I'm an Amazon, Steve. We're prepared from birth to give our lives in battle. I knew what the consequences were going in to this mission. I bet you would have acted differently, if I were a man. ~ Wonder Woman (2009 film)

Now the world is ready for you,
and the wonders you can do.
Make a hawk a dove.
Stop a war with love.
Make a liar tell the truth! ~ Wonder Woman TV series

Wonder Woman is a fictional character and superhero, also known as Diana, princess of the Amazons, and as Diana Prince. Wonder Woman was created by psychologist William Moulton Marston, debuting in All Star Comics #8.

See also:

Wonder Woman (2017 film)

Catch phrases

Suffering Sappho!

Merciful Minerva!

Great Hera!

Suffering Sappho!

Athena's Shield!

All-Wise Athena!

Aphrodite Aid me!

^[1]

All Star Comics #8 (Introducing Wonder Woman)

Written by William Moulton Marston

At last, in a world torn by the hatred and wars of men, appears a woman to whom the problems and feats of men are mere child's play. A woman whose identity is known to none, but whose sensational feats are outstanding in a fast-moving world. With a hundred times the agility and strength of our best male athletes and strongest wrestlers, she appears as though from nowhere to avenge an injustice or right a wrong! As lovely as Aphrodite- as wise as Athena- with the speed of mercury and the strength of Hercules - She is known only as Wonder Woman, but who she is, or whence she came from, nobody knows!

In the days of ancient Greece, many centuries ago, we Amazons were the foremost nation in the world. In Amazonia, women ruled and all was well. ~ Hippolyta

Narrator: At last, in a world torn by the hatred and wars of men, appears a woman to whom the problems and feats of men are mere child's play. A woman whose identity is known to none, but whose sensational feats are outstanding in a fast-moving world. With a hundred times the agility and strength of our best male athletes and strongest wrestlers, she appears as though from nowhere to avenge an injustice or right a wrong! As lovely as Aphrodite- as wise as Athena- with the speed of mercury and the strength of Hercules - She is known only as Wonder Woman, but who she is, or whence she came from, nobody knows!

Wonder Woman: A man! A man on Paradise Island!

Hippolyta: In the days of ancient Greece, many centuries ago, we Amazons were the foremost nation in the world. In Amazonia, women ruled and all was well.

Wonder Woman (news strip)

Wonder Woman (comic)

Sensation Comics

Sensation Comics #8 (Department Store Perdify)

Great girdle of Aphrodite am I tired of being tied up!

Written by William Moulton Marston

Wonder Woman: Great girdle of Aphrodite am I tired of being tied up!

Sensation Comics #19 (The Unbound Amazon) Jul 1943

I'm not weak - I'm too strong. The bracelets bound my strength to good purposes - Now I'm completely uncontrolled! I'm free to destroy like a man!

Written by William Moulton Marston

Wonder Woman: I'm not weak - I'm too strong. The bracelets bound my strength to good purposes - Now I'm completely uncontrolled! I'm free to destroy like a man!

Wonder Woman: Power without self control tears a girl to pieces! (34)

Wonder Woman: I can make bad men good and weak women strong! (100)

Sensation Comics #60 (The Ordeal of Queen Boadicea)

When you live history it's exciting--'specially the parts about women hero's like Boadicea an' you, Wonder Woman!

Written by William Moulton Marston

Wonder Woman: Women seem like sissies because you don't know their true strength.

---

Wonder Woman: Well Bif, do you like history now?

Bif: You bet--I'm keen about it! When you live history it's exciting--'specially the parts about women hero's like Boadicea an' you, Wonder Woman!

Comic Cavalcade

Comic Cavalcade #8 (The Amazon Bride)

Written by William Moulton Marston

Aphrodite forbids us Amazons to let any man dominate us. We are our own masters.

Wonder Woman: Aphrodite forbids us Amazons to let any man dominate us. We are our own masters.

Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman #6, Fall 1943

Marston, Peter

• Wonder Woman: Priscilla’s hobby is collecting chains – mine is breaking them! (111)

Priscilla’s hobby is collecting chains – mine is breaking them!

Wonder Woman (TV series)

• Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman.

All the world's waiting for you,

and the power you possess.

In your satin tights,

Fighting for your rights

And the old Red, White and Blue.

Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman.

Now the world is ready for you,

and the wonders you can do.

Make a hawk a dove,

Stop a war with love,

Make a liar tell the truth.

Wonder Woman,

Get us out from under, Wonder Woman.

All our hopes are pinned on you.

And the magic that you do.

Stop a bullet cold,

Make the Axis fold,

Change their minds,

and change the world.

Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman.

You're a wonder, Wonder Woman.

• Charles Fox Wonder Woman TV series

Unsourced

Written by William Moulton Marston

Wonder Woman: Bullets never solved a human problem yet! The Secret History of Wonder Woman, (2014) by Jill Lepore.

Quotes about Wonder Woman

I never really thought of Wonder Woman as a super-racy character. She wasn’t out there being predatory. She was saying: “You have a problem with a strong woman? I am who I am, get over it.” I never played her as mousy. I played her being for women, not against men. For fair play and fair pay. ~ Lynda Carter

From her inception, beyond merely being entertainment for children, Wonder Woman represented a vision of women's qualities that were equal to or greater than men's and exemplified a mix of gender qualities that adult women and men recognized as necessary to the Allied effort. Wonder Woman rode a wave wartime feminism that permitted her to show that her greatest qualities were ones that helped win the war. Those same qualities enabled her use as an image of strength , self-reliance and self-belief that were the basis of the Second Wave, pushing women further up the shore to equality. ~ Donna B. Knaff

Frankly, Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who, I believe, should rule the world. ~ William Moulton Marston

Men, (Greeks) were captured by predatory love-seeking females until they got sick of it and made the women captive by force. But they were afraid of them (masculine inferiority complex) and kept them heavily chained lest the women put one over as they always had before. The Goddess of Love comes along and helps women break their chains by giving them the greater force of real altruism. Were upon men turned about face and actually helped the women get away from domestic slavery - as men are doing now. The New Women thus freed and strengthened by supporting themselves (on paradise Island) developed enormous physical and mental power. But they have to use it for other people’s benefit or they go back to chains, and weakness. ~ William Moulton Marston

Wonder Woman breaks the bonds of those who are slaves to evil masters. But she doesn't leave the freed ones free to assert their own egos and uncontrolled self-gratification. Wonder Woman binds the victims again in love chains - that is, she makes them submit to a loving superior ... Wonder Woman is trying to show children - who understand this far better than adults - that it's much more fun to be controlled by a loving person that [sic] to go ranting round submitting to no one. ~ William Moulton Marston

If you need to stop an asteroid, you call Superman. If you need to solve a mystery, you call Batman. But if you need to end a war, you call Wonder Woman. ~ Gail Simone

• A significant reason Wonder Woman became verboten soon after she debuted was her then-implicit bisexuality, having come from a land populated solely by women.
  • Gabrielle Bellot, "The Queer Lierary Origins of Wonder Woman, Literary Hub, (June 1, 2017).

• She does not believe that Wonder Woman tends to masochism or sadism. Furthermore, she believes that even if it did-you can teach either perversion to children-one can only bring out what is inherent in the child. However she did make the reservation that if the woman slaves wore chains (and enjoyed them) for no purpose whatsoever, there would be no point in chaining them.
  • Lauretta Bender, M.D. as quoted by Dorothy Roubicek, The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore, (Oct. 23, 2014), p.240.

• I never really thought of Wonder Woman as a super-racy character. She wasn’t out there being predatory. She was saying: “You have a problem with a strong woman? I am who I am, get over it.” I never played her as mousy. I played her being for women, not against men. For fair play and fair pay.
• I still have women at airports coming up to me saying: “Oh, you don’t know what it meant to me. That show got me through this difficult time, that difficult time.” That’s really where the fantasy became a reality, where Wonder Woman became something much more than a TV show or a comic book. And I’ll tell you this, when women recognize me in airports, I hold them in my arms and they cry. If a guy comes up and says, “Oh my God, I had such a crush on you when I was a teenager,” I say: “Talk to the hand. I don’t want to know".
  • Lynda Carter "Lynda Carter Deflects Critics of Wonder Woman", by Alex Williams, 'New York Times, (Dec. 22, 2016).

• Wonder Woman failed to challenge the long-standing prejudice that the feminine ideal was white. Not only were Wonder Woman and her sister Amazon's all fair skinned , the Wonder Woman comic books reinforced racism by debasing minority characters. While the grotesque and evil "Jap" enemies that populated Wonder Woman's adventures were the most frequent illustration of this racism, the comic book was rife with other degrading characterizations, like the dim-witted African American porter and duplicitous Mexican "hussy" who make an appearance in Wonder Woman #1, (Summer 1942) (187). Hateful depictions of Asian, African American and Mexican characters reinforced the racist association of "white with "right". This inherit racism undercut Marston's message of women's freedom and empowerment and would have required minority readers to negotiate some serious obstacles in accepting or rejecting, his comic book superheroine as a feminist role model.
  On top of this racism, Marston's view that women deserved to be in power because that were intrinsically virtuous and would use their power to bring about peace and happiness further complicates Wonder Woman's feminist claims. Although Marston aimed to elevate women, arguments that base women's right to power on a set of assumptions about "the female character" ultimately reinforce the idea that women must adhere to the standards identified by the dominant culture as appropriately feminine. Those women who fail to meet society's expectations, whether by circumstance or by choice, risk being denied the rights that "acceptable" behavior would presumably earn them. For such individuals, Marston offered a rather unsympathetic solution: conform.
  • Michelle R. Finn, The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, p.7 in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda", (2014), p.15.

• Careful to show that women's strength and assertiveness did not unsex them, Wonder Woman adhered to the dominant standards of a acceptable femininity. Marston's Amazon princess was kind, nurturing and self-sacrificing; she was also quite beautiful. Wonder Woman was tall and svelte and had a womanly, if athletic body with "perfect modern Venus' measurements" (Marston and Peter, Wonder Woman #6, 139). She had long eyelashes, painted lips, and long, thick shiny hair. She was also very fashionable and knew how to accessorize with earrings, bracelets, a tiara and knee-high high heeled boots. This keen fashion sense undoubtedly came from her interest in shopping, which was one of the first things she did upon arriving in America (Marston and Peter, Sensation Comics #1, 20). Occasionally yielding to a "girlish impulse,"Wonder Woman could be caught dressing up and admiring her appearance from time to time. She even mooned over Steve Trevor, who was known in their comic world as "the strong girl's weakness" (Marston and Peter, Wonder Woman #6, 118) Rather than emasculate Steve with her incredibly strength, Wonder Woman often played the coquette, protesting for him to stop teasing her while thinking to herself "But I hope he won't!" (Marston and Peter, Sensation Comics #22, 166). Attractive, flirtatious and occasionally frivolous, WOnder WOman delivered a healthy dose of traditionally expected femininity.
  • Michelle R. Finn, The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, p.7 in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda", p.16.

• Not only was Wonder Woman a more enduring character than Rosie, her contribution to the war effort was also more direct. Rosie's war job was to make planes, weapons and ammunition that would help men win the war. She was the quintessential woman behind the man behind the gun, Wonder Woman, on the other hand, fought alongside men on the front lines of battle; she was the woman who led the man who held the gun. Defying convention that relegated woan to the role of man's submissive helpmate, Wonder Woman fought not for men, but for liberty and freedom and all womankind!" (Marston and Peter, All Star Comics #8, 15).
  Whereas Rosie suggested that women work in order to help men, Wonder Woman encouraged women to work because it enabled their independence from men. When misogynistic Dr. Psycho hypnotizes his wife, Marva, and forces her to help him in his plot to enslave American women in Wonder Woman #5 (Jun./Jul. 1943), Marva bitterly laments: "Submitting to a cruel husband's domination has ruined my life! But what can a weak girl do?". Wonder WOman of course, has the answer: "Get strong! Earn your own living- join the WAACS or WAVES and fight for your country! Remember - the better you fight, the less you'll have to!" Because Marston believed that women's economic independence was a necessary step towards their empowerment, he used Wonder Woman to encourage women and girls to persue work outside of the home for the sake of their own autonomy and personal fulfillment. In doing so, his character directly challenged traditional gender roles in a way that Rosie did not.
  • Michelle R. Finn, The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, p.7 in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda", p.17.

• Intentionally or otherwise the strip is full of significant sex antagonisms and perversions. Personally I would find an out-and-out striptease less unwholesome than this kind of symbolism.
  • Josetta Frank, member of Child Study Association of America and initial Wonder Woman advisory board, as quoted in Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter comics, 1941-1948 p. 18 by Noah Berlatsky; and in The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, p.7 in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda" by Michelle R. Finn, p.12.

• It was the Amazon Princess' origins in wartime, though - the critical moment of her arrival - that have helped to give her the staying power she has shown as a character. Because her appearance coincided with a moment in history when women were called upon to take on duties, responsibilities, and aspects of gender identity formerly in men's domain, her demonstration of "masculine" qualities was seen as appropriate for the times. Further, she was held to the same standards of female behavior as the World War II women she inspired and represented: her masculinity and power over men were managed, and she maintained her femininity no matter the circumstances. From her inception, beyond merely being entertainment for children, Wonder Woman represented a vision of women's qualities that were equal to or greater than men's and exemplified a mix of gender qualities that adult women and men recognized as necessary to the Allied effort. Wonder Woman rode a wave wartime feminism that permitted her to show that her greatest qualities were ones that helped win the war. Those same qualities enabled her use as an image of strength , self-reliance and self-belief that were the basis of the Second Wave, pushing women further up the shore to equality.
  • Donna B. Knaff, "A Most Thrilling Struggle Wonder Woman as Wartime and Post-War Feminist" in The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, p.28.

• Wonder Woman isn’t only an Amazonian princess with badass boots. She’s the missing link in a chain of events that begins with the woman's suffrage campaigns of the 1910s and ends with the troubled place of feminism fully a century later. Feminism made Wonder Woman. And then Wonder Woman remade feminism, which hasn’t been altogether good for feminism. Superheroes, who are supposed to be better than everyone else, are excellent at clobbering people; they’re lousy at fighting for equality.
• Marston was a scholar, a professor, and a scientist; Wonder Woman began on a college campus, in a lecture hall, and in a laboratory. Marston was a lawyer and a filmmaker; Wonder Woman began in a courthouse and a movie theater. The women Marston loved were suffragists, feminists, and birth control advocates. Wonder Woman began in a protest march, a bedroom, and a birth control clinic. The red bustier isn’t the half of it. Unknown to the world, Margaret Sanger, one of the most influential feminists of the twentieth century, was part of Marston’s family.
  • Jill Lepore, The Secret History of Wonder Woman, Borzoi, New York, (2014).

• Who needs consciousness-raising and equal pay, when you’re an Amazon with an invisible plane?
  • Jill Lepore, Her Past Unchained: The Secret History of Wonder Woman, Dwight Garner, NY Times, (Oct. 23, 2014).

• ...exhorted women to become physically and mentally strong, promoted paid female employment, and critiqued over-masculanized aspects of American culture.
  • McClelland-Nugent, Ruth. "The Amazon Mystique: Subverting Cold War Domesticity in Wonder Woman COmics, 1948-1965." In Comic Books and the Cold War: Essays pm tje Graphic Treatment of Communism, the Code and Social Concerns, edited by Chris York and Rachel York, 115-128. Jefferson, NC:McFarland, 2012; as quoted in The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, p.7 in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda", in Containing Wonder Woman: Fredric Wertham's Battle Against the Mighty Amazon by Craig This, p.30.

• Wonder Woman breaks the bonds of those who are slaves to evil masters but she doesn't leave the freed ones free to assert their own egos and uncontrolled self-gratification. Wonder Woman binds the victims again in love chains - that is, she makes them submit to a loving superior ... Wonder Woman is trying to show children - who understand this far better than adults - that it's much more fun to be controlled by a loving person that [sic] to go ranting round submitting to no one.
  • William Moulton Marston, "Letter to W.W.D Soes" as quoted in The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, p.7 in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda" by Michelle R. Finn, p.13.

• A male hero, at best, lacks the qualities of maternal love and tenderness which are as essential to a normal child as the breath of life. Suppose your child's ideal becomes a superman who uses his extraordinary power to help the weak. The most important ingredient in the human happiness recipe still is missing-love. It's smart to be strong. It's big to be generous. But it's sissified according to exclusively masculine rules, to be tender, loving affectionate, and alluring. "Aw, that;'s girls stuff!" snorts our young comics reader. "Who wants to be a girl?" And that's the point. Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power. Not wanting to be girls, they don't want to be tender, submissive, peace-loving as good women are. Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman.
  • William Moulton Marston The Secret History of Wonder Woman, by Jill Lepore, (Oct 28, 2014).

• Wonder Woman and her sister Amazons have to wear heavy bracelets to remind them of what happens to a girl when she lets a man conquer her. The Amazons once surrendered to the charm of some handsom Greeks and what a mess they got themselves into. The Greeks put them in chains of the Hitler type, beat them, and made them work like horses in the fields. Aphrodite, goddess of love, finally freed these unhappy girls. But she laid down the rule that they must never surrender to a man for any reason. I know of no better advice to give modern women than this rule that Aphrodite gave the Amazon girls.
  • William Moulton Marston "Wonder Woman 1942 interview w/ William Moulton Marston" (4/06/2009).

• As to chains and bonds - my whole strip is aimed at drawing the distinction in the minds of children and adults between love bonds and male bonds of cruelty and destruction."
  • William Moulton Marston, "Letter to M.C. Gaines. Feb.1, 1944; as quoted in The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, p.7 in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda" by Michelle R. Finn, p.12.

• I have given Wonder Woman this dominant force but have kept her loving, tender, maternal and feminine in every other way.
  • William Moulton Marston, "Letter to Coulton Waugh 1945 as quoted in The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, p.7 in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda" by Michelle R. Finn, p.15.

• Oh yes, but not until women control men. Wonder Woman – and the trend toward male acceptance of female love power, which she represents, indicates that the first psychological step has actually been taken. Boys, young and old, satisfy their wish thoughts by reading comics. If they go crazy over Wonder Woman, it means they’re longing for a beautiful, exciting girl who is stronger than they are. These simple, highly imaginative picture stories satisfy longings that ordinary daily life thwarts and denies. Superman and the army of male comics characters who resemble him satisfy the simple desire to be stronger and more powerful than anybody else. Wonder Woman satisfies the subconscious, elaboratedly disguised desire of males to be mastered by a woman who loves them.
  • William Moulton Marston As quoted in Olive Richard Bryne's, "Our Women Are Our Future" Family Circle, (August 14th, 1942).

• This my dear friend is the one truly great contribution of my Wonder Woman strip to moral education of the young. The only hope for peace is to teach people who are full of pep and unbound force to enjoy being bound--enjoy submission to kind authority, wise authority, not merely tolerate such submission. Wars will only cease when humans enjoy being bound.
  • William Moulton Marston The Secret History of Wonder Woman, (2014) by Jill Lepore, p. 238.

• Wonder Woman was from the start a character founded in scholarship.
  • William Moulton Marston The Secret History of Wonder Woman, (2014) by Jill Lepore, originally quoted from the Beta Kappa's Key Reporter in 1942. ^[2]

• Frankly, Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who, I believe, should rule the world.
  • William Moulton Marston The Secret History of Wonder Woman, The Secret History of Wonder Woman (2014) by Jill Lepore.

• Normal men retain their childish longing for a woman to mother them. At adolescence a new desire is added. They want a girl to allure them. When you put these two together, you have the typical male yearning Wonder Woman satisfies.
  • William Moulton Marston as quoted in Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters, and the Birth of the Comic Book, (Oct 12, 2004), by Gerard Jones.

• Men, (Greeks) were captured by predatory love-seeking females until they got sick of it and made the women captive by force. But they were afraid of them (masculine inferiority complex) and kept them heavily chained lest the women put one over as they always had before. The Goddess of Love comes along and helps women break their chains by giving them the greater force of real altruism. Were upon men turned about face and actually helped the women get away from domestic slavery - as men are doing now. The New Women thus freed and strengthened by supporting themselves (on paradise Island) developed enormous physical and mental power. But they have to use it for other people’s benefit or they go back to chains, and weakness.
  • William Moulton Marston The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore, (Oct 28, 2014), pp.188-189.

• Marston’s Diana was a doctor, a healer, a scientist.
  • Grant Morrison "Wonder Woman Writer Thinks Zack Snyder's Version Betrays The Character's Roots", Adam Holmes, CinemaBlend, (2016).

• When Wonder Woman creator William Moulton Marston died in 1947, they got rid of the pervy elements, and instantly sales pummeted. Wonder Woman should be the most sexually attractive, intelligent, potent woman you can imagine. Instead she became this weird cross between the Virgin Mary and Mary Tyler Moore that didn't even appeals to girls.
  • Grant Morrison "Grant Morrisons Playboy Interview", Alex Zalben MTV News, (April 30 2012).

• Developed as a frank appeal to male fantasies of sexual domination.
  • Richard Reynolds as quoted as quoted in Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter comics, 1941-1948, (January 2, 2015), p. 19

• Some heroes get tied up more than others.
  • Trina Robins as quoted in Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter comics, 1941-1948 (January 2, 2015), p. 19

• Throughout the [Marston] period...she accomplished her remarkable feats without any apparent definition in her biceps or thighs. Her calf muscles, highlighted by the red boots, are developed only to-but not beyond-the point required for "nice legs" in the pinup sense.
  • Lilian Robinson Wonder Women: Feminisms and Superhero's p.62 as quoted in Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter comics 1941-1948, p. 208 by Noah Berlatsky.

• If you need to stop an asteroid, you call Superman. If you need to solve a mystery, you call Batman. But if you need to end a war, you call Wonder Woman.
  • Gail Simone, Wonder Woman, vol.3 ^{[citation needed]}

• [Wonder Woman's] creator has...seen straight into my heart and understood the secret fears of violence hidden there. No longer did I have to pretend to like the "pow!" and "Crunch" style of Captain Marvel or the Green Hornet. No longer did I have nightmares after reading ghoulish comics filled with torture and mayhem, comics made all the more terrifying by their real-life setting in World War II....Here was a heroic person who might conquer with force, but only a force that was tempered by love and justice.
  • Gloria Steinem, Introduction to Wonder Woman 1972, as quoted in Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter comics, 1941-1948 p. 94 by Noah Berlatsky

• If we had all read more about Wonder Woman and less about Dick and Jane the new wave of the feminist revolution might have happened less painfully and sooner.
  • Gloria Steinem, 1972 as quoted in The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, p.7 in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda" by Michelle R. Fin,

• Wonder WOman emerged in the 1940s jjust as American entered World War II. As women entered the war production in various capacities, the image of Wonder WOman spoke to the promise of the future for womenL strong, independent and career-minded. When the war ended, Fredric Wetham fought to contain that image of the strong, independent, career-minded woman or he felt it threatened th American family and American society. His attempts to contain Wonder Woman forced her, like so many women during the 1950's, to struggle with the tension between family and career. In the end, Wertham may have contained the symbol of the 1940s Wonder Woman - strength and independence - but the 1950s Wonder Woman - having to choose between marriage and career - spoke to and inspired another generation.
  • Craig This, The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda", in Containing Wonder Woman: Fredric Wertham's Battle Against the Mighty Amazon, pp.39-40.

• The homosexual connotation of the Wonder Woman type of story is psychologically unmistakable. The Psychiatric Quarterly deplored in an editorial the "appearance of an eminent child therapist as the implied endorser of a series...which portrays extremely sadistic hatred of males in a framework which is plainly Lesbian."
  For boys Wonder Woman is a frightening image. For girls she is a morbid ideal. Where Batman is anti-feminine, the attractive Wonder Woman and her counterparts are definitely anti-masculine. Wonder Woman has her own female following. They are all continuously being threatened, captured, almost put to death. Her followers are the "Holiday girls", i.e. the holiday girls, the gay party girls, the gay girls. Wonder WOman refers to them as "my girls".
  • Fredric Wertham Seduction of the Innocent pp.192-193

• Wonder Woman is physically very powerful, tortures men, has her own female following , is the cruel'phallic' woman. While she is a freightening figure for boys, she is an undesirable ideal for girls, being the exact opposite of what girls are supposed to be.
  • Fredric Wertham as quoted in The Ages of Wonder Woman: Essays on the Amazon Princess in Changing Times, edited by Joeph J Darowski, in the essay "William Marston's Feminist Agenda", in Containing Wonder Woman: Fredric Wertham's Battle Against the Mighty Amazon by Craig This, p.30.

• My favorite thing was the bracelets. I mean, the bracelets are cool, but how do I make that work? In the original comic book, they needed them because they fire guns on Paradise Island. I don't think I'm going there.
• There was a lot in these stories to suggest that Wonder Woman was not so much a pitch to ambitious girls as an object for male sexual fantasies and fetishes.
  • Bradford Wright as quoted as quoted in Wonder Woman: Bondage and Feminism in the Marston/Peter comics, 1941-1948 p. 19

• "Wonder Woman" was conceived by Dr. Marston to set up a standard among children and young people of strong, free, courageous womanhood; to combat the idea that women are inferior to men, and to inspire girls to self-confidence and achievement in athletics, occupations and professions monopolized by men....Since millions of young people are reading "wonder Woman" today, it is quite possible that their acceptance of this womanly ideal may alter our whole standards, as to what is admirable in women. Children who admire the heroic type of woman will no longer have any use for the timid, physically weak, dependent and emotionally possessive woman of the old school, and will model themselves on the self-reliant, strong comradely woman who can be honest and fearless because she is not dependant upon a man for her living.
  • "Noted Psychologist Revealed as Author of Best-Selling 'Wonder Woman,' Children't Comic." MS, Wonder Woman letters, 1941-1945 SILDLHST

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