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

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.

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

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 CoversGirl 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. MagazineThere 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 PointJudi Dench as MH.G. Wells, female swashbuckler, in Warehouse 13Major Anderson (Viola Davis) in Ender’s GameMs. 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.

http://thehawkeyeinitiative.com/ http://gender-shenanigans.com/ http://flipthenews.tumblr.com/ http://junkee.com/flip-it-and-reverse-it-how-to-fight-

the-gender-wars/15081 http://io9.com/5875868/fantasy-author-recreates-

fantasy-novel-cover-poses-with-hilarious-results http://io9.com/10-heroes-who-got-more-interesting-

after-being-gender-s-482719281 http://www.chrysalisfdn.org/gender-flipping/ http://msmagazine.com/blog/2013/08/19/gender-

flipping-in-hollywood/ http://jezebel.com/5829204/if-male-superheroes-

posed-like-wonder-woman http://io9.com/5876783/artist-puts-large-men-in-

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