Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls

"Women's strong qualities have become despised because of their weakness. The obvious remedy is to create a feminine character with all the strength of Superman plus all the allure of a good and beautiful woman."
William Moulton Marston

Wonder Woman - the comic character, not actress Lynda Carter - will be honoured at her 75th birthday by becoming the United Nations' new Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls. The US Postal Service marks her birthday with the issue of four Wonder Woman stamps.



"Not even girls want to be girls so long as our feminine archetype lacks force, strength, and power."
William Moulton Marston

Wonder Woman was created by William Moulton Marston (1893-1947) and had her debut on 21 October 1941. According to DC, the story was "meant to test her appeal at a time when female superheroes were rare”, but the character “quickly broke out and headlined her own title by the next year".



On 21 October 2016, Wonder Woman will officially be designated for the position at a ceremony at the UN headquarters in New York City. Diane Nelson, DC Entertainment President, will accept the designation on behalf of Wonder Woman; Ban Ki-moon will attend the announcement.
Wonder Woman's 75th birthday will also be the day, the UN's global campaign achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls will be launched (via).



"Seventy-five years ago, while most comic book damsels in distress helplessly awaited rescue by their male protectors, Wonder Woman confidently brushed aside this established gender barrier. In groundbreaking tales, Wonder Woman continues to defuse the havoc of a male-dominated world—always with justice, equality, and peace. The U.S. Postal Service® celebrates her diamond anniversary by chronicling her evolution in comics, from her World War II origins to today.
In the wake of Superman’s phenomenal launch in 1938, hordes of copycat Super Heroes appeared in the pages of comic books. Most were short-lived, some endured, and virtually all were male characters. Then, in 1941, came Wonder Woman. With her peaceful ways and fearlessness, Wonder Woman stood out from the pack.
Creator William Moulton Marston was a psychologist who contributed toward the development of the polygraph—“lie detector”—and whose theories about women’s potential were atypical of his era. The middle-aged Ivy Leaguer was unlike most creators of Super Heroes in the genre’s early days: typically scrappy young sons of immigrants, seeking opportunity during the Depression. In comic books Marston recognized a powerful medium for his message. For this mission he assumed a secret identity: Charles Moulton.
Marston’s Wonder Woman was unique in its throwback visual style and its fast-forward intentions for society. He expressed a view that women’s power lies in their superior capacity to love and believed that women should rule the world—and would do a better job of it than men.
Although Wonder Woman was preceded by a handful of female characters who could be deemed Super Heroes, she quickly eclipsed them all. (...)"
USPS



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