DC Comics, We're Disappointed In You

Ugh, ugh, ugh. If you'd hoped that sexism died a slow, painful death this weekend, well, it didn't. Sexism is still alive and well and living in the Junior's section of Walmart alongside a t-shirt that reads "Training to be Batman's wife." Not only does this sentence make zero sense — training how?! — it's also super offensive (and probably designed by a Republican, let's be honest).

According to Jezebel, this is an actual DC Comics licensed shirt, which is crazy disappointing. I can't believe it's 2014 and I still have to say this, but here it is: Women enjoy comic books (and sports, and video games) the same way that men do. You don't need to trick them into buying your shit with pink merchandise and patronizing messages about "wives." WOMEN ARE MORE THAN JUST THE WIVES OF DUDES. And people claim that we don't need feminism anymore...

In the words of blogger PJ Says, "Fuck being Batman’s wife. I want to be Batman. I want to wear a skintight bat suit the color of dark justice. I want a utility belt. I want to drive an impossibly fast car or a tricked out motocycle. I want to save people. I want to be the biggest badass in Gotham. I want to be talking to someone at a boring party at the mayor’s house, see the bat signal over someone’s shoulder, and say 'Excuse me. Someone’s calling me.'" Sing it!

The extra sad part is that this rag is being marketed toward youngsters who may not have had the time to develop their own kick-ass feminist views yet and therefore might assume that their fate in life is to end up making sandwiches for a superhero husband when he comes in from a long day of fighting evil and just wants to put his feet up for a second, goddammit! This is terrible. Women can (and do) kick ass too. Being a wife is totally cool if that's what you choose, but the title of "wife" does not negate all the other parts of a woman's personality. It especially does not negate her ability to be a superhero herself.

If you're a parent/cool older sister/aunt, save the ten bucks you would've spent on this piece of crap t-shirt and put it toward a set of action figures or something. Let's teach young girls that they can be anything and leave the sexist ideals in the 1950s where they belong.

Image: Walmart