Warning: SPOILERS for Wonder Woman!
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Granted, in the course of 75 years of comic book stories, Wonder Woman wasn’t always a goddess in the literal sense. This divine nature to her origin where she is now the daughter of Zeus as opposed to a being molded from clay and given life by the gods (her original origin, as told to her as a fable by Hippolyta in the movie), is a relatively recent upgrade to her powers and status. As DC Comics’ greatest female superhero, it places Wonder Woman on more equal footing with Superman in terms of power levels.
One thing to keep in mind, however, is that from a filmmaking point of view, it’s important to find ways to differentiate superhero characters, especially when they meet and fight side by side, as Superman and Wonder Woman have (and will again). Superman is absolutely bulletproof; since his earliest days as a character “nothing less than a bursting shell can penetrate his skin.” For decades, Superman has been proudly invulnerable to gunfire - every part of him, as Brandon Routh’s Man of Steel proved when he let a criminal shoot him point blank in the eye and let the bullet bounce off his eyeball in Superman Returns.
It’s hard to imagine Superman using a shield to protect himself from machine gun fire. Just as Wonder Woman can apparently fly, to contrast her with Superman, she won’t soar at enemies the way he does, and she will never stand still, puff out her chest, and let anyone open a barrage of gunfire at her, where Superman just calmly lets the shells bounce off his S shield. That’s Superman’s thing. Wonder Woman, who is by far the superior hand-to-hand combatant, fights and defends herself as only Wonder Woman can.
Though it makes little sense, considering that she has the powers of a Greek god, that Wonder Woman isn’t bulletproof as part of her wide range of invulnerability (such as walking through a town covered with deadly mustard gas with absolutely no ill-effects), we likely will always see her using her gauntlets to block bullets. Even if she doesn’t actually need to. That move - which will forever be imitated by anyone fantasizing themselves to be Wonder Woman - is one of the primary things the greatest female superhero icon in the world is known for. It’s a move anyone wishes they could do; after all, none of us are gods. Like her magic lasso and her tiara, Wonder Woman simply wouldn’t be Wonder Woman without blocking bullets with her gauntlets - even if she never truly has to fear speeding bullets.
