The Secret History of Wonder Woman

Chains are a ubiquitous motif in the book, used as a sign of oppression. As a symbol borrowed from slavery, they were used by early proponents of women’s rights to mean the same thing they meant to African Americans: slavery (in this case to men), lack of freedom, and suppression of rights. Lepore points to their use throughout feminist literature, and the book reproduces a number of examples drawn by artists like Lou Rogers. Margaret Sanger uses their image to represent the enslavement of women who are forced to bear children, writing that “[b]irth control could unlock those chains” (102). Likewise, Marston adopts chains in Wonder Woman to show the plight of women everywhere kept down by man’s domination. Some would argue he overdoes it, as bondage of some form is everywhere in the pages of the comic, leaving him open to the criticism that it actually represents sadism. At one point his publisher, Charlie Gaines, suggested reducing the use of chains in the comic by up to 75%, arguing it wouldn’t “at all interfer[e] with the excitement of the story or the sales of the books” (242).