The Feminist Gift Guide: For Every Feminist on Your List!
By Emily Scott
Image via Marvel
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Comic
For: The geek girl feminist
Price: $3.99 for a digital issue
Geek girls have been on the receiving end of a lot of gross “meninist” crap for several years now. Women who love and appreciate things like comic books and video games have been consistently undercut and even threatened by those who think they are the sole territory of white men. And one of the reasons they believe that is because of the overwhelming white maleness of those worlds.
Fortunately for your geek feminist friend, and for everyone else as well, the comic world is starting to change. The success of female superhero franchises, like Wonder Woman and Jessica Jones, as well as black superhero franchises, like Black Panther and Luke Cage, are showing Marvel and other comic book companies that they have an audience in minorities. And they are responding.
Moon Girl is Lunella Lafayette, a little black girl who also just happens to be a super genius. Her superhero status comes from both her superior intellect and an inhuman gene she possesses. But she is using it all for good and seeks to change the world.
This addition to the Marvel lineup is a message to girls and women everywhere, especially girls and women of color. It’s a sign that even though your comic-nerd feminist friend might not have been able to see herself in their comics when she was a kid, they are committed to making that a reality for her and other little girls in the future. And the knowledge that these previously only white male spaces are changing and expanding? That’s the best gift!
She’ll Love It If: Her excitement for superhero movies is always tempered by their overwhelming white maleness; she Twitter-campaigned for Donald Glover as Spiderman harder than anyone else; She was always interested in comics as a kid, but couldn’t find a protagonist who looked like her
Buy It Here: Marvel (You can buy a digital issue here – for a physical issue, you’ll need to head to a store near you. Check out the store locator on the same page to find one!)