Jason Todd: Feminist
Here's the thing about Jason and feminism: as a RPer, I have an actual, honest to god opportunity here to play a straight white cis male character with a genuine pro-ladies outlook. It is not a part of his canon, and it is not me imposing my interest in social justice issues onto his personality. The opportunity is there because of certain aspects of his history, and I am choosing to take it because these men are rare in real life, let alone in fiction. It is definitely open to interpretation, and it may not be entirely realistic, but Jason is not and never will be my mouthpiece, even on these matters. He is not by any means perfect, nor is he even a good person, very arguably. But ON THESE MATTERS... fuck yes, I'm gonna play him respectful, opinionated, and proactive.
Most fans, when they reference Jason's general women-positivity, are referring to one thing in canon his ambiguous killing of a serial rapist, whose last victim killed herself. It is never stated whether he deliberately pushed Garzonas off the balcony, whether the man fell, as Jason claimed to Batman, or whether he fell and Jason made no attempt to save him. I tend to think it's the last one. It doesn't really matter. In any case, you don't need to be or to identify as a feminist to be outraged and angered by rape, so this is not exactly the hard evidence people might like it to be.
Most of his on panel relationships with women are not very well documented, and/or retconned, as with Nocturna. He was also kind of jokingly sleazy with Babs that one time, though you can excuse that as A) joking and B) he was like... sixteen at the time. His brief interest in Donna was not especially noteworthy, but it at least had no gross moments that I can remember. He seems to connect with Donna because he remembers her from his limited days with the Titans, and because she too died, she too is out of place. Furthermore, she's compassionate toward him, at least until he shoots her during that ruse. His relationship with Talia was, uh. Weird. It started when he was sixteen and it was decidedly non-sexual then. Though the scene where Talia tells him Bruce misses him is actually very touching, Talia's motivations for what she did have never been clear (her motivations for ANYTHING she does are never clear, honestly), and by the time she's funding Jason's little learning expedition, things have changed. I think it's safe to say she does feel something for Jason, and that Jason felt something for her, but towards the end, Jason was well aware she was trying to keep him from Batman. And the way she initiated sex was, well, really transparently manipulative. He did not miss it. The transparency was arguably a form of honesty from her. I don't know, you'd have to ask someone who understands Talia. There is genuine feeling between them, but Talia was, as far as I can tell, straight up doing that to enforce her request of Jason to make Batman suffer. I think, though it is never said in canon, that their relationship probably more or less ended after that. She continued to fund him for a time, through the Hush storyline and into Under the Hood, but after that, I think he was on his own. Chronologically speaking after that, Jason never mentions Talia that I know of, not even in private narration (well, there's not much of that, not ANY of that, that I know of).
His adoptive mother died pretty early on in his life, but from all indications, he loved her and did not blame her or deride her. His biological mom sold him out to the Joker, but despite that, he did his best to save her. What's in canon is not really enough to support the idea of Jason as a feminist, but to be honest, in DC comics, a LACK of horrible misogyny is almost remarkable, and in my opinion, worth capitalizing on in an IC way, of course.
Feminism is obviously not Jason's purview for tons of reasons, most prominently because his focus is on killing criminals and being a jerk. Secondly, he does not have the time, and probably has never had the time, to engage in these kinds of discussions, or take any classes about them (dude never went to college, so), nor does he spend time with would-be rapists to educate them on consent. He just kills the fuck out of them, and feels good about it. Anything and everything he thinks on the matter arises from his own experience and personal feelings and thoughts and because he's a dude, he has had to think about rape a whole lot less than most women have. Men do experience rape, and these rapes tend to go unreported, but it is different from the way women are told and taught to think about, deal with, or process rape that happens to them. And yeah, he spent some years running around in short-shorts, so he's had his share of gross comments, but it's not the same, and he's aware of that, even if it's not an articulate awareness.
If/when these matters arise, you will not see him using the correct terms or talking about ideas like rape culture. Instead, he shares the ideas and concerns that the terminology have arisen from: he does not blame victims, he does not slutshame, he has strong ideas about consent.
In my headcanon, this arises from his childhood in Gotham, where he was on his own a lot, and in the streets. He was a smart, sociable kid, and I think that he knew the people in his area, and that when they could afford to, they also looked out for him. Some of these people were women, and some of them were sex workers. I'm not trying to draw a picture of a ~hooker with a heart of gold~ type substitute maternal relationship; Jason was really on his own, he did not have adults taking care of him, and these people were not saints, nor were they sociopaths. He probably saw a lot of life when he was very young unpleasant things, horrible things, violent things. And he knew they were wrong, and they made him angry, and these things formed his concept of justice. Batman was the one who came along and gave him the means to express it.
This is why people who read sexual intent into his kidnapping of Mia frustrate the fuck out of me. NO. ... NO. It was not sexy, it was not him crushing on Mia. He was reaching out to someone who had a similar background to him, someone he thought he might be able to talk around to his side. He would have kidnapped Mia if Mia had been a dude, he would have kidnapped Mia if Mia had been an alien, assuming he somehow knew alien!Mia had a similar background. No, it was not a GOOD idea, but he went in with the assumption that Mia would not listen to him otherwise, and also, he's a jerk who takes those kinds of liberties with people who are vigilante superhero types, because kidnapping is part of that business. He was looking for a friend and a partner. He probably would have been open to that developing into more over time, but he was not holding out for that, because first he had to see if she even agreed.
Jason might not self-identify as a feminist, or an ally, but he is. It's just not his primary issue. He kills people, he blows shit up, that's his life; he's a dude who, by and large, does not have to worry about rape happening to him personally or even to the women he associates with, since they're all superpowered badasses. He has to worry about dying in a knife fight or falling off a statue into the bay. He's not about to come out to Slut Walk (especially now with the racism fail), but he's going to speak sharply to people on certain subjects, as he did in this thread in LV, with Mark Hoffman. There are a few phrases there that, if I did this thread today, I might not use, such as the bootstraps reference, or even the use of the term "social justice," because I think that sounds too much like a person who has the time and inclination to participate in actual discussions about this kind of thing. Sadly, it reminds me of a lot of what's going on right now with the Occupy Wall Street protests, even though this was months before. And you can bet what Jason would think about that, too.