Societiey’s expectations and portrayal of women negatively affect the way they view themselves and are viewed by others in society. The way media portrays women and how women are sexualized and seen as objects. Also, the lack of strong female leaders and undermining the few female leaders we do have play a huge role in society’s depiction of women. In a patriarchal world women are often forced into roles that they themselves may never want. Throughout history women have resisted this oppression through many mediums be it protests, organizing programs to educate, or in many cases through literature. These works of literature help to portray how women are viewed in society by men as well as how women view themselves. In literary works, such as Bitch Planet by Kelly Sue DeConnick and “Mrs. Faust” by Carol Ann Duffy, female characters face a multitude of sociological challenges such as being labeled ditzy, inferior, or ridiculed for not conforming to society while also being held to a certain standard of how they should live their lives.

We live in a world primarily ruled by men. There are only seventy-one countries in the world that have either female presidents or prime ministers elected to run their country. I would like to note that the United States is not one of these countries (Miss Representation). There have also only ever been thirty-five women ever to have served as United States Governors. This is compared to the 2,319 men that have been United States Governors (Miss Representation). Just these two facts demonstrate how men occupy much of the positions of government and make the majority of the decisions that affect import aspects such as government, military, business and politics. On top of this men occupy eighty to ninety five percent of powerful decision making roles in media and entertainment industry (Miss Representitation). With most of our society’s people of power being men, who do women have to look up to? You cannot be something you cannot see. This is the first problem hindering the way people view women and the way they view themselves. If there are not strong female figures being represented then females are not viewed as strong, important, and powerful people. 

In the rare occurrences that there is a woman in a powerful position media does not represent them in the same light as men. Women’s physical appearance is more likely to be talked about rather than what is coming out of their mouths. Take Hillary Clinton for example. Media and news outlets are constantly talking about her “horrendous pant suits”, hair, and facial appearance. Why is it that Hillary Clinton is mainly criticized in media for her wardrobe, and her competitor Donald Trump is mainly criticized for his racial slurs? Even more striking media is so quick to report on her pant suits calling them “horrendous” and mocking them, but have you heard the media report on why she wears them? Women were not ALLOWED to wear pant suits on the senate floor until 1993 (Bustle). This is mindboggling. Clinton wears her pant suit to make the statement “I am a woman and I am much more than just a woman”.  The news reporter Michelle Malkin also made a statement on Fox News Channel saying, “You all saw the famous photo from the weekend of Hillary looking so haggard and, what, looking like 92 years old. If that's the face of experience, I think it's going to scare away a lot of those independent voters that are on the fence." In another instance Glenn Beck is quoted calling Clinton a “stereotypical bitch” and on a live radio show said, "After four years, don't you think every man in America will go insane?". Even creditable sources such as New York Times have taken their shot at undermining Clinton when they wrote in an article "At her victory party, Hillary was like the heroine of a Lifetime movie, a woman in peril who manages to triumph.” The title of the article was "Can Hillary Cry Her Way Back to the White House?"(Bustle). Were sexist comments like this made about Obama during his campaign for reelection? The sad thing is these are not just men making these atrocious comments in attempts to tear down a woman running to become our first female president. There are just as many females doing this to other women as there are men.

Society also has this false persona of how women should look. They should be tall, thin, tan skin, well dressed, hair fixed, and face caked with makeup to appear more beautiful. But be careful even after doing all these thing women are still ridiculed because they do not look like the photo-shopped super models in magazines. Women go to drastic measure to achieve this look, and it happens so often that people do not even notice nor look down upon it. Take high heels for example. Women squeeze their feet into these horrifically uncomfortable shoes that force their feet into an unnatural position and walk around for hours upon hours. These shoes rub blisters on women’s feet and cause a tremendous amount of pain. This is done just to appear taller and their legs appear longer. You never see men going through this kind obstacle just to appear more attractive. Fifty-three percent of thirteen-year-old girls are unhappy with their bodies. This percentage goes up seventy-eight percent by age seventeen. (Miss Representation). This fact is devastating. How did preteen and teenagers obtain this self-conciseness of their body image at such a young age? on Average an American teenager watches thirty-one hours of T.V, spend seventeen hours listening to music, three hours watching movies, four minutes reading magazines, and ten hours online every week. (Miss Representation) This is over sixty-one hours a week teenagers are taking in societal portals and expectations of women. With all this exposure, there is bound to be an impact. 

Everywhere you turn whether it be the internet, on the bus, walking down the street, scrolling through your newsfeed, watching T.V., or standing in the checkout line you see the medias sexualization of women. It is practically impossible to ignore. The women in these advertisements all fit the stereotypical image of what a woman “should” look like: white, long legs, thin, showing a lot of skin, big breast, and a big butt. Media exploits women’s bodies to sell their products. The focus of a shampoo commercial is not the shampoo; it is the naked girl lathering herself with soap. The focus of a pop or rap artist music video is not the artist himself it is the sexy, half naked girls dancing around him (Don’t Blame Girls for their own Sexualization). Even the Olympic women athletes were sexualized in their advertisements and posed in their underwear (Miss Representation). Women casted in movies all fit societal view of “sexy”. Sex sells and companies are using women to sell their products. (Don’t Blame Girls for their own Sexualization). 

This changes the way women view themselves. This also changes the way women think they should look. While all of this is going on in the media and sexualization is virtually unavoidable women still get blamed for their sexualization. People all too often make derogatory comment such as “she dresses like a slut”, “she’s asking for it”, “attention seeking”, “trashy”, the list could go on for days. We blame women for emulating what they see in the media (Don’t Blame Girls for Their sSexualization). Women are quite literally coping societies standards of what it looks like to be considered “attractive” or “sexy”, and get shamed for it. With the hounding media and sexualizing advertisements being everywhere you turn it is only natural for women to start believing that is the way they should look, and attempt to change their appearance to look like all the other “pretty” women. Just as you cannot be something you cannot see; you start to become what you do see (Don’t Blame Girls for Their Sexualization).

Women are not only sexualized in society but are viewed still today as inferior. Men are dominating in front of and behind the camera, which allows the portrayal of women to stay consistent (What's Wrong With The Media's Portrayal Of Women Today, And How To Reverse It) . The female characters are never the strong, independent, and powerful. They are depicted as ditsy, inferior, a wife or girlfriend, weak, and unstable. They are hardly ever casted as strong, individual women, and when they are they have the stereotype of alone, bitchy, and unhappy. The women in films that do not fit the stereotypical definition of “pretty” are shown as outcasts or undesirable. Women are also never portrayed as happy single women. They are always either unhappy because they do not have a man, chasing after a man, or looking for a man. If women are single they are alone and “missing something”. If men are single they are bachelors and living it up. This reintegrates the fact that if women do not have a strong representation of themselves to look at then how are they expected to be that themselves? (What's Wrong with The Media's Portrayal Of Women Today, And How To Reverse It) 

In literary works such as “Bitch Planet” by Kelly Sue DeConnick and “Mrs. Foust” by Carol Ann Duffy, female characters face these same sociological challenges of being labeled or seen as inferior which attempting to conform to societies standards of how to look and live their lives. This shows how these standards of women are not only prelivent in society but also in literature. 

In the Poem “Mrs. Faust”, Mrs. Faust is faced with an emotionally abusive and neglectful relationship with her husband. She plays the abuse off as nothing serious, putting a façade on that she is unaffected by this maltreatment. The poem shows the all too common life of “trophy wife”, giving light to how limiting that role is. The poem also shares how common of an occurrence it is for women to be content with, and see nothing wrong in an abusive relationship. Surface level interpretation from the poem gives the idea that Mrs. Faust lives a glorious and lavish lifestyle. Her husband’s absence seems to have little effect on her well-being, as she keeps herself preoccupied by the luxurious lifestyle she lives. After reading the poem a few more times, and searching for deeper meaning, it is apparent that Mrs. Faust is not as well as she may have first seemed. The loneliness that her husband puts upon her by neglecting her is filled by all the upscale things that she does. It appears that she truly is hurting and her lifestyle is her attempt cover up her emotions and cope. This represents the narrative in the real world that women’s problems are too inferior to be vocalized, as she feels the problems with his absence are not worthy of being addressed.

The first thing that stands out in the poem is the title “Mrs. Faust”. Right off the bat Mrs. Faust’s importance as her own being is undermined. She is identified as someone’s wife, and throughout the poem we never learn her name. The first line of the poem starts off with “First things first - /I married Faust.” (Mrs. Faust) This reiterates the impotence the author places on Mrs. Faust being married to Dr. Faust. Right after this Mrs. Faust establishes the “importance” of Dr. Faust by listing all of her husband’s achievement’s “flourished academically, /BA. MA. Ph.D. No kids.” By doing this she subconsciously states how her husband is “superior” to herself.

As you continue reading Mrs. Faust you also notice the importance they place on materialistic things. “Fast cars. A boat with sails. /A second home in Wales. / The latest toys – computers, / mobile phones. Prospered” (Mrs. Faust). This shows the beginning of Mrs. Faust trying to conform to society by having all the nicest, newest things. It is evident that she is using these materialist things to attempt to fill a void. Society puts off the persona that if you have the nicest cars and latest toys you will be happy. Throughout the poem it appears Mrs. Faust is searching for her happiness in materialistic things. Later in the poem you read “had a facelift, / had my breasts enlarged, /my buttocks tightened;” (Mrs. Faust). This shows how she is trying to chance her appearance to conform to society. As you continue to read further it becomes evident that she is not only making these drastic changes to conform to society but also attempting to change herself to appear more desirable for her husband. This is not her only attempt at acceptance. Later in the poem she begins to change her hair color in efforts to suffice societies standards “Went blonde, /redhead, brunette,” (Mrs. Faust). Mrs. Faust’s attempts at acceptance demonstrates how women in society fell as though rejection correlates to their appearance and materialistic things. 

Throughout the poem you can see Mrs. Faust’s loneliness and longing for affection. She states “I grew to love lifestyle, / not the life. / He grew to love the kudos, / not the wife.” (Mrs. Faust). Emphasis should be placed on the word grew. Eventually she learned to love the lifestyle most likely to fill the void in her life her husband left. She goes on to say she never actually loved the life. She then casually mentions how her husband grew to love materialistic items over herself and plays it off as though she is unaffected by this. Again, this is parallel to societies typical “trophy wife” stigma. The wife is just a pretty object to look at, not to be herd or to complain. Later in the poem a glimpse of her loneness is revealed when she says “went on the run, alone;/ went home.” (Mrs. Faust). By intentionally placing the word alone at the end of the line it shows her discreet way of expressing her loneness. Throughout the poem you can also see her desire for affection and her hurt she is actually felling when she says “Faust was in. A word, he said, /I spent the night being pleasured/ by a virtual Helen of Troy.” (Mrs. Faust) She is telling us how her husband would rather watch porn than be intimate with his wife. This demonstrates one form of emotional abuse she endured from Dr. Faust. In the poem Mrs. Faust also tells about her husband’s affairs “I smelled cigar smoke, /hellish, oddly sexy, not allowed. /I heard Faust and the other laugh aloud.” (Mrs. Faust) She simply accepts the fact that her husband is cheating on her in her own house and does nothing about it. This again demonstrates how Mrs. Faust accepts emotional abuse from her husband and believes as though she has no right to speak out about it.

In “Bitch Planet”, the characters undermine women in power. Protagonist Penny is deemed an outcast due to the fact that she does not fit the characteristics of what a woman “should” look and act like per society or more specifically the “Fathers”. The other female characters are also portrayed as simple minded, obsessed with their body image, and of a lower class standing than their male counterparts. Refusing to conform to this structured lifestyle lands Penny the title of crazy. In the real world, it is common place for women to be put down for wanting to live their own lives their own way. Often times the patriarchy represses deviance from their model of what a female should be by labeling them with nasty adjectives or downplaying their ability. The fact that Penny is defamed for not wanting to be part of her society’s mold speaks to this. 

Penny is the complete opposite of what society tells women they should look like. She is overweight, not dressed in designer clothes, her hair is not long and vibrant, clumsy, angry and not white. Even worse she is not trying to conform to societies standards. The characters in “Bitch Planet” are so appalled by Penelope’s “crimes” she is sent to a space prison Bitch Planet. The Fathers/ judges read her conviction of her horrific crime, “Insubordination, assault, assault, assault, repeated citations for aesthetic offenses, capillary disfiguration and… wanton obesity.” (Bitch Planet) 

Her appearance is ridiculed the most throughout the comic by not only men but women too. Mother Siebertling citizens attempt to change Penelope’s entire image and states “I’m sorry I failed you” (Bitch Planet) because she does not look or act like the stereotypical female. Mother Sieberling puts on gloves, as if her hands are too precious to touch Penelope, before bushing out her hair and stating her hair is “Just like you- it refuses to behave”. (Bitch Planet) She is ridiculed again in the cafeteria this time by men when they say “No wonder she is state sponsored, Christ. Look at her. Who would want to come home to that?” (Bitch Planet) Later when the fathers hook her up to the mind reading machine they are repulsed that the image of Penelope’s “ideal self” is no different than the true image of herself. “There’s got to be a mistake. Is this wire fried?” (Bitch Planet) The Fathers cannot understand why Penelope would be accepting of the way she looks. Likewise, how men in society hold women’s appearances to a certain standard and are also ridicule and look down upon women to do not conform. 

Throughout the comic the women are portrayed in the light of a societies vison of stereotypical female: ditzy, confirmative, and inferior to men. There are also no strong independent female charters of power in this comic which is parallel to the lack of strong female figures in society. The women are pictured as tall, skinny, white, with long hair, full lips, and nothing more to talk about than the calories in their muffin. The men are the characters portrayed as powerful figures. They are the “Fathers” and make all the decisions in the court and law. They tell Penny that they are going to “fix” her and she is being given a chance she should be thankful for.  

All of the things that the comic “Bitch Planet” mocks that seem ridiculous actually happen here in today’s society. Women are seen as inferior and attempts to conform to societal standards to be accepted. When someone like Penny steps out of line of societal norms they get out casted just like Penny does in the comic Bitch Planet. Women are ridiculed and called names such as “Bitch” for being strong, independent, and different than others. Instead of attempting to “fix” women and turn them all into the same zombie Barbie Doll society needs to be more accepting of strong, opinionated, diverse women. We should all strive to be more like Penny. “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it…and you bastard ain’t never going to break me” (Bitch Planet)
