This year has been a doozy for supporters of gender equality and women’s advancement, even beyond Hillary Clinton’s defeat and Donald Trump’s victory. Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, was ousted from power, and South Korea’s first female president, Park Geun-hye, now seems poised to meet that same fate. The IMF’s first female chief, Christine Lagarde, is currently engulfed in a trial that could jeopardize her future. The number of female CEOs in the Coins2Day 500 sank from 24 to 21. And some bright, still rising business stars—Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes, Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer—have plummeted like fireballs back to earth.
So grab hold and don’t let go of this tiny victory: A fictional character in a bustier, underpants, and cape will no longer represent female empowerment. That’s right, the UN has canned Wonder Woman from her role as an honorary ambassador.
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In October, the UN rejected seven qualified, real-life female candidates for secretary general in favor of another man—a decision that came after the outgoing secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said it was “high time” for a woman to lead the body for the first time in its 70-year existence. Those who had hoped for a female secretary general were disappointed when former Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Guterres won the job. The Campaign to Elect a Woman UN Secretary-General, a group of mostly academics, called the outcome an “outrage.”
“There were seven outstanding female candidates and in the end it appears they were never seriously considered,” the campaigners said in a statement.
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Around that same time, the UN decided it was a good idea to appoint the skimpily-dressed fictional heroine Wonder Woman as an honorary ambassador for “the empowerment of women and girls.”
Given the circumstances, UN staffers were rightfully outraged at the announcement and dozens of them protested the ceremony during which Diane Nelson, president of DC Comics publisher DC Entertainment, said the Wonder Woman campaign would feature various initiatives “over the course of the next year.”
An online petition opposing the campaign gained some 45,000 signatures. It urged Ban, whose term ended Monday, to reconsider Wonder Woman’s role, stating that while the character’s original iteration may have evoked strength and independence, the current version “of a large-breasted, white woman of impossible proportions, scantily clad in a shimmery, thigh-baring body suit,” was the wrong message for the organization—which champions female empowerment across cultures—to send.
Now it seems that, while UN has yet to put a woman in top job, supporters of gender equality have won at least one win: Reuters reports that Wonder Woman’s reign will end rather abruptly this Friday.
The UN did not immediately return Coins2Day‘s request for comment on the matter.
A spokesperson didn’t explain the move to Reuters beyond saying that fictional characters’ campaigns are sometimes brief, so let’s allow the unspoken logic of the decision to fill the vast void of good news for women on the world stage.
