Maybe this is a shout out to the women who have been passed over, ignored, and pushed aside when they should have been listened to and followed. Maybe toxic masculinity is just boys being boys. Maybe she should just buck up and understand that this is how things are. Maybe Doreen is just being too emotional or over dramatic. But Tony Stark? Stephen Strange? Still heroes. If someone not in the Avengers treated Squirrel Girl this way, he’d be the villain of the issue. Even the ghost herself is treated as a problem that can be punched out of existence, rather than someone who has a problem that needs to be solved. Women are often told they must speak up for themselves, be more assertive, but yet here are Doreen and Nancy, prevented from speaking up at all, run over by men who have more power than they do. They ignore – and later scoff at – her unorthodox methods, despite how often they work on a galactic scale. When push comes to literal shove, the heroes of New York ignore her. She clearly is not, at least, in their eyes. He knows what Squirrel Girl is capable of and getting in her way in some macho display of bravado sets aside any sense of treating her as an equal. I know there are people with increasingly loud voices who will – assuming they even read this comic or notice the subtlety of the story – try and claim all kinds of things about it, North, and Marvel Comics for even addressing this, but I look at Doreen and I see women I know, women who need an opportunity to be heard. She plows forward with her plan, heedless of those around her, powerful men of privilege and succeeds. Doreen’s solution to the problem is unconventional, even for her, but the reason it works may just be because no one can shout her down. Believe me, I’m ok with that, but I’m increasingly upset that anyone else does. There is a message in this comic that I empathize with but can never fully experience. I am just about at the nexus of privilege in America. Here’s what I think North is getting at and why I’m having such a tough time writing about it: Doreen’s attempts at solving the problem are ignored by powerful men and I’ve never experienced that. I’ve retyped this paragraph half a dozen times. As an educator, Doreen understands that sometimes the answer isn’t kicking butts, but eating nuts and kicking peer-reviewed research! The real story here is the treatment of both the ghost and Squirrel Girl by the mainstream heroes who, not being able or willing to communicate, fail over and over again. The plot is pretty straight-forward: spooky, matronly ghost shushes all of New York City, superheroes try and fix the issue. Listen to the latest episode of our weekly comics podcast!
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