The Women’s Corner: Where are the female characters?

About a week ago, I was walking around Walmart, just wasting time with Shea Hubbs, who is a new addition to our newspaper staff. We really don’t have time to be wasting as busy college students, but sometimes you just have to walk around Walmart aimlessly.

After going through all of the home decor, we came to the toy section. I may be an “adult”, but I will forever love going down toy aisles and pointing out things I want. We were passing by the action figures section when I noticed some for “Incredibles 2”. I was really excited because your girl loves anything Disney. But my smile quickly faded to a frown as I noticed something disappointing. All of the single action figures were the male characters and none of the females.

This may seem so insignificant to some people, but it’s things like this I notice a lot. And, to be quite frank, I get really tired of seeing.

I loved “Incredibles” growing up, because who didn’t? But my favorite character by far was Violet. She could turn invisible anytime she wanted and that was the one superpower I had always wished for.

If I was going through these aisles as a child, I would be devastated that there wasn’t a Violet. Which may seem like a “so what?” moment, but it strikes a chord for me.

Every girl growing up finds a role model they want to be. These mainly come from watching movies a lot and picking characters that we want to be or have similar traits to. I always like Violet and her ability to become invisible because I kind of was her. I was the shy little girl, who did what she was supposed to and didn’t venture out to explore more. To most, I was that invisible kid.

Even as an adult, going past those toys and not seeing any female representation quite simply hurt. Because even though I don’t believe it, the question arises that if those superhero females can’t even be appreciated, how can I ever be?

This is also true in the Marvel universe as female depiction is horribly lacking. I never see any Black Widow, Gamora, Scarlet Witch or Pepper Potts merchandise in stores. There aren’t even any females Star Wars characters that are sold a lot. It’s absolutely ridiculous that women characters in huge movies, are shown as less important to their male counterparts.

To think that a little girl who notices the same lack of representation could ever feel that way, pushes me to write these type of columns and practice what I preach.

I want any age of female to know that they are valued in this society and that their role models are there for them.

Tabitha Barr is a Nickerson freshman in Media Communications and Production

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