a historical context for the lack of female representation in comics. In 1954, the comics industry was attacked by parents, psychologists, and politicians who were concerned that comic books were unfit for children. Superheroines, who had made their debut in 1941, were criticized for violating gender norms and for perceived lesbian and sadomasochistic content. In response to the threat of government regulation, the Comics Magazine Association of America imitated the film industry's self-governed Hays Code with the creation of the Comics Code Authority in 1954. The code limited content of all newsstand comic books. As a result, code-approved comics portrayed women in a mostly conservative, traditional manner for the next few decades. As social norms changed, the code was occasionally revised to be less restrictive. As the direct market developed in the early 1980s, publishers were able to sell comics without code approval easily, so fewer publishers subjected themselves to it. The code became less important until it was completely abandoned in 2011. Feminism in comics The enforcement of gender roles within comics continued well past the 1950s. The roles of women in comics during the 1960s and 70s shifted to become more diverse and began to extend past traditional roles as a result of the civil rights movement, second wave feminism, and the sexual revolution, when more women in society were taking on predominantly male professions and advocating for social rights. In the 1970s, female characters in comics and other mainstream media were sometimes depicted as "playing with the boys" and taking more traditionally male-dominated roles, though they still tended to be cast as love interests or to take maternal roles. Prominent superheroines that were introduced during this period in comics were Spider-Woman, Ms. Marvel, the Cat, and Valkyrie. Despite the industry's historically and culturally backed creation of a male-dominated market, there has been an increase in female readership, as well as an increase in convention attendance by women. In addition to historical censorship, the male domination of comic book culture has been self-perpetuating. The view that comic book reading was a hobby strictly for males created a hostile environment for the female comic book reader. Women that read comics were often viewed as "doing womanhood wrong" or as individuals that "read comics wrong". This led to a cyclical pattern of hostility towards females in the comic book audience. Author Douglas Wolk states: "I remember seeing a Marvel sales