
Chute’s hypothesis in Graphic Women: Life Narrative and Contemporary Comics (2010). Can graphic novels allow more freedom to women, as opposed to mainstream, male-dominated comics? Such is Hillary L. Thus it could be a relevant medium to make racial, cultural, social and sexual minorities visible, whether through the subject of these novels or their authorship. Graphic novels tend to express interiority, trauma and unconscious, repressed thoughts. Born after WW2, how do these heroines interact with their male predecessors? Are they the voice of emancipation or further means of objectifying women through the « male gaze » (Laura Mulvey’s thesis in her 1975 essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”)? – Super heroines (Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Supergirl, The Invisible Woman, Black Canary, Captain Marvel, Raven, Natasha Irons, Elektra, Hawkeye, Miss America, Catwoman, Storm, Spiderwoman, Black Widow, She-Hulk, etc).

Who are these female authors and what do they offer? Has their production evolved in time and how can these be compared with their masculine counterparts? How are women represented by male and female authors? Prospective participants are invited to try and answer these questions with several themes that we suggest. The female readership of comics is an expanding market which should ideally be balanced more evenly between genders – a fact of which American publishing companies are acutely aware. Yet fewer than 30% of comics authors and characters are female, even if this figure is also on the rise ( ).


In the USA, facebook users who read comics are 53% female, a figure that has risen by 40% in three years’ time. Women in comics, authorships and representations
