Women Only Wonder Woman Screening — Alamo Drafthouse NYC tweet announcing women-only Wonder Woman screenings for Planned Parenthood

Women Only Wonder Woman Screening

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Published October 8, 2026

Women Only Wonder Woman Screening refers to the female-only showings of the 2017 superhero film organized by Alamo Drafthouse starting May 25th, 2017. The announcement sold out in minutes and ignited a backlash from men who called the policy sexist, kicking off one of the loudest gender-and-pop-culture flame wars of summer 2017.

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Overview

The Women Only Wonder Woman Screening was a set of all-female screenings of Patty Jenkins' 2017 Wonder Woman film at Alamo Drafthouse locations, with venue staff, projectionists and kitchen workers all being women1. Admission was open to "people who identify as women," a phrasing that itself became a flashpoint in the comment-section fight that followed2.

The story worked less as a visual meme and more as a running news cycle. The Facebook announcement filled up with angry comments accusing the chain of reverse sexism, which were then screenshotted and dunked on in feminist spaces5. Alamo's social accounts leaned into the fight, most notably with a Furiosa image captioned "[men yelling indistinctly]" that became the signature clapback of the week3.

Origin & Background

Platform
Alamo Drafthouse website / Facebook (viral spread)
Creator
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
Date
2017

On May 25th, 2017, the Alamo Drafthouse Austin posted a listing for a June 6th, 2017 screening of Wonder Woman open only to "people who identify as women," promising an all-female crew for the night1. The theater framed it as a one-off celebration tied to the first major female-led superhero release of the modern era.

The first show sold out within minutes, prompting Alamo to schedule a second Austin screening and announce expansions at other locations, as covered by io9's Beth Elderkin the same day2. On May 25th the Brooklyn location's Twitter account @AlamoNYC confirmed a New York women-only screening with proceeds going to Planned Parenthood4.

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How It Spread

The backlash moved faster than the ticket sales. Within hours of the Austin announcement, the Alamo Drafthouse Facebook post picked up thousands of reactions, with men flooding the comments to call the policy exclusionary and demand a men-only equivalent5. The announcement post pulled in more than 4,200 reactions and 1,400 shares as the fight grew5.

Alamo Drafthouse's New York account answered the critics on May 25th with a Mad Max: Fury Road still of Furiosa and the caption "[men yelling indistinctly]," which pulled in more than 4,800 retweets and 15,000 likes in under a day3. Reddit split along predictable lines: r/KotakuInAction users piled onto the io9 coverage6, while r/Feminism and r/TrollXChromosomes threads cheered the sellout and screenshotted the angriest Facebook comments7.

Mainstream outlets jumped on the row by May 26th. CNN, CBS Austin, BBC News, The Washington Post and BuzzFeed all ran stories framing the backlash as the latest skirmish in the ongoing fight over female-led blockbusters891011. Twitter published a Moments page the same day collecting the best reactions to the women-only screenings2.

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Frequently Asked Questions