What is an image of a woman? Reinvention of female bodies in contemporary comics

ABSTRACT

Over the past two centuries, female bodies have been depicted in idealized ways in Western or Westernized societies, according to a set of codes about what it means (or meant) to be a woman. This was also reflected in comic books. This article provides an essayistic reflection on certain historical transformations that imply radical (de)constructions of patriarchal knowledge surrounding female figures. Concepts that seemed rooted in the fatality of biology or nature, such as woman and femininity, reveal themselves as sociocultural constructions permeated by power relations and contested values, opening up horizons for reinventions that were unimaginable not long ago. Some manifestations of this phenomenon can be detected in contemporary comics, focusing on works that subvert gender binaries and break with modern visual discourses about what it means to be a woman.

KEYWORDS
comics; female bodies; sexuality; gender; binarisms