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Abigail Reed
Professor Beadle
English 115
October 5, 2015
The Discrimination of Women
Fighting, punching, grabbing, kicking, and saving the day and all of it is done by a
woman superhero? Some may not believe it because its a woman and women do not act that
masculine, but it is true Kamala Khan does all of this. Whether its defying the odds at her
home with her very religious culture or in the outside world when shes saving lives. In the
comic Ms. Marvel, written by G. Willow Wilson, Kamala Khan is not able to transgress the
normal gender roles as a result of gaining superpowers because society is to blame for enforcing
gender expectations and stereotypes within culture.
Kamala is very determined all throughout the comic proving that her culture is not going
to hold her back, but she ends up being held back by her very cultural family. When Kamala
asked her father if she could go to a party he immediately asked if there was going to be boys
there. When she told him there was, he told her no and there was no reasoning with him. She
ended up disobeying her fathers rules and snuck out to the party anyways. She did not think it
was that big of a deal because she said, Its just a party. One party. Its not like Im asking their
permission to snort cocaine (Wilson 9). Kamala doesnt care what the consequences are if shes
caught, she just goes out and does what she wants. When shes at the party later in the story she
lashes out at Bruno saying, Youre embarrassing me. I dont need your help. Im not some

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child (Wilson 12). All Bruno was trying to do was help Kamala out which is a classic example
of gender roles. He felt like because he was the man in the friendship he had to worry about her
and make sure she was alright. Kamala did not want anything to do with him because she just
wanted to be able to be herself without someone being attached to her at the hip. In this situation
she is not able to defy gender roles because the society around her acts upon the gender roles
without even realizing it.
When Kamala meets Captain Marvel and all of the other characters she is in awe, but
shes torn between masculinity and feminity. Captain Marvel is portrayed as this beautiful blonde
skinny women so Kamala looks up to her. She wants to be Captain Marvel but she also wants to
kick butt which is not lady like. This is an example of how girls always look up to other girls
because they think that the other girl is prettier, smarter, or just all around better than themselves.
When asked by Captain Marvel who she wants to be she responds by saying, Right now? I want
to be beautiful and awesome and butt-kicking and less complicated (Wilson 18). What Kamala
says about what she wants to be is two-sided because she wants to be beautiful and awesome like
all girls but she contrasts it by saying she wants to be butt-kicking and less complicated- these
tend to be masculine qualities.
When Kamala talks about her costume, she says, Except I would wear the classic,
politically incorrect costume and kick butt in giant wedge heels (Wilson 18). She points out that
society doesnt think that you can be a woman and wear heels but at the same time kick butt
because the two dont go together. In the article Rethinking Womens Biology, Ruth Hubbard
makes the point, Differences, be they biological or psychological, become scientifically
interesting only when they parallel differences in power (Hubbard 51). What this says is when

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there are differences between men and women only become interesting when it comes to who
over rules the other. This society does not care about differences unless it is about comparing two
together to see who did it better than the other.
Another example of when Kamala is faced with the hardships of gender discrimination is
when she goes to the mosque for one of her church services. The head of the service is a man and
hes sitting with all of the other men, while the women are sitting on the other side of a wall
listening too. When Kamala and Nakia are talking during church because of boredom the head of
service gets mad. Kamala tries to explain when she says, S-sorry, Sheikh Abdullah, but its
really hard to concentrate when we cant even see you (Wilson 47). This situation is completely
out of her control even with superpowers. She cant stand up and tell the head of the service what
to do because it would be disrespectful. In reply to what Kamala said, Sheikh Abdullah
explained, The partition and the side entrance for women are there to preserve your modesty
and dignity (Wilson 48). This is the perfect case of how women are treated completely different
than men and they are the ones who have to deal with the consequences.
Anybody could argue that Kamala is able to transgress the normal gender roles because
she stands up for what she believes in and doesnt make decisions on how society would react to
her choices. For example, when she is sent up to her room after asking to go to a party she says,
Ive always done what they ask me to doarent I allowed to do anything my way? Just once?
(Wilson 9). Kamala tries so hard to be who she wants to be and tries to be normal. Later she
says Why cant I? (Wilson 9) and is pictured sneaking out. Kamala is fearless of her alpha
father who comes off as intimidating, the head of the house, and the rule enforcer. Patricia Hill
Collins makes the argument that, The women need not have submissive personalities; they only

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need to recognize the boundaries of White male authority (Collins 235). Yes, women should
stand up for themselves because women and men are equal but sometimes it may be too hard.
Women should have enough confidence to stand up for themselves, but the harsh reality
is they dont. Women are demoralized because they are seen as powerless and secondary. Society
has engraved these ideas so much into everyones brain that people dont even realize its a
problem anymore. Kamala is constantly being held back because of her religion and her race. For
example, when she asks to go to a party her dad explains to her, Of course I trust you, beti. But
its not safe for a young girl to be out late at night with strange boys, drinking God knows what
and thinking God knows what (Wilson 8). Kamalas dad tells her that he trusts her but not the
boys, in this scene she is portrayed as powerless because the dad doesnt think that she can stand
up for herself of something were to happen because she is a girl. She doesnt say anything to his
face because hes the dictator of the house but she ends up sneaking out without him knowing.
There are many reasons why women do not stand up to men and a lot of the time its because
they too often also believe that they have to listen to men.
Men have a tendency to hover and try to protect women most of the time, but in the case
of Kamala and Bruno he does more harm than good. Bruno hovers over Kamala too much
because he feels like he needs to take on the masculine traits of their friendship. When Bruno
sees Kamala getting tricked into drinking orange juice and some vodka he immediately becomes
defensive and stands up for her. He ends up trying to say, Look, you need to get out of here.
When the meatheads start drinking, they get stupid (Wilson 12). Bruno feels like he has to tell
Kamala to go home because if the guys get stupid then they might do something to Kamala
which shows that men are seen as more powerful. Bruno does not think twice before telling her

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to go home because this is seen as a normality in our society. Another example of Bruno being
overprotective and showing masculine traits is when Kamala is going to go into the house to save
Vick and right before she goes in Bruno wants to talk to her first. Bruno wants to make sure that
she knows the panic code. He expresses his concern about Kamala being alone in the house by
saying, Remember the panic code. If something goes wrong, call and let it ring twice and then
hang up. Ill call the cops (Wilson 98). It seems as though it would be a lot easier if Kamala just
called the cops herself because it would be faster but Bruno want to know whats going on and
he wants to be in control.
Too many times in the movie industry the male is always the one who sweeps in to save
the day or the womans life. An example of this would be when Patricia Hill Collins talking
about Tarzan saying, He does this through establishing power hierarchies in which all othersand especially blacks and women-are subordinate to him (Collins 222). This statement is true
because there always is a savior and they are white most of the time. Bruno could be seen as a
similar character to Tarzan because he always wants to save the day and tries to be overbearing.
Kamalas father could also be seen as a Tarzan because he establishes this kind of powerful
hierarchy in order to make him the boss in the house.
Gender expectations are so engraved into our everyday society norms that people do
not even realize they are around anymore. People act upon these gender expectations and do not
realize that when they act upon them they are only engraving them into the next generations
minds and showing them that it is okay to create gender roles. People will not be able to
transgress the normal gender roles until we put an end to enforcing them. Kamala tries to

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transgress the normal gender roles but she is not able to completely escape societies opinion
because she knows no matter what decision she makes there always be flaws within it.

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Works Cited Page

1. Collins, Patricia. Hegemonic Masculinity and Black Gender Ideology. Composing
Gender. Ed. John E. Sullivan: Bedford/St. Martins, 2013. 222-240. Print.
2. Hubbard, Ruth. Rethinking Womens Biology. Composing Gender. Ed. John E.
Sullivan: Bedford/St. Martins, 2013. 46-52. Print.
3. Wilson, Willow G, Writer. Ms. Marvel. Artists Adrian Alphona and Jacob Wyatt. Color
artist Ian Herring. Letterer VCs Joe Caramagna. Cover art Sarah Pichelli, Justin Ponsor,
Jamie Mckelvie, Matthew Wilson, and Kris Anka.

Summary of my trip to the Learning Resource Center

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When I went to the Learning Resource Center I went there to get help mainly on my
thesis. I was having a hard time trying to say what I wanted to and then put my opinion into a
summary of what I was trying to say. I also wanted to get help on my conclusion because I know
that the conclusion is supposed to be a restatement of your thesis but I also wanted to make sure
that my sentences were clear and made sense. When she gave me suggestions about the body
portion of my essay she suggested that I do not use contractions but I only had one anyways so
that was an easy fix. We also went over the fact that I used the word example too many times so
it sounded repetitive. I also needed to make some of my points a lot clearer like I did with my
thesis because some of them were a little hard to understand. For my body part of my essay I
also had to clean it up and make sure there were no unnecessary words or phrases that didnt
need to be in the sentence. When she helped me try to revise my thesis I think I got a clearer
vison on how it is supposed to sound and include. One last thing that I had to do was expand on
what I was trying to say and not just summarize it. I found that going to the Learning Resource
center was a huge help for me and helped me get a better understanding of what I needed to
revise.