Created on December 2nd 2012, The Hawkeye Initiative uses
Hawkeye and other male comic characters to illustrate how
deformed, hyper-sexualized, and impossibly contorted women
are commonly illustrated in comics, books, and video games.
 Skjaldmeyja
started the The
Hawkeye Initiative
as a means to keep
track of the artwork
that was quickly
being created.
 The Hawkeye
Initiative is one way
that people can
express the desire
for such a change in
a way that is both
compelling and fun.
“Put nipples on the Batsuit and you’re a punchline for
decades; draw Catwoman with her ribcage folded in half and
it’s harmless cheesecake.” -Caitlin Welsh, Junkee.com
The Hawkeye Initiative "How to fix every
Strong Female Character pose in
superhero comics: replace the character
with Hawkeye doing the same thing." –
Gingerhaze
Why is The Hawkeye
Initiative so popular? As
people become more
aware of the extreme
sexism in modern
comics, they may begin
to ask their favorite
writers/artists for
something different or
looking into alternative
comics.
 “Are
you afraid of a little girl? Come and get
me!” –Daenerys to Pyat Pree
 “Are you afraid of a little boy? Come and get
me!” –Jon Snow to white walkers
 Really?

Fantasy author Jim C. Hines decided
to pose like the female protagonists
on the cover of his novel The
Stepsister Scheme…then some other
books
Hines explains:
I spent the rest of last night with
pain running through most of my
back. Even the pose in The Shape of
Desire, which first struck me
as rather low-key, is difficult to
imitate and feels really forced.
Trying to launch my chest and
buttocks in two different directions
a la Vicious Grace? Just ow…
Posing like these characters drives
home exactly what's being
emphasized and what's not.

Jodi Picoult said: “I think it’s a very old and
deep-seated double standard that holds that
when a man writes about family and feelings,
it's literature with a capital L, but when a
woman considers the same topics, it's
romance, or a beach book—in short, it's
something unworthy of a serious critic’s
attention.” --The New Republic
Boy Books: Abstract Covers
Girl Books: Girl Faces and Gowns

YA author Maureen
Johnson had a great
idea. She tweeted "I
do wish I had a dime
for every email I get
that says, "Please put
a non-girly cover on
your book so I can read
it. - signed, A Guy" and so came the idea
for a challenge for her
77,000 followers. A
challenge that she
called Coverflip.
“A man and a woman can write books
about the same subject matter, at the
same level of quality, and that woman is
simple more likely to get the soft-sell
cover with the warm glow and the feeling
of smooth jazz blowing off of it.”
“It’s no secret that this summer’s movies suck for women….Yet
Jodie Foster has a leading role in the new action movie Elysium.
How’d she score it? Foster makes a point of having her agent
specifically seek out leading-man scripts that can be flipped.
Her role in Elysium was originally written for a man.” --Ms.
Magazine
There have been many successful gender flips:
 Angelina Jolie in Salt (originally for Tom Cruise)
 Starbuck and Boomer in the new Battlestar Galactica
 Sigourney Weaver: Alien, The TV Set & Vantage Point
 Judi Dench as M
 H.G. Wells, female swashbuckler, in Warehouse 13
 Major Anderson (Viola Davis) in Ender’s Game
 Ms. Scrooge, Queen Lear, and even Princess Hamlet
 The Stepford Husbands, Double Jeopardy, Grease 2,
Cinderfella, Queen of Swords, The Bionic Woman

And it’s that last point that matters most
for me; this is a show where kids are
watching. Little boys. Little girls. Do we
really want to say to little girls, “You can
never be The Doctor? You are forever
relegated to The Companion?” And do you
really want that same message for boys?
“You will always be The Doctor. Girls are
forever your Companions.” …I want my son
to grow up in a world where women can be
real doctors and imaginary Time Lord Space
Doctors.

Another gut-busting--and deeply important-gender flip can be found on the new Tumblr, Flip
the News. Here, stories from mainstream news
outlets get their pronouns flipped.
 Jailbreak
the Patriarchy flips the gender
pronouns on whatever page you’re reading.
…notice how strange it is to see so many
references to appearance, grooming, shoes
and kids in an article about a man and his
career.

Suddenly, men are obsessed with their fertility
and profiles of male leaders begin with
assessments of their shoe collections.
It’s style by fire.
Senate hopeful Sarah Palin’s latest media interview once again turned her
into a political sideshow act — but as her husband, Todd Palin, stood by her
side and defended her at a hastily planned press conference, his hair
emerged as the mane event.
Palin wore his glossy, dark locks in a messy-but-artful do. It looked cool,
sophisticated and totally under control — when he needed it most.
“He’s not hiding behind his hair,” says famed stylist and midtown salon
owner Louisa Licari. “Picking up his hair lifts his face. He is a pretty chic boy
— he’s got it going on.”
Alaskan men are embracing Palin’s hair, even if the controversy that made it
famous makes them cringe.
“I love the hair. If I could find a way to make my hair look like Palin’s, I
would be so happy,” said Washington Heights tutor and dad Kyle Trueblood,
also a brunette. “He’s a really handsome man — he could get a way better
woman than Sarah Palin.”
Palin’s hair has been admired and tweeted about since 2011, and even the
conservative National Review called his style “Kennedy glamour
resurrected” and said he “looks awesome at a press conference.”
This is a gender flip (and slight story flip) of this article from the
NYDailyNews Pretty self-explanatory. http://flipthenews.tumblr.com/
 Lawrence
Croft" — or
what would happen if
gay dudes who play
video games were
catered to like
straight guys who play
video games are.
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http://thehawkeyeinitiative.com/
http://gender-shenanigans.com/
http://flipthenews.tumblr.com/
http://junkee.com/flip-it-and-reverse-it-how-to-fight-thegender-wars/15081
http://io9.com/5875868/fantasy-author-recreatesfantasy-novel-cover-poses-with-hilarious-results
http://io9.com/10-heroes-who-got-more-interesting-afterbeing-gender-s-482719281
http://www.chrysalisfdn.org/gender-flipping/
http://msmagazine.com/blog/2013/08/19/genderflipping-in-hollywood/
http://jezebel.com/5829204/if-male-superheroes-posedlike-wonder-woman
http://io9.com/5876783/artist-puts-large-men-in-skimpysuperheroine-costumes-comedy-ensues