Hauer

Richard Hauer
English 115
Beadle
10/13/15
Kamala Khan, Good Try for Change
Kamala Khan, arguably one of the most influential super heroes to date due to the
message she sends to society in this day in age. In the graphic novel, Ms. Marvel written by G.
Willow Wilson and illustrated by Adrian Alphona, Kamala struggles with gender roles, being a
teenager, a daughter in a Muslim household and on top of all of that being a super hero. This
graphic novel has started many discussions about what she was trying to prove and if she was
able to transgress prescribed gender expectations. Personally I would disagree with this because
she stills tends to struggle with gender roles and the stereotypes that follow young females in
society. 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. 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. Not to say that she didnt make a
major impact for females in pop culture and in the media but she did transcend the gender
expectations that society places on young women these days.
American society has always portrayed perfection in white males through, pop culture,
multimedia (including but not limited to, music, movies, videogames and radio) and
advertisement. After reading Hegemonic Masculinity and Black Gender Ideology by Patricia

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Hill Collins its obvious that this has been going on since the dawn of miscommunication within
society, not only hurting women of all races and men of all races other than white but hurting our
society as a whole, keeping us from advancing as a species and keeping us form gender equality.
In the article Collins states, yet , just as masculinities are simultaneously constructed in relation
to one another and hierarchically related, femininities demonstrate a similar patter (Collins).
This means that even though white males are in the media and pop culture and such, so are
females but they come with stereotypes just as white males do. 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 men which which in itself totally takes any voice away that women were
trying to have in politics, and when women due run they are often looked down upon and sooner
or later end up dropping out of the election. Kamala seems to fall into this category when she
turns into Ms. Marvel in the beginning. Ms. Marvel is portrayed as a tall, curvy, white woman
with blue eyes and blonde hair who could fight but fights how she is seen. This means that she is
gonna be short tempered, make haste decisions and end up either not winning the fight or
regretting however she fought. Kamala fails to transgress socially prescribed gender expectations
when she fights a robber and ends up getting shot. She proves the stereotypes that women dont
fight well and only strong white males can be super heroes. Later in the novel Kamala becomes a
super hero within her own skin and begins to make proper decisions by thinking before
fighting crime and listening to others when they have better ideas, furthermore when she ends up

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staying herself she makes more of an impact because young muslim women in general and in
American have no voice within pop culture or in the media but by staying as Ms. Marvel for a
long time in the beginning she ends up failing to prove the desired point.

When tragedy strikes or news is released, suspects who arent white males of make

stereotypes for their entire race and the news stereotypes any event or practice they may have.
Even if the suspects arent males, the females of the race that is being stereotyped have no ability
to stand up for themselves and will often get harassed for being the race that they are. Muslim
women have it the worse because the news they are portrayed to be helpless slaves to males that
are often worth less then a house cat and can be interchanged with anything at just about
anytime. 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 associate
the 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-'mups. In films that feature any image of an Arab Muslim woman, stereotypical idiosyncrasies
abound that can be seen as rigid and repetitive (Joseph). The media has never portrayed Muslim
women in a good light which Kamalas mother seems to extend into the modern day when 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

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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. Later on she goes against her mother except instead of perpetuating the stereotypes this
time she ends up doing whatever it takes to get past them but this was another time that she fell
to the defeat of how her people were viewed ultimately failing to transgress the prescribed
gender expectations that society has placed on her.
Kamala tried her best to transgress these social constructs and deserves credit for it. The
novel itself and the point that it was trying to prove stay strong within the media. 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). 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 thet 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

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some points on how we should view on another and how gender shouldnt really be existent in
modern day society.
A major argument when it comes to the battle for equality between genders is biology.
Most scientists have done what it takes to prove that men are superior to women via how we are
built. 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 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). 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 at one point was a
totally different person makes it a lot harder for the younger audience to relate. In all reality men
and women have just as much right and ability to do the same activities that men perform and do
it just as well. Kamala as a character is a great example of what couldve shown the audience
what Hubbard was trying to prove but she 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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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 through 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. 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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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. <http://sjoseph.ucdavis.edu/ewic-public-outreach-resources/ewicoutreach-resources/stereotypes-united-states-arab-muslim-women-as-portrayed-in-film>.