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Armando Lorenzo
Professor Beadle
English 115
4 October 2015
Ms. Marvels Gender Transgression
Ms. Marvel can be used to analyze gender based topics throughout the graphic novel.
Kamala Khan, who is the main character, faces many situations that impairs her to deal with the
controversial idea of gender behavior. She believes that because of the position she is in as a
female, she cannot accomplish much and desires to be someone that is admired in her society,
and not feel like a social outsider. Because Kamala is the daughter of strict Muslim parents from
a Pakistani family, she is more restricted from social norms and brings emphasis to her position
when she gains superpowers and what she ends up doing because of it. The media portrays
powerful messages about gender and Kamala in Ms. Marvel is a great example of how gender
delivers assumptions that shape our society. With Kamalas superpowers gender expectation is
changed and her gender role shifts giving others a different impression of her resulting in
unfamiliar reactions.
Kamala is a teenage girl who is from an immigrant Muslim family from Pakistan who
faces some hardships in her social life because of who she is in terms of gender expectations.
Early in the story, Kamala seems like an innocent girl who wants to be a part of the society in
which she lives in. In pages 8 to 10, the scene were Kamala is with her family and she asks to go
to a party and the response she gets is understandable, coming from strict parents. Kamalas dad
refused to let Kamala to go to the party especially when she said there would be boys which
reflects off the idea of gender and sex being a single concept that results in Kamala being upset

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and causing her to become rebellious and sneak out to the party that she was not allowed to go
to. Although this kind of behavior is normal for teenagers, this graphic novel is expressing the
idea that gender and sex are not the same thing and that because Kamala is a girl she cannot be
out later with people to socialize. It is later seen when Kamala understands her gender role when
she says if I was a boy you would let me go to the party(Wilson 10). This gives a hint that
Kamalas family has traditional beliefs on gender expectations which could also be seen when
Kamalas father said very funny,(Wilson 9) when she said that there would be boys at the
party. This also exemplifies how Kamalas idea of gender which does not conform to her
perception of gender because of the kind person she wants to be to fit in her society.
One can argue that Kamala gaining superpowers does not changer her gender role.
Because such powers give great authority it is easy to say that the traits that Kamala possesses
after she gains her superpowers naturally comes and not involving any kind of gender
transformation. Masculinity and superpowers can easily be confused with one another because of
similar traits but are not exact and that is why one could refute the idea that Kamala goes
beyond her feminine roles and posses some masculine traits.
In the few moments that Kamala gained superpower, she transgressed from her gender
expectation as a feminine girl who is surrounded by male dominance. Bruno, who is Kamalas
male friend always offers to protect Kamala. Although this is merely friendly gesture, it goes to
the idea of male dominance over females. This is important because Kamala sees this and goes
away from this substantial form of gender expectation. After the scene were Kamala was shot on
page 83 she tells Bruno that now she will protect him and how it freaks him out shows that she
has parted from the one being protected to the protector because of her super powers. One could
say that her super powers are the cause of her nonconformity to her gender expectation because it

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gave her the capability of doing what she couldnt do. Because of theenvironment that she is
surrounded by and lives in, she has grown to challenge herself in terms of gender and how she
can meet society's demands as Devor says. The fact that Bruno is not comfortable with that
idea represents society and how differences in traditional gender expectations are viewed as
parents do like Renzetti and Curran explain in their article From Women, Men, and Society.
This brings Kamala to become a character who can be seen as someone who is creating
their own notion of their personal gender identity constantly adapting to different roles from
different genders. Kamalas Ms. Marvel costume is very bright with color and in the scenes
where she is fighting in action the background usually has dark colors emphasizing her struggle
to defeat the bad guys. This kind of color scheme can also be seen when Kamala is in a time of
trouble or in an internal dilemma within herself. This kind of color imagery is first seen when
Kamala sneaks out (Wilson 11-17), going against her parents decision of not being allowed to go
out to a late night party. This is also seen in the robbery scene (Wilson 76-75) when Kamala
saves Bruno. This is important because it shows that Kamala is undergoing changes in her
gender role. The unique use of colors in the artwork throughout the graphic novel highlight
moments where Kamalas gender role shifts. The scenes reveal Kamalas moment of
nonconformity to her gender. The robbery scene was explained in the previous paragraph on how
Kamalas new role as a protector gave Bruno a worried expression. Devor writes about this kind
of behavior and reaction in his article about cross gender behavior. This symbolic imagery helps
to show the idea that Kamala has gone through a gender reconstruction in a visual point of view,
like Lober explains that gender is created and re-created out of hunan interaction (Lober 19)
and that it is a Human production (Lober19).

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Throughout the graphic novel there are changes to art style and color scheming that
reflect on importance to the topic of informal gender roles. One of the ones that stand out the
most is the page 68 where Kamala is in the form of Ms. Marvel and has a posture of confidence
and authority unlike a similar one on page 23 where she is in a confused state and poor posture.
This is relevant because all along Kamala wanted to be like Ms. Marvel like she said on page 20
because she is an iconic female superhero. Because she is a female superhero that gives an
excuse to adopt some masculine traits without calling it that, but thought the graphic novel we
see Kamala realizing that sex doesnt have to limit who she is. We get an understanding of this
when we see Kamala having her own costume and no longer desiring to be the marvelous Ms.
Marvel. This reveals that Kamala has reconstructed her gender perception were sexuality does
not determine gender like Collins explains in her article. Authority is a hegemonic trait and can
be considered a masculine, which is something that Kamala has because of her powers. This can
be questioned however because Masculinities.are evaluated by how closely they approximate
dominant social norms (Collins 224) and so authority and dominance is seen as a hegimonic
masculinity because of social norms which Kamala tries to become apart of resulting to changes
in gender roles.This debunks the idea superpower are not the cause of Kamalas difference in her
gender role.
Kamala serves as a character who can be seen as an individual who is changing the idea
of gender and that is exemplified by her gender transgression. Ms.Marvels imagery is a visual
tool to give an understanding that Kamala has reconstructed her idea of gender in order to be a
part of her society. Her superpowers gave her the opportunity to excersise different gender roles
that would be seen as unusual since Kamala is a female. With the gain of her powers she was
given certain traits that infulenced her notion of who she wantts to be and how she will be seen

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as others to become a part of her society and not be an outsider. In the end her nonconformity to
some traditional traits of her expected gender role lead to her to develop a new gender ideology
that contributed to her society.

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Works Cited
Collins, Patricia Hill. "Hegemonic." Composing Gender: A Bedford Spotlight Reader. By Rachel
Groner and John F. O'Hara. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. Print.
Devor, Aaron. "Becoming Members of Society: The Social Meanings of Gender." Composing
Gender: A Bedford Spotlight Reader. By Rachel Groner and John F. O'Hara. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. Print.
Lober, Judith. ""Night to His Day" The Social Construction of Gender." Composing Gender: A
Bedford Spotlight Reader. By Rachel Groner and John F. O'Hara. Boston: Bedford/St.
Martin's, 2014. Print.
Wilson, G. Willow, Adrian Alphona, Ian Herring, Joe Caramagna, Sara Pichelli, Justin Ponsor,
Jamie Mckelvie, and Matthew Wilson. Ms. Marvel. 2014.