Today’s Woman Superheros

Celebrating Women’s History Month and Woman Superheroes Everywhere

My name is Teresa Petroski and I’ve probably had some contact with some of you as I am the one you hear on the other side of the line when you call us for Support at StreamWise Solutions. My opening line is, “StreamWise Solutions, formerly known as freeTVee, this is Teresa.” It’s a mouthful. However, I do enjoy getting to meet our customers as we fulfill our mission of ensuring Connected Living Made Easy.

I was honored when asked to write a blog for March, Women’s History Month. Yet, I was also overwhelmed. How can I narrow down which women inspire me? From those close to home, my Mom, to those women who have been the source of inspiration and entertainment my entire lifetime.

I have a very wonderful (and slightly useless) Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Music with an emphasis in Vocal Performance. Don’t get me wrong. I love my degree. I use it to teach private lessons, pass the education onto my children, the occasional professional performance, and it really is a great topic at parties. I wondered if I should talk about musicians, the female vocalists that mimicked until I found my own voice. I could speak of these women for hours, days. But, we’re talking about television. So, let’s discuss my television heroes.

When I was around 5 yrs old, my ultimate hero was Wonder Woman. I had anything that produced her likeness. I had her cuffs, her costume (I dressed up as her three years in a row for Halloween), her headband, her lasso. I would spin around until I was so dizzy I would fall over, just waiting to transform into the amazing, Amazon goddess. Then, a few years later, it was Bionic Woman. I would pretend that, when I was running, I was actually going really fast so all people were really seeing was a blur.

There hasn’t been a huge path for female superheroes. It’s always Superman or Batman. Thor and Iron Man and Captain America. But, Marvel is making some great strides. As you can now see, I am a superhero nerd. If you really get into the nitty gritty of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you would know that some of the most powerful superheroes in their cast of characters are the women. Captain Marvel (2019) is considered to be the most powerful superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There’s also Wanda Maximoff, who is also considered to be one of the most powerful. She has a new series, WandaVision (2021). You can see both of these on Disney+.

Now, I know. These are just fictional characters. They’re also the fictional characters that our young girls will watch and re-enact as they play and dress up as for Halloween. They’ll see that Iron Man couldn’t have defeated the big bad guy without the women. They’ll see movies made just for them and find that women are just as powerful and can get the job done! It may seem frivolous to some but I’m watching my 9 year old daughter live it out. It’s empowering to the imagination of a 9 year old girl. It’s also somewhat inspiring to a woman in her forties.

Of course, they do not replace the real-life superheroes: our moms, our grandmothers, our aunts, our sisters. Of all the lessons I’ve learned, both from fiction and non-fiction superheroes, I hope I am able to teach my daughter the important things my mom passed onto me. Those lessons that her mother passed onto her.

Fictional superheroes may send the message that women can get the job done. Real-life superheroes show you how to make it happen.

Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman are copyrighted and a trademark of DC Comics. Captain Marvel, Wanda Maximoff, Captain America and Iron Man are part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and are copyright and trademark Marvel Entertainment. The Bionic Woman TV series was originally distributed by NBCUniversal Television.