Women in Refrigerators refers to female comic book characters who are harmed or killed as a plot device, often to elicit a reaction from male characters. The issue was first discussed in 1999 by writer Gail Simone and continues to be a topic of discussion in comic book circles. The disproportionate share of horrible fates that befall female characters raises questions about sexism in comics. Some comic book writers have begun to address the problem by embracing strong, independent female characters.
Women in Refrigerators are female comic book characters who are injured, killed, depowered, sexually abused, or otherwise tormented as a plot device. Typically, harm to these characters is designed to elicit some sort of reaction from a male comic book character, such as a desire for revenge. The discussion of women in refrigerators was started in 1999 by writer Gail Simone on a website, also called Women in Refrigerators, and this issue continues to crop up in comic book circles today.
The term comes from an issue of Green Lantern in which the title character arrives home to find his girlfriend has been murdered and stuck in the refrigerator. When Simone compiled her own list of maimed, dead, or otherwise harmed female characters in comics, she intended to use the list as a starting point for discussion. Simone suspected that she “isn’t that healthy to be a female character in comics,” as she explained in her introduction to the list, and she wondered why that was. The list elicited a huge response, ranging from positive comments from comic writers to furious rants from other members of the comics community.
Simone and many other female comic book fans and feminist have long wondered about the disproportionate share of horrible fates that seem to befall female characters. Women in fridges may propel a storyline somewhat, but it seems such fates happen far less to male characters, raising questions about sexism in comics. Also, when male characters are killed or injured, they often return as healthy as before, or sometimes in a better state, in a phenomenon called “thawing of the dead”.
While there are certainly female superheroes and powerful female characters in comics, far more female characters go to bad ends than male characters. In examining the females in the refrigerators, many people have asked if the same events would have happened if the characters had been male. Women in refrigerators are often disempowered in a literal and metaphorical sense; the heroines lose their superpowers, while other female characters are sexually abused or otherwise tormented. This doesn’t seem to happen very often to male characters, and when it does, it’s more significant than a momentary plot device for a short story arc.
One of the most famous examples of the women in refrigerators syndrome is Spiderman’s girlfriend Gwen Stacy who dies when she is thrown off a bridge by the Green Goblin and Spiderman tries to save her, accidentally breaking her neck in the process. Numerous other examples along with the analysis can be found on the Women in Refrigerators site. Some comic book writers have begun to address the problem, criticizing women in refrigerators as poor plot devices and embracing strong, independent female characters who are just as important and intact as men.
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