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Richard Hauer
Beadle
English 115
December 2nd, 2015
Close but no Cigar
In this day in age, super heroes dont have the same effect they used to. In fact, super
heroes portray various stereotypes and other various traits that go against equality and benefiting
the future. Although a good attempt in the graphic novel, Ms. Marvel written by G. Willow
Wilson and illustrated by Adrian Alphona, our teenage hero Kamala does not break these
prescribed gender roles. Not to say she does not do her best in trying but, she often follows a lot
of stereotypes when the going gets tough and it works against her cause. Ms. Marvel is the story
of a young muslim girl who gains super powers and uses them to fight evil (just as almost any
other graphic super hero novel would be about). Our protagonist, Kamala, however is not our
average female super hero, and neither are her origins. Kamala is a teenage muslim girl in what
seems to be the United States. She struggles with being a teenager, finding her individuality and
breaking the norms society has placed on her gender and for her religion. Kamala is constantly
growing and making realizations about her gender and its prescribed norms but never actually
breaks them. She faces them and brings them into the light where she sees that a gender
shouldnt hold her back from performing a certain action or living her life but she never
confronts it. Kamala does have other expectations she must follow, the major one is being a
teenage Muslim girl because she has many more restrictions put on her then any other teenage
girl. These restrictions follow her almost everywhere in her daily life because not only does she

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have to act in the norm of a typical teenage girl she also has to withhold her families ways of
life. These ways stray from the norm in our society as well, Americans (where she is living) tend
to give females more equality within religion and a daily way of life where in her culture,
females arent even allowed where the male are when it comes time to pray and worship their
God. Not to say that she didnt make a major impact for females in pop culture and in the media
but she did not transcend the gender expectations that society places on young women these days
especially in the fight for equality. Her failure to transgress prescribed gender expectations was
shown through, her actions at the party, her actions when facing the robber, the way her dad acts
with her, and when Bruno preps her to go back in the evil base and fight the villains.
American society has always portrayed perfection in white males through, pop culture,
multimedia (including but not limited to, music, movies, video games and radio) and
advertisement. In the article Hegemonic Masculinity and Black Gender Ideology by Patricia
Hill Collins, Collins states, yet , just as masculinities are simultaneously constructed in relation
to one another and hierarchically related, femininities demonstrate a similar patter (Collins).
What she is saying here is that since the dawn of society and mass communication, we have been
building these norms and expectations that should be followed within society. Furthermore it has
given power to a particular group of people while stripping everyone else of this. This creates a
sort of hierarchy that does not benefit our society whatsoever. With that its obvious that this has
been going on in society for a long time due to miscommunication. Not only hurting women as a
whole but hurting men that are not white. This is exactly what weve been trying to stop for the
longest time in the fight for equality but seems to be what society is actually working against.
This hierarchy then gives way to stereotypes in every aspect of the media and more specifcally

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within graphic novels. White females are portrayed as blonde haired blue eyed super heroes or a
damsel in distress while women of other races are portrayed as villains, traitors or sex symbols in
seducing the protagonist out of succeeding on his quest. Woman never have there voices heard
when it comes to how they would like to be spoken for in the media due to the hegemonic nature
of this society. Hegemonic is defined as ruling or dominant in a political or social
context (Webster). Again in the media you often see politicians only being white older me. This
in itself takes any voice away that women were trying to have in politics, it instead makes them
look is if they are trying to prove a point as female rather then run for the betterment of our
society. Kamalas view upon herself and how her character should look at this point in time is a
great example of how she only progresses these stereotypes that women are facing. Ms. Marvel
is portrayed as a tall, curvy, white woman with blue eyes and blonde hair who could fights with
no logic whatsoever, simply brute force and violence. This scene is so bad to the point that when
she goes to fight, she almost instantly looses, getting shot by the robber she is trying to stop and
he feels so bad that he stops what he is doing to call her an ambulance and turn himself in. the
robber acted upon pity of failure. It was almost as if he was acting upon her failure of
transgressing prescribed gender norms, he knew she couldnt fight so he gave up. This is a
particularly poor thing to show the young women of society because not only did she make
herself a stereotypical white female but she also made herself the damsel in distress and was
practically making women seem as if they cant do anything. She proves the stereotypes that
women dont fight well and only strong white males can be super heroes. Later in the novel
Kamala takes on her hardships as herself, using logic and dressing herself as a super hero rather
than this white female alter-ego. This would have been a major factor in her transgressing these
gender norms however, it was already too late because she believed those stereotypes of how to

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fight crime and how to look which in turn means she didnt truly break gender norms. Females in
America and in general have no voice within pop culture Kamal proves this by following the
gender norms placed on her in the beginning of the novel.

When tragedy strikes and the news is released, suspects who are not white males create

stereotypes for their entire race. Even if the suspects arent males, the females of will often face
these stereotypes as well accept in this case they have no voice. Whatever race commits that
particular atrocity is looked down upon and the corespondents and those who cover it lose the
voice or credibility they once had if it pertains to their race. Muslim women have it the worse
because in the news they are portrayed to be helpless slaves to males that are often worth less
then a house cat. They are seen as useless almost and if yours doesn't work then just go out and
get a new one or another one. In an article written by Dr Suad Joseph (Distinguished Professor
of Anthropology and Women and Gender Studies, University of California, Davis) he says

I began my research on Arab Muslim women as portrayed by Hollywood in 1960.By

locating, viewing, and studying more than 60 movies, I discovered many portraits that are
dangerous and destructive and should be taken seriously, as well as others that are less offensive.
In films ranging from yesteryear's foreign legion thrillers up to and including contemporary
political dramas, producers associatethe Arab Muslim woman with violence, sex, and oppression.
Locked into a cycle of predictable character-types, she has appeared in every sort of film
imaginable: sword-and-sandal soaps, musical comedies, magic carpet fantasies, historical tales,
movie serials, and terrorist shoot-'m-ups. In films that feature any image of an Arab Muslim
woman, stereotypical idiosyncrasies abound that can be seen as rigid and repetitive (Joseph).

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The media has never portrayed Muslim women in a good light which Kamalas mother seems to
extend into the modern day. She discusses how Kamala should act and what she should do when
she goes to church. Her mother strongly believes that women have little to no rights. Kamala
rebels against her mother one night by going to a party with a bunch of guys who were drinking
and acting radical. When she does this she says that she realized her mother was right about how
young Muslim women should be acting. And even when Kamala is in the mosque and she wants
to go and pray with the males, she listens to her mother and gives her some back talk rather than
taking action and doing what she felt is write. Both of these actions show weakness in her
character. The plan that was intended for Kamala in the novel was to transgress and ablish these
gender norms and expectations giving a voice to young females in society but instead she
perpetuates the stereotypes that these women currently face. Yet again Kamala had fallen to the
defeat of how her people were viewed ultimately failing to transgress the prescribed gender
expectations that society has placed on her.
A major factor in the fight for equality that is least often put into consideration is the
biology behind gender. Scientists have proven both for and against gender equality with diving
into how we as humans we built, male vs. female. In all reality, gender is a social construct
taken from the idea of our sex but has gone so far into people trying to prove one way or another
that someone is better than someone else and figure out how to keep gender in place. In an article
written by Ruth Hubbard she says, Sex differences are interesting in sexist societies that value
one group more highly than the other. The existence of average sex differences is irrelevant to
the way we organize society. To achieve an egalitarian division of labor requires political will
and action, not changes in our biology. There is enough variability among us to let us construct a

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society in which people of both sexes contribute to whatever activities are considered socially
useful and are rewarded according to their talents and abilities (Hubbard). What Hubbard is
trying to get the audience to understand here is that no matter how we are built, that shouldnt
stop us from being equal. Whats stopping us from equality is that not enough people are
standing up for whats right but instead they are trying to prove what we have in place because
its white male trying to keep the power. Kamala would have been a great example of this is she
had no super powers but still fought evil. She is a young girl who is less then average in weight,
average in height, and has no physical ailments. The fact that she had super powers and decided
that she would stay with the stereotypes of a tall, curvy, white blonde female as her persona
makes it really hard for the young audience to relate and even harding in trying to prove that she
did anything in the fight for gender equality. In reality whether scientifically proven or proven in
media/pop culture, both men and women have equal ability to completely a task no matter what
it may be. Kamalas character is a great example of the opposite of the point that Hubbard was
trying to prove. That point being that men and women are equal and the biology of a human
being can even prove it, but instead Kamala ends up working towards what we already think in a
sexist society which is young women and women cant do what we as men do when it comes to
physical and often mental activities. This also doesnt sit well for young men because as a new
society progresses we must show young men that women are equal to us but when we continue
to publish things that dont start to prove the proper point right off the bat, our young men are
going to continue perpetuating these hegemonic stereotypes and not allowing women to share
equal rights.

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Not to say that Kamala didnt try her best in trangressing these gender norms, being that
she brought the problems to the surface but the fact that she doesnt face them and instead tends
to let things go, it perpetuates the stereotypes that women face and keep them trapped in working
towards keeping these gender norms that we have had for so long. The novel itself and the point
that it was trying to prove stay strong with what the media has to say about gender norms in
society and how women will always follow that. Critics had many good things to say about it,
ranging from the fact that Kamala helps young women everywhere in the path to finding
themselves (anonymous) as well as Kamala is a voice for the voiceless, standing up for young
muslim women giving them the voice they need (anonymous or summary of critics ideas). Even
Kamalas second version of Ms. Marvel was a strong example of what we need in standing up
for young women and gender equality in this day in age. The second Ms. Marvel was a normal
teenage girl who struggled with what every teenager struggles with but unlike many others she
finds ways of getting past it, not only helping herself but helping the young female and male
audience that is reading this. The way Kamala acts in the face adversity and doubt is another
good example of how she tried to transgress gender expectations. Many young muslim women
who try to stand up for what they believe in are attacked and often killed, but its only a few that
speak up. If many stood together for what they believed in and came together to figure out how
to do it, it could cause a major change for them and benefit them. All in all even if I didnt
believe Kamala transgressed these socially prescribed gender expectations, she put up a good
fight for equality and should be given credit for still proving some points on how we should view
on another and how gender shouldnt really be existent in modern day society.

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Throughout Ms. Marvel, our young hero Kamala Khan, had done her best to transgress

prescribed gender expectations that have come from society. She does so by being herself while
fighting evil forces, standing up for how she feels she should be treated as a young woman, a
muslim and a teenager as well as getting past the struggles that most individuals face in which
we have no one to look to. Due to the fact that it took her so long to do so and that she only
scratched the surface on trying to make a change, I feel that he was unable to transgress the
social constructs that we have about gender. Kamala, had also perpetuated stereotype about her
race and young females in general which sees more to the point that she failed. Through various
resources about womens biology, a hegemonic society and stereotypes about young muslim
women along with the examples of her we see in the graphic novel, it is sad yet safe to say that
Kamala was unable to prove the point she wanted.

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Works Cited
Collins, Patricia Hill. "Hegemonic Masculinity and Black Gender Ideology." Composing Gender.


Google Books, n.d. Web. 13 Oct. 2015.
Groner, Rachael, John F. O'Hara, and Ruth Hubbard. Composing Gender. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.


Rethinking Women's Biology
Joseph, Saud, Dr. "Stereotypes: United States: Arab Muslim Women as Portrayed in Film."


ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WOMEN AND ISLAMIC CULTURES. University of California,




Davis, 20 Dec. 2013. Web. 13 Oct. 2015.