Yes, I know that “Feminism in YA” is a really sweeping title. There are a few zillion feminist beliefs out there, and they are often contradictory. But to me, feminism means championing the rights of women, which encompasses all the schools of thought. And in the context of this post, feminist YA will refer to young adult books that promote the rights of women, one way or another.
First, a little about my own beliefs. I believe that girls and women should be free to choose their work, clothes, food, hobbies, beliefs, etc. without fear, shame, or additional difficulty thanks to being defined by their gender. In fact, I don’t think people should be defined primarily by their gender, and the idea of a gender binary is bunk. But that’s a whole other blog post. Back to books.
Lately, there’s been much discussion in the blogging community about anti-feminist books. Particularly those in the paranormal romance genre. Obviously different readers can argue endlessly about whether a book is feminist or not, but I don’t think it’s useful to think of books as being anti-feminist. Feminism isn’t the opposite of anti-feminism. It isn’t the negative image of all the hurtful portrayals of female characters. It’s about advancing beyond these damaging viewpoints, and rethinking our culture’s portrayals of girls and women in a helpful, healthy way.
So I’m not going to talk about books I hated and chucked against the wall; I’m going to talk about the books I want to see. There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all feminist book, which is why we need more. I’ve got a feminist wish list for YA fiction, actually:
-I want to see more gorgeous girls. Sexy girls. Whether they look conventionally physically attractive or not, these girls should act gorgeous and sexy. This is why I love Vivian from Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause. She’s supremely confident and comfortable with herself. Sure, she has long legs and tan skin and golden hair, but her body isn’t ornamental: she runs fast, fights hard, lounges in the grass, and oh yeah, turns into a wolf. She isn’t perfect. She’s got plenty of other problems. But she relishes her physicality.
-I want to see more YA books without romance in them. It bothers me that romance seems to be the default story nowadays. Especially stories where the girl’s only or overriding goal in life is to snag the guy. If the girl is even that active; usually she waits for the guy to snag her. Don’t get me wrong, I love romance, be it sweet or sexy, but I also love reading about single girls, or girls who just happen to be in a relationship but have another adventure going on.
-Oh, and while we’re talking about romance, I’d like to see some girl snags girl books. I honestly haven’t read more than one or two YA books, ever, that talk about a girl falling in love with another girl. Where are they?
-I want to read more books with nerdy girls. Like, a girl genius programmer who tinkers with dangerously smart AI, or a girl science officer on a spaceship, or a girl student of microbiology who makes a fantastic discovery about alien life. Yes, I have a craving for more sci-fi YA. I’m not biased at all. Really.
I could go on and on, since I’m rather greedy with my wish lists, but I want to know what you think. What’s your feminist wish list for YA?
I'd love to see everything that you mentioned, as well, although I don't think I necessarily want to see *gorgeous* girls as *confident* girls. There are plenty of characters who are meant to be gorgeous, judging by other people's reactions, but are so insecure about it that it's becoming a cliche. (I know, there's a reason for the cliche, but that doesn't mean it's all I want to read about.) I'd love to see more girls who others consider average-looking but who make it *work* for them.
Corinne, I should clarify that I meant "gorgeous" as in girls who have a really positive self-image and are secure about themselves. Like I said, "whether they look conventionally physically attractive or not," which includes your comment about "girls who others consider average-looking but who make it *work* for them." That's also what I meant by *acting* gorgeous. It's an active thing that starts with the character herself, not a passive thing bestowed upon the character by others. Does that make more sense?
Your wish list and mine are awfully similar! I am especially eager to see more books without romance – or with romance on the periphery. For most of high school, I had absolutely no interest in romance, and it was hard to find books that resonated with that part of me. When I did start finding romances that struck me…it was of the girl snags girl variety (of which we need more. We also need more books where the girl could snag the boy or the girl. I can think of one book about a bisexual girl – Sara Ryan's Empress of the World. It's girl snags girl but both girls have previously had relationships with boys).
Love this post! A great nerdy, bisexual girl character is in Andromeda Klein by Frank Portman (unfortunately, however, she ends up with a boy at the end, but she's totally the top in the relationship). I also want to see more books about girls who aren't quite "good" in the traditional sense of the word, who mess up more than a little, who struggle with making mistakes, who are fighting with more internally than bad grades and their curfew. I find that I don't relate to the female characters in most YA because they're so good and clean and wholesome. I want to see characters that are a little more damaged, that have a little more fighting to do to succeed. Courtney Summers writes great girls like this.
Angela, thanks for the recommendation! I'll definitely add Empress of the World to my TBR list.
Amy, another great book for me to read. I also agree about wanting more YA featuring girls who aren't "good," as you say. There's so much emphasis on girls and women being nice in our culture, I'd love to see more nasty.
Karen, I wholeheartedly agree with what you said about YA female characters and romance. In my eyes, that's the single biggest problem with YA books that center around girls. I think the tacit assumption here (and elsewhere) is that if a girl's life lacks romance, it's not complete. She needs it for validation, to be a whole person. Even in books where the girl's character is illuminated by its contrast with her partner's, the emphasis on romantic relationships is off-putting for me. How many people expect a book with a male protagonist to include a romantic subplot? It's not fair that books about women have to incorporate that by default.
Before I go further with this, I have to admit that it's been a long, long time since I read a young adult novel. It's unfortunate, because they're much more suspenseful than what I usually read. I'm not really up to speed with current trends in the genre. So I could be wrong. Maybe the newer books don't rely so much on romance. When I was a teenager, I tended to gravitate towards YA scifi books of the kind you mentioned. I liked books with nerdy heroines and would love to see more of them at all levels.
I disagree with you a little about the issue of physical appearance. I think that for women, it could stand to be deemphasized a bit. Nobody dwells too much on what male protagonists look like (well, maybe Harry Potter. But you get my point). For me, it can be too much even to construct a girl character's appearance as a major source of confidence. It draws attention to the fact that people are constantly assessing women for what they look like and that she must focus at least some of her attention on that, too. If it were done subtly, I'd probably be okay with it. A book about a nerdy young woman who also was attractive would be running against all kinds of gendered assumptions, and that would be awesome!
Great points, Brenna.
Also, I'd like to clarify what I meant by "girls who are gorgeous." As I said in my post, "Whether they look conventionally physically attractive or not, these girls should act gorgeous and sexy." Gorgeous because they don't need someone to tell them that; gorgeous because they are confident about their bodies and what they can do, be it archery, running, basketball, modeling, or even happily being a couch potato.
In a lot of YA fiction (or any fiction, actually) I've noticed this us vs. them rivalry between the girl protagonist and the "pretty girls." There's this sense that if you're pretty, you must be somehow shallow/nasty/or at the very least, an object of envy. Since we're supposed to empathize with the not-pretty protagonist, it's implied that we're also not-pretty. Like it's the default mode of thinking for a girl or woman to think she's ugly.
Why can't we redefine who the "pretty girls" are?
There is no way in heck anyone else could have said this better!
I agree with the confidence thing. A lot of girls in YA put themself down or try to hide who they want to be because of what other people think again. I think more girls should be confident and act gorgeous. I'm a high schooler and I think that a lot of YA girls are like this because that's how girls are in real life. I only know a handful of girls that act sexy or are confident in themselves.
With the romance thing, I also some-what agree. I only some-what agree because I can't really read a book without romance. It bothers me when a girl is so hung up on a guy that they are nobody without said guy. Again, in my life my friends and I all want boyfriends. I guess it's the whole highschool experience and being a teen. I wouldn't mind reading a book with a single girl who is perfectly fine on her own.
I'm not actually sure what kind of YA girls I would like to see. To be honest, I haven't really thought about it. But now that you've brough it up, I'm going to be thinking about it constantly.
[...] Also, Karen Kincy (author of Other) has written a phenomenal post about feminism in YA novels. I highly recommend you check it out here. [...]
I'm not sure if you'd like it or not (there is a bit of romance – but not the focus of the book.) It's the Protector of the Small Quartet by Tamora Pierce. A girl trying for equal rights to become a knight despite people questioning her "methods" (people accuse her of magic and prostitution, etc. to succeed). It's more of a "growing up" series, since it spans her life from 11 to 18. There's also a previous quartet, similar, but about a character who had to pretend to be a boy to become a knight. I don't like it as much – more romance and more degrading in some parts, but it still shows how she fought to become a knight against all of her opponents.
For girl-snags-girl books, I haven't read any recently, but Reading Rants by Jennifer Hubert has a great section on GLBTQ books, which include a couple that I want to read (but can't, because I live in hicksville, and the library won't carry them). The only YA book I can think of (and this is after much, much thinking) where the girl is confidant and not obsessed with a guy (there is a guy, but he's a plot device more than anything else) is The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E Lockheart.
What I'd like to see is more books where the fact that a girl is in love with another girl isn't actually the POINT of the book. I'd like to see some where a girl loves another girl simply because she does, and people aren't all hung up about it, and there's an actual outside plotline. A girl character can have a boyfriend in a book without the book being about the boyfriend… why can't it be the same way when a girl has a girlfriend?