How director Patty Jenkins cracked the superhero-movie glass ceiling

Washington

IN the new film Wonder Woman, our title hero leaves her empowering, all-female island of Themyscira for the tightly corseted society of World War I-era London. As her companions coax the Amazon-tribe warrior into trading in her free-flowing leather skirt for the confining bustle of a male-dominated Western world, Diana Prince has a natural question: How do you fight in this attire?

The scene also reflects the challenge for the film's director, Patty Jenkins: in an industry forever plagued by sexism, she wondered: How do I succeed as the first woman to direct a big-budget superhero feature?

Like some other female directors, her answer is that she …