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Maria Ortega
Professor Beadle
English 115
12 October 2015
The Human Bees
Every species on Earth has organization in its life; for example, a bees hive consists of
the workers and the queen bee. This may seem unfair and even inhumane for the working bees
that spend most of their lives doing this, but the differences from humans are not too far off.
Humans also organize their life with social classes that lead to someone being on the bottom.
Patricia Collins and Gail Dines are both writers on the topic of gender discrimination. They
discuss how, like the bees, a gender is put above another to create organization, a hierarchy. In
this case males are placed above the females. However, how is one a male or female? Where
does one get their gender from? A gender is pushed onto a person by their personality and
physical looks. The two personalities are femininity and masculinity. A typical females first
concerns are on her looks, how she dresses, and her body type. Kamala Khan is a character in
Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson that struggles with the pressure of prescribed gender roles and
even though she gains superpowers, gender role expectations are so far developed that she is still
unable to transgress them.
The common gender roles are as follows: males or real men as Collins describes it in
Hegemonic Masculinity and Black Gender Ideology are expected to be forceful, analytical,
responsible, and willing to exert authority, all qualities that women seemingly lack (226). This
typically means that they are the dominant ones in relationships, the providers, and protectors.
Whereas womens traits tend do be more physical so that they are, according to Dines in Visible

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or Invisible: Growing Up Female in Porn Culture, a hypersexualized, young, thin, toned,
hairless, and in many cases, surgically enhanced women with a come-hither look on her face
(252). This importance of physical attraction is meant for male pleasure, creating a pyramid with
males wants and desires put on discretion for females. Kamala displays the concerns of a typical
female by desiring to be beautiful with light skin, long hair, and an outgoing personality. She
says I want to be beautiful and awesome and butt-kicking and less complicated (Wilson 18),
the fact that she mentions beauty first and foremost shows just how much society has influenced
the insecurity in herself. Kamala is not the only one that acts out on prescribed gender roles, in
the beginning of the comic it is also seen through many of her friends and family members.
Aamir is Kamalas older brother who is pressured by their father to get a job so that he
can be a provider and independent. Their father says Prayer is noble, but when you spend all
day praying it starts to look like youre avoiding something. Like finding a job (6). This is an
example of the societal pressure that people like Kamala feel. because Aamir is a male, society
(his family) is pressuring him on displaying masculine traits. The setting of the comic is placed
in a porn culture according to Dines, this means that women are objectified to sex and therefore
the only way that Kamala can be noticed is to fit in. One becomes visible in adolescence by
looking like everyone else, and to look and act differently is to be rendered invisible (Dines
260). This seems like a contradicting statement, but what Dines means by this is that if a female
wears the same revealing and tight clothing like Zoe in Ms. Marvel on page 10 then society will
notice them whether it be males that are attracted to them or females that are envious, but if a
female were to wear clothing that is less revealing then she will be invisible because no one
will have a purpose to look at her. It is this very reason that causes Kamala to sneak out of her
house for a party, trying to fit in and therefore be visible.

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When Kamala arrives at the party the audience can visually see the gender role being
played by Bruno (Kamalas friend) (Wilson 11). Bruno is interfering in Kamalas situation by
being protective of her when another male hands her a drink with alcohol. This shows that he
views her femininity like society, that she needs to be protected and only a male can do that.
Though it may seem like a kind gesture, the reality of the situation is that he is unintentionally
devaluing females with his actions. One of the most serious issues of gender discrimination is
seen on page 17 of Ms. Marvel when Kamala says Zoe thought that because I snuck out, it was
okay for her to make fun of my family. Like, Kamalas finally seen the light and kicked out the
dumb and inferior brown people and their rules to the curb. The issue is that society not only
organizes by a gender, but also by sexuality, class, and race within a gender.
Collins discusses how the organization within a gender works: hegemonic
masculinity becomes defined through its difference from and opposition to women, boys, poor
and working class men of all races and ethnicities, gay men, and black men. In other words,
hegemonic masculinity is a concept that is shaped by ideologies of gender, age, class, sexuality,
and race (Collin 224). Both with males and females, white is the preferred race; a white women
because she is prettier (again physical looks are the key concept here) and a white male
because he is more sophisticated. But as Collins goes into more detail the audience can see
that there is not much of a difference between the white males at the top and black males below,
both express violence and dominance just in different forms. Because the majority of
government positions are held by white men, black men need to find another way to display their
dominance and they do so in the streets. Rather than expressing masculine authority by
running corporations or holding high-level government positions, black men search for respect
from marginal social locations (Collins 228), this means within their own race and social

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groups. As for expressing violence, white men do so through the military, police forces, and
sports whereas black men once again express it on the streets with street weapons and using
their own bodies (Collins 228). In Ms. Marvel this idea can be seen on page 64, the bad guys do
not look caucasian, instead they look more like minorities, following this concept of minorities
looking for power in street settings.
Femininity also is separated by race as Kamala noticed when she said inferior brown
people. Collins shows how this occurs Dominant gender ideology provides a social script for
Black women whereby everyone else needs Black women to be on the bottom for everything
else to make sense (238). Kamala understands that being a darker shade than white already puts
her at a disadvantage, and so when Captain Marvel asks her what she wants Kamala replies to be
beautiful. Captain Marvel does so by giving her superpowers and a new look that consists of
being white, having blonde-long hair, and having an ideal body. When Kamala receives
superpowers she realizes that she isnt happy, being beautiful and visible doesnt make her
happy, but what does make her happy is being able to use her powers to help save people from
harm and trouble (13). It may seem like Kamala is crossing the boundaries between genders
because she now fights crime and no longer cares for beauty, but this is not the case. Kamala is
very much restricted to her genders feminine traits, all of her friends and family treat her like in
the beginning of the comic showing that she made no progress on trying to defeat their gender
expectations.
Even after obtaining her superpowers Kamala continued to be disciplined by her parents
and being concerned about by Bruno. When Kamalas mom finds her late at night in the kitchen
she says So this is how you repay your father and me for all that we have sacrificed to raise
you! deliberately disobeying us, sneaking out, coming home looking like-like- (71). This scene

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takes place well after Kamala has her powers and it shows that even though Kamala fights
crimes and is starting to take on the protective role of masculinity, she is still expected to act
feminine from her parents. They have raised her to be a female which means taking her place
below the males like in the mosque on page 26 where the women were separated from the men.
Bruno also shows his gender expectations of Kamala when he says Remember the panic code.
If something goes wrong, call and let it ring twice and then hang up. Ill call the cops (78). Even
though he knows that she is more powerful than him and can protect herself more than he can he
still has the urge and reaction to be dominant because he is the male, Kamala replies with Okay
grandma to show her frustration with him. Because Kamalas family and friends still view her
the same way from before she had superpowers it is clear that she was not able to distinguish
their gender expectations of her as Kamala Khan. The comic also visually shows that there is no
change.
The art and style of the pictures have a specific color to what the images are, for example
when Ms. Marvel or Captain Marvel appear the background colors are very vibrant and full of
life. However its a different story when the pictures are of Kamala at home, the colors the
audience see are plain yellows and sometimes a gloomy grey. This is symbolic to the way
Kamala feels, when she is Ms. Marvel she feels great and free to do what she wants without the
concern of others.. Whereas when she is at home the colors represent the restraints that her
family places on her based on her gender. On pages 16-21 the colors are very plain and almost
gloomy, this is when Kamala is just Kamala and she is with her family. This also can represent
her familys flexibility, the amount of varied colors represent how much her family is flexible
(which isnt much). On the contrary, looking at pages 40 and 41 there is a noticeable color

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change. This is when Kamala is Ms. Marvel and is stopping the robbery from happening. The
colors are far more bold and bright, representing Kamalas capacity as Ms. Marvel.
This is the exact issue that both Dines and Collins discuss, the way people are restrained
and limited because of their gender, this is a serious issue when women think that they gain
power with their looks, or being independent by being able to buy their own materialistic items.
The truth of the reality is that women have yet to seize any real power and The biggest lie is that
conforming to this hypersexualized image will give women real power in the world, since in a
porn culture, our powers rest, we are told, not in our ability to shape the institutions that
determine our life chances but in having a hot body that men desire and women envy (Dines
252). The comic Ms. Marvel is the example of this put into the perspective of a young teenage
girl who struggles with gaining power beyond physical features. Humanity likes to think they are
far superior than animals but when analyzing their structure, it is seen that they use the same
techniques as animals to organize their lives.

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Works Cited
Collins, Patricia Hills. Hegemonic Masculinity and Black Gender Ideology Composing Gen
der. Ed. Rachael Groner and John F. OHara. Bedford: St. Martins, 2014. 222260. print.
Dines, Gail. Visible or Invisible: Growing Up Female in Porn Culture Composing Gender. Ed.
Rachael Groner and John F. OHara. Bedford: St. Martins, 2014. 222-260. Print.
Wilson, G. Willow, writer. Ms. Marvel. Illustrated by Alphona, Adrian. Colorist Herring Ian.
Lettering by Caramagna VCs Joe. New York: Marvel, 2015. Print.