RUMBLETiGER
Adventurer
*Sniff*, I really wanted to be a Swanmay....
Just a minor clarification:...Red Sonya...
Just a minor clarification:
Red Sonja is the chainmail bikini clad Conan-foil by Roy Thomas, who is later reincarnated into the new Red Sonja
I think the term 'fan service' applies to Red Sonja. Red Sonja may be something that women can adopt as their image, in the same way that some men might be willing to adopt Edward Cullen as an image, but I don't think that Red Sonya is how women see themselves or how they normally want to be seen.
I find the question of, "Why can't a women be more like a man?" interesting in the light of the claim that 'in real life humans express sexual dimorphism, but in a fantasy it would not be necessary for them to do so.' While the claim is certainly true, isn't that literally fantasizing about women being more like a men? The song in 'My Fair Lady' is funny on one level because it attributes to men many traits that they self-evidently do not have, but it is only funny because the claims are being made with deliberate irony.
'Red Sonya' and similar characters aren't distaff counterparts designed to appeal to a female audience, but rather a deliberate object of sexual fetishism to its predominately male audience marketed in fiction with a predominately male audience. They are essential the author providing, usually to a male adolescent or grown male-child with limited experience of females - of which Henry Higgins is an excellent and intentional example - the wish fulfillment of a women who is literally more like a man in every way. This serves as a less scary more accessible sexual object for the adolescent. After all, what could be more attractive to a persumably hetrosexual male than an an aggressive, sensual, animalistic, masculinized, unashamedly naked women who - unlike her real world atheletic counterpart - nonetheless possessed the gravity defying figure of the silluttes found on some of the mudflaps of long distance truckers.
Red Sonja isn't a part of the feminist movement; she's a backlash against it. Red Sonja isn't saying, "I'm comfortable with gender differences and capable of respecting women and treating them as equals despite them." The whole point of Red Sonja is, "Wouldn't it be really great if women really were more like men!"
Call me a sexist if you like, but I don't find that to be more mature or more empowering to real women whatever it does for your fantasy ones.
Red Sonja wears more than Conan ever does, she is REALLY being more respectable than Conan. Red Sonja isn't where you want to go with the whole comics and fan service thing, because it is one of the few instances where it makes more sense and she is wearing more than her male counterpart.