Women in Romance Comics Article

Women in Romance Comics: not exactly fair play

By Lindsey Cook

Comic books may not be the most popular reading for women today, but in the 50’s it was hot stuff. That’s the message from Professor Paul Siddens CROW Forum presentation called Domestic Containment: Women and Romance Comics of the ‘50’s and ‘60’s.

Siddens describes himself as a self described comic geek, saying he has over 15,000 comics. He says he gives this lecture because as a teacher and researcher he has found some interesting applications for comics.

“As you read them, you can see political values, social values, like a film, you can see how different eras viewed things.”

The presentation/lecture was given by Siddens on Monday afternoon at the CME as a part of the CROW Forum, sponsored by The Women’s and Gender Studies Program.

Siddens explained at the forefront of his lecture that once WWII ended family values were at the forefront of American culture and that this can be seen in Romance Comics being created and the standards women were encouraged to live by.

Among these values were that women were expected to marry early, while sexually active independent professional women were discouraged.

The comics of the 1950’s exemplified romance and anti communism as the two major themes of the early cold war years.

Siddens says the first romance comics were created in 1947 and adopted the style of true confession magazines. He explained the comic industry was hopping to tap into the largely neglected female market.

Siddens said the first half million copies of the comic Young Romance sold out. Eventually there were 100’s of romance comics out there.

Another theme Siddens said come out of these comics was women sacrificing their futures for the man. Eventually by 1949 romance comics out sold all other genres and cut deeply into other comic’s sales.

“There were some very silly concepts out there, like wanting women to be cautions of the business world,” said Siddens on the themes. He did say some comics tried to combine the concepts of the Cold war, and romance.

Siddens says these came in many examples, “Many comics featured ‘exotic beauties’ trying to steal the man away from the American woman.”
Siddens said Young Romance established the formula that would be followed by most all romance comics, “Cautionary morality tales told from the perspective of a female protagonist while pushing domesticity.” However Siddens says the comics gives the men free reign to do what ever they wanted.

The books while all about women, were written all by men, and seldom strayed from the premise that women were incomplete without the man.

Siddens says the comics also featured advice on dating; urging restraint, self denial, accommodation on the part of the female and warned against promiscuity. The comics also suggested honesty, stability were more important then passion and excitement.

The comics also discouraged women from entering into the work force because it complicated relationships and jeopardized the chances for marriage. Siddens pointed out again that the comics said Men needed and deserved independence, while women did not.

Stories also focused on complications that made love melodramatic, and in the ‘50’s the comics became to become more steam, with sex implied but never showed.

Siddens says not all comics followed these formulas, EC Comics revealed the bitterness behind the walls of domesticity.

Siddens says the 60’s marked the end to romance comics with the rise of women’s liberation, the sexual revolution, the changing moral cultural values, and the fact that comics became more quaint.

The comic book code also did not help things; it held things back because it said you could not show a man and a woman in a married relationship being unhappy. Also Siddens says at this time Super hero comics got their rebirth.

With the end of romance comics Siddens says the industry lost its brief hold on young women.

Siddens says even with more comics focusing on women, we now still have way too many men writing and created the comics, but we are starting to see more women writers and different ethnicities of writer writing comics now then ever before.

About 20 students and professors, and community members came to the lecture; one student who came Aldijana Omanovic says she found it fascinating, “I thought it was very informative, I never realized the relationships between comic books and women’s portrayal. While she says she came for a class, she didn’t think the lecture was boring at all.