I think one of the more problematic issues I had with Wonder Woman is how she is represented. She shows women how to be stronger but only encourages men to see that women are superior. Why not help the weak men see that they can be strong as well as females? It was also a bit disheartening that the symbol for female strength and pride has a costume that revolves around knee-high boots, a corseted looking top, and short shorts. For the time she was written, I wonder how scandalous her clothing actually was.
The gender stereotypes being played out are interesting as well. If gender is a performance made of social construction, as Judith Butler suggests, then how is it that a female amazon warrior, who lives with only women, has more 'masculine' traits? Her strength and confidence are inherent, meaning they are naturally occurring. It is not as if she has sat around a television set, watching men doing 'manly' deeds, and said to herself 'I want to be like him!'. I found the picture below most interesting when searching for Wonder Woman and gender in Google because it plays with the stereotypes. You have the older gentleman who is not only calling Wonder Woman a dame but insisting that she cannot drink in his bar. To get a drink of something stronger than tea, Wonder Woman must use her magical lasso to convince the man that serving her ale must be done. His wording, "but something compels me too", does not mean the man changed his mind; in fact, he cannot help but serve her despite wanting to. So does this make Wonder Woman a bully?
Try this experiment: go to Bing and look up 'Wonder Woman and Power Girl' in images. Looking under the search bar is a list of pair females. Clicking on any of those will most likely result with the two women sharing a kiss within the first 10-20 images, along with some intimate poses together. While this is seen further down the list of images for Wonder Woman and Power Girl as opposed to other pairs, it still sets the boundaries for what certain fans want out of the character's relationship. Interestingly, this is not the case if you type in Batman and a male counterpart, unless the search specifically includes the terms 'gay' or 'kissing'. Perhaps this is because of the "forever" assumption that there was always more going on between the caped crusader and his trusty sidekick. However, I did find this image to be of interest.
Considering that every other superhero names a woman and that Batman talks about Robin, I found this image to be poorly in favor of those who think the relationship between Batman and Robin is strictly platonic. I am not sure which comic number this is from but I would be interested to know if the Robin at the time was a male or female (such as Jason Todd or Carrie Kelly).