In Kelly Deconnick’s Bitch Planet, there is a certain image of how women should look in order to meet society’s expectations of them. Penny is the opposite of what society believes a woman should be. She is shown in the comics as overweight while society feels that women should be thin.  Her weight is often criticized for not meeting standards, but her weight is only one of her many imperfections. She is a representation of women in the outer world society who are outcast due to not meeting society’s standards. This excerpt from Deconnick’s Bitch Planet reveals a deeper meaning behind Penny’s imperfections by showing how women in society are portrayed as objects and should meet society’s standard of how they should look. Due to society’s high expectation of women, emotional distress and bad habits create a daily struggle for women to feel confident and beautiful in their own bodies. 

In Bitch Planet, the other women shown throughout the comic are very thin and are discussing their diet. In one of the panels, there are three young women sitting at a table in the diner where Penny works.  One of the women cuts the muffin into three slices and says, “Divided by three, that’s 15 calories each” (Page 195). Due to high expectations, women in this comic are counting calories to sustain their figure. Not surprising, women outside of the comic face the same adversities. One difference between the comic and the outside world is that society focuses also on features of a woman rather than being thin.  The viewer observes how the image of women in Bitch Planet is similar to the outside world and how the viewer can relate to the pressures of society. Society says in order to be beautiful, women have to be presented in a certain way, especially when it comes to their body. Society characterizes women as sexual objects, but not all women are built to be tall, have long legs, skinny waist and curvy hips like society explicitly and implicitly endorses. They are often reprehended for not having curves like the women that are showcased in magazines and movies. 

In order to obtain a certain body figure, some women go to extreme lengths to achieve it. In the same panel with the three young women, another woman says “Did I tell you I evac’d 12 ounces two days in a row?” (Page 195), which shows that she is bulimic. Bulimia is an emotional disorder which people who have an obsession about losing weight and who perform self-induced vomiting are diagnosed with. The author uses this issue in the excerpt to identify a real problem and make the viewer aware of society’s impact on women in the comic and outside of it. It opens up a larger issue about the emotional impact it has on women. Women have also resorted to other options such as anorexia, diet pills, and over-exercising, all of which have negative effects on the body.  These three women in the panel are products of the society in which they live, Bitch Planet.  Women have also resorted to expensive cosmetic surgeries such as liposuction and breast augmentation in order to achieve the body they want. They rely on surgeries costing thousands of dollars to make their bodies acceptable to society.  They hope these multi thousand dollar surgeries will makes their bodies acceptable to society. The visual text is asking the reader to see the wrongdoing of society and the pressure it puts on women to maintain a specific body type. Some people are unaware of the amount of stress women are under and the dangerous and unhealthy lengths they will go to for society pleasing bodies.  Not eating, purging, pills, over-exercising, and cosmetic surgeries are all examples of the extreme risks women take in order to be what society expects of them. 

Yet another way that the visual imagery depicts the important society places on women and their appearance is the attire of the women. Clothing that is typically associated with success, such as business suits, are worn by the women who are focused on their appearance and how little food they eat. Penny, on the other hand, is overweight and dressed in a simple t-shirt and apron. She has her hair pulled back with a scarf and doing manual labor. This, again, demonstrates that in order for women to be successful and have importance, they must look a certain way. The imagery also further propagates the idea that even successful business women have little else to discuss than things associated with their appearance as well.  

Bitch Planet highlights the image of women, specifically their body image. In the analysis of the panel of the three women, it shows how controlling their weight and diet has consumed their everyday life. Each of them is only eating a third of a muffin to consume less food in order to lose weight. One of the women discusses how she has purged a large amount of food over the past two days which exhibits bulimia, an eating disorder that women struggle with. Society’s expectations of women have reached such an extreme extent that they have resorted to habits that destroy their health and wellbeing. This visual text makes Penny appear overweight as a result of society’s expectations of what her size should be. If this topic was discussed in a different form, the effect would not be as strong. Giving a visual of thin women continuing to   be on strict diet helps the reader see that it affects all women, not just the ones that are overweight. Women should be able to feel confident and comfortable in their bodies. They should not be shamed by society for not meeting society's standard of beauty. The visual element in Bitch Planet is makes the viewer aware of women’s everyday struggle to meet the standard which is set for them. The visual imagery provided demonstrates society's impact on women and their individual body image. 
