u/Efficient_Tonight_40

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A while back there was discourse on who is on the "Mount Rushmore of superheroes," usually it would go like "Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, and I guess Wonder Woman cause she's the most iconic female hero. Wonder Woman absolutely belongs up there, but it feels like people have no idea WHY she is so iconic. Wonder Woman's gender isn't just a demographic note, it is the most important part of her character and her relationship with femininity is what seperates her from every other superhero.

There's a great quote from Greg Rucka who is an iconic Wonder Woman writer: "the problem is that a lot of people write strong women as guys with tits and that’s not, that’s clearly not the secret.  The secret, if there is a secret, is each character is their own person and gender is an element of character as is, you know, religious background, an education." Diana's gender is what makes her interesting, and the tendency from many writers to lessen the importance of her womanhood to make her a badass warrior figure takes away what makes her unique.

Wonder Woman was created as a response to WWII, Which got William Moulton Marston to think about the role of men and women in the world. Marston was an interesting guy in a lot of ways, but perhaps most interestingly is he was not a professional writer or artist. Marston looked around and saw men slaughtering each other for no reason and asked "if masculinity and patriarchy had led us to this, what lessons can we learn from femininity?" This is why Steve Trevor exists: so Diana can show the male audience insert (a soldier no less, the masculine agent of violence), the good which women can bring to the world. This is also why many modern versions of Wonder Woman such as the movie version, which have her going around with a sword slicing people's guts open, completely miss the point of the character. It's no coincidence that Wonder Woman's traditional items of the lasso of truth and her silver bracelets are both non lethal, and defensive in nature

What separates Wonder Woman from other female superheroes and what makes her a great character is that she is the ultimate celebration of womanhood and femininity, and shows why those things are important in a male dominated world. Early depictions of Themyscira (or Paradise Island as it was known) didn't really focus on the warrior aspects of the Amazons at all, instead being more like a sorority located in the Garden of Eden. In the same way that Superman was a young boy's fantasy, Wonder Woman was a young girl's: A princess from an island paradise who lives with her sisters and a bunch of talking animals. Diana's gender is probably the MOST important part of her character, and you can't write a truly great Wonder Woman story without understanding that