Mythologising Diana Prince, COVID-19 Style: a Deadly Practice

 

We all know the story of Wonder Woman – an Amazon with superhuman powers gifted by the Gods who is more than a match for any mortal or, when you come to think of it, immortal man or evil power. Lasso, magic bracelets and boots ablazing, the 2017 Wonder Woman movie grossed more than $821.8 million dollars with enthusiastic voices from left, right and centre loudly proclaiming that the superhero glass ceiling has been smashed. Reception for the sequel has been lukewarm, and Gal Gadot (the star of the movie)’s attempts to lift our spirits with a rendition of Imagine during the 2020 lockdown was widely criticised and derided.

 

Given this fame, it’s not surprising that during the COVID pandemic, artists, brands and fundraisers across the world have used the iconography of Wonder Woman and superheroes to celebrate medical professionals, and nurses in particular in murals, newspaper front pages (Prealpina 2020) or online spaces. The tight waist, the superhero stance, the hair blown by the wind but still remaining in a perfect do. In a useful twist, one that sharpens the power of the iconography, Wonder Woman’s alter ego, Diana Prince is a nurse. What could be wrong with this? After all, shouldn’t medical professionals, particularly the many women who can be found among nursers, physicians and care staff be flattered by these allusions to Wonder Woman, the ultimate female comic book WWII hero, in fact the ultimate female superhero?

 

Has not the dream of the self-proclaimed, and too loudly so, feminist creator of Wonder Woman, William Marston, of embedding a standard (Lepore, 2015) “of strong, free, courageous womanhood; and to combat the idea that women are inferior to men, and to inspire girls to self-confidence and achievements in athletics, occupations and professions monopolised by men” (p.220) finally been realized?

 

My concern is that this iconography helps to legitimate the exploitation of today’s Diana Princes, while feeding directly the illusionary halo of Wonder Woman. The cartoon superhero nurses are symptomatic of a body who has turned from the means of production to production itself, a grave general trend described poignantly by Susie Orbach in Bodies (2019): "Today only a few aspirational and idealised body types which everyone feels enjoined to work towards are taking the place of differing forms of embodiment in every land. Like the flattening consequences of the 9.2 per cent of world languages we are losing every three months because they have fewer than 10 speakers, I fear we are losing body variety too” (p.19). It is a rejection of the mundane everyday nature of the medical professional’s body expression, and of the COVID-19 sweaty unglamorous full protective gear reality. Moreover, it is a failure of imagination of what nurses do or who they are as people.

In the Female Eunuch, Germaine Greer (1971) wrote that “the most depressing phenomenon in the pattern of women’s work is the plight of the nurses” usually paid “a travesty of living wage”. Little has changed much since the book has been written. Whereas nursing and teaching continue to be among the typical female occupations, women in the sector have little hope of seeing a pay rise (most recently of a pitiful 1%) while society applauds their unswerving dedication and determination to help their patients. In the Journal of Clinical Nursing, Jackson et al. (2020) vividly describe the pandemic working conditions of nursing staff: “Nurses everywhere are staffing our clinics, hospital wards and units—in some situations, literally working until they drop, and in some regions, they are doing so while dealing with a lack of essential items.” The scandal of the pandemic PPE lacking full gowns and eye protection; with equipment out of date triggered an enquiry. Thus, the systematic failure of the PPE supply chain that leaves staff, usually on lower pay grades, woefully vulnerable has rightly been exposed and condemned but it is unclear what and if there will be any consequences.

In Britain, ONS reports that among women, three of nine major occupational groups have a statistically significantly higher mortality rate for deaths of COVID-19: caring, leisure and other service occupations (460 deaths) under which nursing falls (110 deaths among nurses; 240 deaths among care workers); followed by elementary occupations (227 deaths), process plant and machine operatives (57 deaths). Care workers are chronically underpaid and their many struggles have been frequently exposed. Heart-breaking stories keep cropping up of their failure to even get masks during the pandemic. Within medical professionals, the majority of COVID-19 fatalities are nurses or care workers who even in death do not get their specialty referred to, unlike doctors described by their field of practice: histopathology, geriatrics, neurorehabilitation, etc. Faced with the grave danger of COVID-19 the Wonder Woman myth dissipates as a mirage, she is literally short of her protective gear.

 

Even in these dark times, people are finding ways to support each other, and during the lockdown heartening examples of solidarity remind us of our common humanity: from the spread of crowdfunding campaigns to support public hospitals, and clapping for the NHS on Thursdays to flash mobs of neighbours singing on their balconies. Social norms around protecting the NHS, protecting the elderly and most vulnerable have been largely responsible for the observance of the social distance rather than fear or the exercise of social control through the police, research has shown. Yet, when we are called to remember the thousands of superheroes of the lockdown, nurses, medical professionals and essential workers, we will do well to remember the back story of Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman transforms herself in the ‘drab’ nurse Diana Prince to keep an eye on her injured pilot companion Steve, although in Amazonia, she is a doctor. Eventually, she quits nursing and becomes a secretary at U.S. military intelligence. She takes excellent dictation and is an extremely fast typist praised for “typing with the speed of lightning” (Lepore, 2015). Thus, Diana Prince is not a wonder woman, or even a wonder nurse. By embracing the role of a flexible support worker in a system that continues to marginalize and knowingly expose her to danger, she is every woman.

 

Reference:

 

Greer, G., 1971, The Female Eunuch. 1970: London: MacGibbon and Kee.

Lepore, J., 2015, The secret history of Wonder Woman, Vintage.

Orbach, S., 2019, Bodies, Profile books.

Prealpina, 2020, La Lombardia procede Cauta, Prealpina.