“The fight for women’s rights hasn’t come in waves. Wonder Woman was a product of the suffragist, feminist, and birth control movements of the 1900s and 1910s and became a source of the women’s liberation and feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The fight for women’s rights has been a river, wending.”
― Jill Lepore, The Secret History of Wonder Woman
Everyone knows Wonder Woman is a princess from an island of Amazonian female warriors, but what is her true back story? Who created her? Is there more to her creation than just superhero entertainment? Historian Jill Lepore answers these questions and more in this fascinating true story and it is crazy, compelling, and incredibly ironic.
Wonder Woman’s creator, William Moulton Marston, was a psychologist, author, inventor, and an internationally recognized expert on truth. He developed the first lie detector test. For a man consumed by the desire to detect lies, his life was full of secrets and those secrets found their way into his Wonder Woman comics.. Marston was a huge proponent of women’s rights and believed the world would be better if women were in charge. Many of his views on women’s rights are reflected in his comic strip and Wonder Woman, in many ways, became the ideal of the feminist movement
Lepore has done impeccable research and the result is a compelling book that draws in the reader. This book features family secrets, the rise of feminism, the introduction and legalization of birth control, the history of comic books and the importance of Wonder Woman.. Lepore postulates that Wonder Woman played a crucial role in the history and struggle for women’s rights. This is a must read for anyone who wants to better understand the battle for women’s equality or for those who love comic books and super heroes.
Content Advisory: Some language