Well, apparently @Marvel only felt like answering the one letter (the one where they told me they were changing their system of answering letters so that fans wouldn't be lost in the shuffle), before reverting back to losing me in the shuffle.
In the interim, the little hero at my house had a birthday (yay!) and since she's still a superhero fan, we settled on superhero pencils as her birthday treat to take to preschool. She was excited and I took her to Party City, knowing that they advertised gear for an Avenger themed party. There, in the 'boy' aisle was "Avengers" gear. But wait, no, it wasn't Avengers gear--it was Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk gear. Somehow, they 'forgot' to include Black Widow (and Nick Fury). There were no female superhero supplies in the store. We left with 1 pack of Batman pencils, 1 pack of Spider Man pencils, and 1 pack of IronMan, Thor, CapAm, Hulk AKA "Avengers with pesky minority or female characters removed--#WheresBlackWidow, #wheresNickFury" pencils.
I Tweeted about it and @Party city said I could check out the Black Widow gear on their website. I was unaware it was possible for a company like Party City to miss the point SO VERY BADLY.
If you search for "Black Widow" on Party City's website, you find 8 items: 3 Marvel's Black Widow costumes, 1 Marvel-esque Black Widow wig, and some witch related stuff. No party supplies. No plates or pencils or banners. So if you want to select from a very narrow selection of costumes, great, Party City has that. If you wanted Avengers party stuff to include Black widow, you're SOL.
In the interim, the little hero at my house had a birthday (yay!) and since she's still a superhero fan, we settled on superhero pencils as her birthday treat to take to preschool. She was excited and I took her to Party City, knowing that they advertised gear for an Avenger themed party. There, in the 'boy' aisle was "Avengers" gear. But wait, no, it wasn't Avengers gear--it was Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk gear. Somehow, they 'forgot' to include Black Widow (and Nick Fury). There were no female superhero supplies in the store. We left with 1 pack of Batman pencils, 1 pack of Spider Man pencils, and 1 pack of IronMan, Thor, CapAm, Hulk AKA "Avengers with pesky minority or female characters removed--#WheresBlackWidow, #wheresNickFury" pencils.
I Tweeted about it and @Party city said I could check out the Black Widow gear on their website. I was unaware it was possible for a company like Party City to miss the point SO VERY BADLY.
If you search for "Black Widow" on Party City's website, you find 8 items: 3 Marvel's Black Widow costumes, 1 Marvel-esque Black Widow wig, and some witch related stuff. No party supplies. No plates or pencils or banners. So if you want to select from a very narrow selection of costumes, great, Party City has that. If you wanted Avengers party stuff to include Black widow, you're SOL.
If you search for Captain America, you find 108 items--costumes, party supplies, the works. Before someone says "oh, that surely only is true because of the recent movies", I did a search for Hulk; I found almost 30 items--t shirts, party favors, costumes, etc. Not quite the array that the Captain has but honest to goodness party supplies. Nope, no sexism here, they just forgot to include the female superheroes. again. When searching for Avengers (where 1/5 of the movie characters are female) brings up 299 items, 4 of which are Black Widow costumes, there's a problem (I am not including the puffy dress version of Captain America and Thor in that count. Pedantic, perhaps, but it's a clear difference to me--celebrating a female character vs. celebrating a 'girly' version of a male character.). Where every single 'group' item neglects to include the 1/5th of the team that is female, where every single party item neglects the female teammate (the only items available are costumes), it's sexism. It's sending the message to these boys and girls that the female team-mate isn't really on the team. @Party city should be ashamed of itself. @Marvel should be ashamed at itself. Both should read the tweets that mention them, and respond about these concerns. And both and should be making an effort to make room for girls in the picture. #wheresGamora, #wheresBlackWidow, #WheresNickFury |