Something that is troubling to me in our culture today is how society chooses to view women.  Highlighted in the comic Bitch Planet, Kelly Sue DeConnick analyzes the way that the “Fathers” in the story view women.  The Fathers in Bitch Planet look at Penelope and criticize her for being the shape, color, and acting out in the way that she does.  Penelope is the definition of a minority in society.  She is large, black, has unruly hairs, aggressive, unkind, and manly by comparison.  She is everything that the Father's fight to suppress in their futuristic society.  That is why she ended up in the correctional facility right?  Through Penelope’s struggles in the comic Bitch Planet, others are able to draw on it and relate to the fact that she is put down so often. In my essay, I examine the ideas of our own Fathers in society.  The Fathers of history and the Fathers now  which limit women and what they are expected and allotted to do in society. There is a rich history of women in cartoons challenging patriarchal values. Starting with Suffragette cartoons and ending with Kelly Sue DeConnick’s Bitch Planet comic, I argue that the use of these cartoons has a direct result on women’s actions and the way that they view themselves.  

 For the first half of my essay, I look at women breaking the mold of the institutional direction our society takes in favor of a patriarchal society.  Primarily, I focus on the historical aspect of women rising up against these limitations.  Focusing on political cartoons from the women’s suffrage era and during World War II Rosie the Riveter, I draw connections between the inspiration these cartoons provided.  I chose to focus on these two fundamental moments in history because I feel like these are two primary examples of when women stood up against “the man” (can we talk about how it’s referred to as “the man” for a minute) to fight for their rights and prove their capabilities. Women have proved time and time again in our society that there is no mold that we should conform to.  Through historical events like the right for women to vote and the promotion of women in the workforce, women have told our “Fathers” screw you I am capable the way that I am.  Just like Penelope from Bitch Planet.

Throughout history, there were challenges and obstacles at every step of the way for women to vote. Women would work traditional feminine jobs, they would pay taxes on their homes and income, and they were recognized as citizens of the United States.  Although voting was granted to all races, classes, and incomes, women were still not officially able to vote. It did not matter if a man was illiterate, had been to jail, or if he was the town drunk; he could vote, and a woman, no matter who she was, could not. The women’s suffrage movement became active in the mid to late 1800s as a result of the call to political action women felt after the temperance movement. Through the efforts of the Women’s Suffrage Association, led by Susan B. Anthony and the American Woman Suffrage Association led by Lucy Stone, women voted for the first time in the year 1890 in Wyoming (NWHM). It was a long journey and a painful one at that.  Women suffered through endless campaigning and hard work in order to grant themselves the right to vote.  However, in 1920, thirty years after the first state allowed women to vote, Tennessee finally ratified the 19th amendment and it was finally official that women’s votes were mandated by constitutional law (NWHM).  Throughout the progressive era, women had to work tirelessly to demand the rights they should be given as United States citizens and they were not just granted the right to vote because they asked.  These women sought to change the way society viewed them, and in doing so they utilized every form of communication necessary.  Women participated in protests, printed posters, wrote into newspapers, and printed postcards to show the different ways that they were being treated unfairly. 

  For the purpose of my paper, I chose three political cartoons from the Progressive Era that highlighted how women were represented. The first cartoon I chose to focus on was a postcard, a part of a 12-card series produced by Dunston-Weiler Lithographic Company during the height of the Suffragette movement (Sharp). The series of postcards was just another way for women to spread the word about how they feel that they should be treated fairly in all regards. The Suffragist postcards not only called for women to vote but even further called women to abandon their household duties and become more aggressive and unladylike. The first picture, depicting a man doing household chores with a caption below reading: “I want to vote, but my wife won’t let me.” It is one of the twelve postcards that focuses on the gender roles in society at the time and switching the roles in a comedic way in order to pursue the suffragette movement. 

The second piece of rhetoric I chose to represent this changing time for women is a picture of a woman dressed as a police officer with a small fluffy dog on a leash next to her. The postcard reads: “Suffragette Coppette: Beware of the Dog.” This second postcard in the series illustrates the threat that men felt when women fully participated in politics.  The photo is ironic because of  the woman, dressed as a police officer, hold a rolling pin in her hand and has her belt cinched at her waist to still show her femininity. This postcard serves the purpose to show that women’s rights to vote may be seen as threatening but just simply is not.  Finally, my last cartoon from the Progressive Era is a political cartoon that first appeared in the St. Louis Star (Birch). The cartoon is of a woman wearing a dress with the words “National Suffrage” written on the back.  She is struggling to fasten the last few buttons she has on her dress which symbolizes the final push that Susan B. Anthony and the women involved in the Suffragist Movement had to face in order to earn their amendment. The cartoon itself states “The Last Few Buttons Are Always The Hardest.” This cartoon was published right before the amendment was ratified and the women were finally given what they deserved. Through the finalization of the 19th Amendment, Susan B. Anthony and the other women depicted in the cartoons paved a way for a new outlook women had for themselves in contemporary America.

In addition to the political postcards that were distributed during the Suffragette movement, there is another iconic woman who inspired women to action. Rosie the Riveter was not the sign of the first time of women started working.  She was a representation of millions of women who joined the workforce after the start of World War II, taking over the jobs that many previously believed to be “man’s work.”  It is true that women have participated in the workforce with, simply, “womanly” jobs - such as teachers, nurses, or receptionists.  However, Rosie was the first time that women were encouraged by the government and industrial leaders to take over jobs that women did not dream of in the defense industry.  In correlation with J. Howard Miller, Norman Rockwell developed Rosie the Riveter to call women to action (Goldin). Rosie the Riveter was adapted in the 1980s for the feminist movement as a symbol of women’s empowerment. From wartime propaganda to a feminist symbol, Rosie the Riveter has always served the purpose of inspiring women to greatness.  To break the traditional patriarchal mold that the “Fathers” of our country set out for us, Rosie sat as a prominent figure to tell women that they could do the untraditional.

In DeConnick’s comic Bitch Planet, the women who succeed are the women who are disenfranchised and who do not find themselves following the mold that everyone else does at the time.  Bitch Planet’s comic on the patriarchal society resonates with women and calls them to be their own heroes.  You can break the mold of what society sets out for you and you can be just as successful.  The women working during the World War II era were working hard, labor intensive jobs that were traditionally set out for men.  These jobs instilled a fire in the women of the 1940-1950s to believe in themselves and believe in the capabilities they have to do something different. Women were not bound to being a receptionist or to wearing an apron and spending their days in the kitchen for their entire life, they could do much much more. 

When I first read Bitch Planet I saw that it was a story of a woman who just did not fit into society.  The setting of the society is somewhat futuristic in the sense of the “Fathers” as a form of government and their mind-reading powers definitely prove to be out of our era.  However, the comic relates to present day issues and issues that have taken precedent in the history of American culture. The comic sets these issues that we face in today’s society in a futuristic society.  Penelope, the main character, is different in every sense of the word.  She looks, acts, even talk completely different than all other females shown in the comic.  One thing that I noticed was that the author even goes so far as to make all the background characters white, skinny, and with controlled hair.  This is so the reader can fully distinguish Penelope as a complete outcast.  She has no one like her in the place that she lives. 

Penelope lives in a futuristic world in which she attends a prison/correctional facility.  While there, she suffers from intense mind-altering exercises that cause traumatic flashbacks and causes her to reflect on her life in order for her to feel lesser about herself.  The Fathers in the comic have the role to define the social norms in their society and to fix the strays who falter. She is at this correctional facility being judged by the Fathers for her lack of cooperation with society’s ideals.  One of the Fathers reads: “Next Case: Penelope Leona Rolle, Age: 22, District 42.  Habitual offender… insubordination, assault, assault, assault, repeated citations for aesthetic offensives, capillary disfigurement and wanton obesity… good god woman” (DeConnick, 177). Just reading the charges the Fathers have against her you can see that something is different here.  Not only is she in a correctional facility for her assaults, but for her aesthetic offenses too. In the first few lines, readers can already identify and see the discrimination happening against Penelope. Penny stands large and tall, towering over the white Fathers around her. She says: “I can’t see you, but I feel you judging me” (DeConnick, 176). This quote tells us how traumatizing this judgment is for Penny. “What have you done to yourself?” (DeConnick, 177). the Father's question her - she feels offended as the men question the way she looks and the way she behaves.  The Fathers condescend Penny and will only accept a certain type of woman - one that is skinny, white, calm, and nice, everything Penny is not. 

From this judgment, there is a change in the way the comic is illustrated in order to signify a flashback.  The flashback is also tied together from when the Fathers tell Penny that they are only trying to help her.  Penny reflects back on a time in which she is baking with her grandmother at home.  Together, they are enjoying their time together and learning about how to cook. While Penny tries to stir the bowl of cake mix, her Grandmother refers to her father as strong as oak.  Penny replies in a way that really struck me at first.  She replies and says: “My mom is strong” (DeConnick, 179). Although this quote is not very monumental in the grand scheme of things, Penny, after hearing that she could be strong like her father results to saying that she could be strong just like her mother as well. I see this quote as an important part of the story because it just goes to show that Penny has always had the belief in herself to be whatever she wanted to be, regardless of what society tells her.  I specifically relate this quote to the Suffragette movement and to Rosie the Riveter that women are just as capable as men of doing anything they want to do. I believe that Penny’s grandmother serves as someone who is supportive, forgiving, and loving with Penny.  The flashback ends with a somewhat military-esque team coming into Penny’s grandmother’s home and ending the cherished time they spent together. What happens to her grandmother remains a mystery, but with this flashback, the readers are given a sense of where some of Penny’s anger and aggression has come from. It can be inferred that the same people that came into her grandmother’s home that one day are the same people restricting her in the facility now.  The Fathers remind her that she was institutionalized at the age of eight and that ever since then the Fathers have tried their best to give her protection. What the Father’s fail to realize is that when Penny was taken from her grandmother’s house that day, she was broken and begins her life trying to break the mold that they are enforcing on her.  

Throughout the rest of the comic, Penny reveals her past through flashbacks.  After being questioned why she is always so angry, Penelope transitions into a time in the past when she showed her aggression and punched another person. She then is called into a woman’s office who is skinny, white and has blonde calm hair.  Mother Siebertling tells Penny that “you need to learn to see yourself through the father's’ eyes” (DeConnick, 188). Immediately following this flashback, Penny is hooked up to a machine in which the Fathers begin to look into what Penny sees of herself.  Penny knows that she is a strong woman, that no matter what these people do or say, she is willing to do whatever it takes to stay true to who she is as a person.  She proves this to be true when at the end of the comic, as the Fathers are looking into her brain, they are astonished at the fact that her ideal version of herself is just the way she is right now.  Penny closes with: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I ain’t broke… And you bastards ain’t never gonna break me” (DeConnick, 199). The institutionalized ideas of women is something that needs to change in society

When I think of the word Bitch, I think of other adjectives like bossy, mean, sarcastic, non-likeable, weak, violence, and feminine. It not only has a negative connotation but a connotation towards women.  Women have been fighting against this derogatory word and also fighting against the mold that society has set out for them.  Beginning with the right to vote, transitioning into the workplace, and finally resulting into race and weight, women have attempted to break the patriarchal views society has. Penelope in Bitch Planet fights against the institutional man by standing up for herself, believing that she is good enough, and standing up as a representation of a strong independent woman. These cartoons serve the purpose to help women find themselves and empower women to make a change when they see fit. 
