Gender roles in comics

After watching the movie Dreamworld, I began to think of the issue of gender in one of my fields of interest, comic books. It isn't much of a suprise to find out that there are many similarities between the field of music videos and comic books, for the roles of the genders did not come from either field, but were long ago set up, and it is only now that people are trying to break it.

in both fields we have women that are used as 'eye candy'. Music videos have girls gyrating around, while comic books(especially in the 90's) have been notorious for drawing girls in revealing or tight clothes in the cover, whether it suits the story or not. In fact, artists like Greg Horn and Adam Hughes have become succesful and well known in the comic field mainly for their ability to draw beautiful looking women.

Since the early days of comics females have namely been used as plot points, mostly as a damsels in distress that the hero needs to be saving. Even female superheroes have not always been portrayed in the best light. Wonder Woman, arguably one of the strongest portrayals of women nowadays started off as being well known for tying up whoever she was fighting, who usually happened to be female.

Male characters haven't had it much better. Mostof the time they have been portrayed as the pinnacle of masculinity. Strong, intelligent, good looking, and with broad chests. Even so, there are stands outs, such as Spider-Man, who are almsot every day man, along with the occasional gay hero,