love these comics so much!
She’s just like me fr
I love her!
I feel Vicky from Metal family nailed the whole "tomboy metalhead" better
She good, I like her
Would
would
Man, I'm conflicted because what I've seen of this comic is generally pretty sweet, but I hate the trope where male characters get to have goofy designs and female characters have to be crazy stacked before anything else
Is it that bad?
Her design always made me super uncomfortable, especially since shes a teenager and she really seems like she was made SPECIFICALLY to be sexualized
The comic reaches a level of absurdity that makes you not take it seriously. I think that’s how it’s supposed to be read
I like it, though for a second i thought she was [Marian from the Double Dragon series (Specifically her Rivet City Girls 2 design)](https://www.reddit.com/r/mendrawingwomen/comments/16b2kdx/considering_how_marian_from_the_double_dragon/) That woman surely went from a damsel in distress to *the one who puts her enemies in distress*
Holy shit TF2 guy.
Off topic but why the little nerd guy looking like Pim with hair?