Wonder Woman is not only a comic book heroine, she’s regarded by some to be a great female role model. And that was what got her an ambassadorship to the United Nations for Gender Equality during her seventy-fifth anniversary in 2016 for her birthday October 21st (when she first appeared in comics). Citing that women and girls represent half the world, some people thought it was an excellent idea. Because the United Nations is “about women and girls everywhere, who are wonder women in their own right, and the men and boys who support their struggle for gender equality.” The idea was to help realize the goal of achieving gender equality and empower all women and girls as a sustainable goal to be achieved by 2030. Wonder Woman would help speak out against limitations on women and girls.

 

                                                              But people starting questioning it and there were petitions against her appointment, so the United                                                                             Nations dropped Wonder Woman with their reasoning being that Wonder Woman is not an appropriate                                                                   spokeswoman because her outfit is too skimpy. National Public Radio ran an article quoting “They’re only                                                                 showing Wonder Woman from the waist up. And she’s got this cape draped round her neck and shoulders, making her bust less prominent.” Wonder Woman may have some questionable fashion choices, but not allowing a seventy-five year old role model get to be the ambassador of Gender Equality felt like a slap in the face to some people. “Woman can do what they want, as long as they dress the way a ‘modest’ woman should”, but if the point of the appointment was to have equality of gender, does it not impose patriarchal standards on Wonder Woman to tell her how she should be dressed? And either way, there have been different outfits for Wonder Woman over her various iterations, from modest to skimpy, which better represents a three-dimensional person. Wouldn’t that  make her perfect to have as a woman representing Gender Equality at the U.N.?​

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It is this type of male-oriented way of thinking that makes it difficult to have Wonder Woman headline her own movie. It took seventy-six years to get a live-action one where she headlines and is not just a side character that drives the plot in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. She is a woman who is not just a role model, but also part of the DC Trinity (best-known heroes) along with Batman and Superman, and yet she has only now come to prominence because general audiences prominently voiced that she stole the show.

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Charlotte E. Howell states in her article “’Tricky’ Connotations: Wonder Woman as DC’s Brand Disruptor” that

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She is the oldest major female superhero, one of the most beloved comic-book characters, and feminism is central to her character and brand, from her origins to her ongoing stories…For Wonder Woman, this means that she is inherently disruptive to masculine superhero franchise branding because, according to her creator William Moulton Marston, she was intended to be “psychological propaganda for the new type of woman, who [he] believe[d], should rule the world”.

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Though she has appeared in numerous video games (LEGO Batman, Mortal Kombat vs. The DC Universe, and Injustice: Gods Among Us among them), she has yet to break out of her stigma of being a disruptor. Julie D. O’Reilly talks about it in “The Wonder Woman Precedent: Female (Super)Heroism on Trial” by saying

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Female superheroes on trial must prove their merit to a sanctioning institution while male superheroes on trial affect the outcome on their own behalf… With Wonder Woman as the prototype for female superheroes, Marston’s legacy does not seem to be a clear depiction of women’s empowerment, or the potential thereof, but instead of their submission to and acceptance of a series of trials put forth by those who would sanction their position as heroes. That those who govern Wonder Woman’s power and put her on trial are other women only underscores the notion that female superheroes operate according to a different code of heroism than their male counterparts, a code with built-in limitations.