     Gender and racial inequality is still a major problem in America, even after MLK and all of equality movements. Gender inequality is especially still prevalent in the work place, where statistically women are paid less to do the same jobs as men and are treated as underlings instead of as equals. Women are also considered weak and not as important as men. Kelly Sue DeConnick, a writer of famous Marvel super hero comics, even experiences this inequality. She wrote a comic with all female versions of super heroes and she was greatly criticized for it. The critics felt that the super heroes all have to continue to be males because the female versions are weaker and not as good. She then decided to write a comic exemplifying gender and racial inequality. Kelly DeConnick’s Bitch Planet shows the contrast between the actual woman and the ideal women in order to show the public that inequality is still a problem.

      DeConnick first shows the contrast between how an actual woman looks and how an ideal woman should look. One example of this is on page 188, where Penny’s “mother” is trying to fix Penny’s hair. In this it depicts the ideal woman, Penny’s “mother”, in contrast to Penny, the woman that needs to change. It shows the mother in a sort of voyeuristic gaze with a picture of the mother and her husband happily in the background on a pink wall. This exemplifies the ideal relationship of a woman being happily married. The mother is also talking about how a woman has to see herself “through the father’s eyes.” This shows where this expectation of looks comes from, and implies how they should look. The mother is skinny, white, has straight hair, is quiet, and wears makeup and clothes to show off her skin. This is how the “fathers” want women to look. Penny is shown as complacent and ugly in contrast to her mother, and is being forced by her mother to change and conform to be an “ideal woman”. It seems as if the mother is doing this not because she wants to but because Penny will be punished if she does not. This is all shown in an over the shoulder shot, but not in an ordinary way. The over the shoulder shot is not of the two in a reciprocal dialogue, they are both looking away from each other which shows the contrast between the two even more. Throughout the page Penny is looking away from her mother and her mother is sometimes standing over her and looking at her and is actively changing Penny’s hair to make it more ideal. This shows that the mother is being controlling, and it is implied that she is being controlling in order to prevent Penny from being punished by the fathers for not conforming and being an ideal woman.

    Later in the comic on pages 193 and 194 the contrast between how an actual woman acts and how an ideal woman should act is exemplified. On page 193 Penny makes a mistake in forgetting to turn the feed on and one woman tries to momentarily stand up for Penny’s mistake and defend her from the accusatory manner of a man. The woman is quickly corrected and controlled by the man. She rolled her eyes and the man basically told her she was not allowed to do that. The man does not let the woman express how she feels and does not even take her feelings into consideration. The men show no courtesy to others in any way. Penny then defuses the situation by giving the man a free muffin. This shows that women are generally very afraid of men, implying that there must be a reason like there is some kind of punishment involved with defying a man’s orders. So then they are forced into acting ideally, but not because they want to because the men want them to. The men are taking away women’s free will. On page 194 a conversation on the feed between two “ideal women” and Penny’s reaction to the conversation are depicted. The ideal women are shown again wearing specific clothes and make up to please men. The difference in this panel is that what women do to become ideal women is exaggerated in a very extreme almost ridiculous way. In the reporter’s conversation on the feed they speak of wishing “you had a gastrointestinal parasite” which shows how far these women go to become an ideal woman. They want so badly to be an ideal woman that they infect themselves with a potentially harmful and deadly parasite to lose weight and stay skinny. This shows what the expectation is for how women should act, they should be doing everything they can to be very skinny and please men. Penny is shown in outrage to this as she lets her anger out on a ball of dough. She is also shown in complete contrast to the ideal woman, she does not conform to how she is supposed to act and she actually shows her emotions instead of falsely covering them up and hiding them. The way these images are shown are in an objectifying way, which again, further enhances the differences between the ideal woman and the real woman. 

     The contrast between the ideal woman and the real woman support the comics overall message of how bad gender and racial inequality really are. The comic as a whole does this in an exaggerated way, to the point of being hyperbolic and almost ridiculous. Though this exaggeration actually makes the message more powerful in a way, it makes the inequality more clear to readers. This makes the contrast very important to the comic as a whole, without it the meaning would be unclear. The contrast shows many examples of how women feel in the real world. There are many women who feel that they have to dress a certain way in order to please men. There are also some who are so afraid that they will be punished for voicing themselves or doing what they want that they just conform and do as they are told. 

      This comic is a great example of inequality, although slightly unrealistic, it shows that if society continues to progress in this way of treating women that it could very well turn into an epidemic where all women are forced to act and look a certain way. Kelly DeConnick uses this comic to show inequality in hopes of changing it. She does this not only for herself but wants to show the public how poorly women are treated so they will realize what they are doing to women and how bad it is so they will stop doing these things.