Welcome back to our first-ever Women’s Month Series! Throughout the month of March, we will be highlighting different women in pop culture — fictional characters, celebrities, and activists alike — who we think exemplify accurate and honest portrayals of women in the mainstream media and use their voices to empower and uplift.
For decades, Lois Lane has been a trailblazer in the world of comics and screens both big and small. While not classified as a “superhero,” at the time of her creation, women had little freedom. Created in 1938 by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, few women were working. In comes Lois Lane, the first female character to spearhead a comic series of her own, as an ambitious workhorse journalist willing to do whatever it takes to get a story.
Lois appeared first in Action Comics #1 and for over 80 years, she has been at the forefront of a pop culture movement. Kick-started with the 1940s Superman film franchise to having her own young adult novel series Lois Lane by writer Gwenda Bond, Lois Lane is arguably one of the best-known female comic characters of all time.
Lois has been re-invented several times over her character’s span. A cut-throat Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, Superwoman, a wife, a mom — there’s nothing she hasn’t done. When crossing over to mainstream media, there have been many portrayals — both animated and live-action — that provide the character with even more opportunities for “firsts.”
This includes a tender and sensitive moment in Superman & Lois when she reveals she had a miscarriage before the twins were born. Lois doesn’t stray away from being vulnerable and the series does an excellent job portraying these human struggles.
Lois has gone from just a love interest with a side plot to a co-lead, spearheaded by Teri Hatcher in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and Dana Delany in Superman: The Animated Series, the current on-screen portrayals of the character would not exist if it wasn’t for the women that proved not only can she monetize the universe on paper, but she can do it elsewhere, too.
Decades later, Lois still stands as a beacon of perseverance and power to all who look up to her. She’s not whittled down to “Clark Kent’s wife” she has and always will be Lois Lane, and there’s nobody else like her.
