Art by Michelle Zhuang

“I’m the Avatar, and you gotta deal with it!” a pudgy little girl said. She would grow up (in about 15 seconds) to be the most inspiring female hero yet on television. This summer, “The Legend of Korra” debuted on Nickelodeon, and the female lead, Korra, was everything a heroine should be. Korra had strength, attitude and a desire to leave her mark on the world. Every time she kicked the bad guys to the curb, she wore clothes that actually covered her body and aided, not impeded her.
Other pop culture heroines wear clothing that not only heavily reveal their bodies, but impede their ability to defend the universe. Lara Croft, the tomb raider, wears such tight clothing that she is a sex object first and a hero second.  Wonder Woman fights crime with impressive martial arts skills in a one-piece bathing suit, leaving her arms and legs easily open to injury. Even Disney, the archetype of family-friendly movies, conformed to the trend. Although their princesses weren’t marketed for sex, they were often the damsel in distress, and the dashing hero killed the villain in the end and saved the girl. However, Disney recently went against the grain and produced a number of films with princesses who weren’t afraid to play in the mud. While Sleeping Beauty dozed, Rapunzel went on an adventure with her trusty frying pan and Merida had a beary big problem.
When it comes to video games though, not even princesses are saved from becoming sex objects. Most video game genres have intense sexualization of their heroines, but the entire Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game industry is especially guilty of this. In World of Warcraft, Runescape, Forsaken World, and other random games, female characters always wear very little in terms of clothing and armor, leaving most of their body exposed, if it were realistic, to injury. Their armor resembles a swimsuit more than anything else.
In comic books, women superheroes often wear suits that leave themselves open to easy wounding too. Off the battleground, the superheroes also continue the trend. In DC’s New 52 reboot, Starfire exemplifies this. The first Starfire New 52 comic introduces her in a bikini, on an island, with only men around. The very first panel is of her butt, while throughout the comic, she comes across as promiscuous. Female heroes in comic books must have large chests first, revealing clothes second, suggestive themes third and then, if there’s some  time left over, a conviction to save the world.
But what is most annoying is how these media inundate people to think heroines must be sexy first and heroic second. Viewing a character designed for sexual appeal imparts a false expectation of what women should be like. Men sexually objectify women and have warped expectations, while women get the false impression that the only reason they’re important is their appearance, and without looking sexy, they cannot do anything important.
Thankfully, there’s a reemergence of the heroine who can get to business without constantly bombarding viewers with breasts and butts. Korra, Katniss, Rapunzel, Aveline in the upcoming “Assassins’ Creed III: Liberation”, Chell from “Portal,” and Alyx from  “Half Life 2” show the beginning of heroines that can save the world without having swimsuits for armor. Although DC dropped the ball with Starfire in the New 52, their other 51 heroes and heroines are actually heroic, not sex objects.
A society cannot go forward if its women are not even viewed as people. When someone is portrayed as a sex object, he/she is not viewed as a person any longer. The objectification of women cannot be fixed until society decides empowering women is more important than ogling over them. But what is a society but the people who make it up? This trope is so widespread that a normal boycott, while effective, would not only be difficult to do, but also difficult to find supporters.
The best method of ending this sexualization then is to go to the source: the degradation of women. To counteract the descent of women to sex objects, one must espouse the opposite. Supporting women’s rights is the best method to incite a return to realistic heroines. By taking this stance and working towards equality, degrading actions against women will become less commonplace.  Ultimately, everybody wins; there are no false expectations for either sex. Just as a house divided cannot stand, a society divided, by elevation and degradation of the sexes, will crumble.
By Atreyo Ghosh