Welcome to the third year of STACKED’s “About The Girls” series. The series launched in 2014 as a means of allowing a space that talked unabashedly about girls, girls in YA lit, female authorship, and feminism. So often, we ask “What about the boys?” when we talk about reading and books, and this is my response: “What about the girls?”
Like in years past, I’ve reached out to female YA authors who’ve penned books about girls and shared girls stories. But unlike previous years, because of my own commitments with my own anthology, I’ve scaled down a touch. Rather than a week of posts from guests, this year we have three excellent ones. I thought rather than overstretch myself, it would make sense to highlight those pieces, share a little bit about a conference I attended and the amazing female-grown resources and knowledge I acquired worth sharing (and totally applicable in all settings girls inhabit), and I’d reshare some of the pieces from “About The Girls” in years past. Note that because of our change from Blogger to Wordpress, some of the previous pieces are a little wonky format-wise, but all of them have such amazing thoughts and insights that I’m okay with the messiness of them for sake of what they have to say.
Prepare your week of thinking all about the girls with this round-up of “About the Girls” guest pieces from 2014 and 2015 that we’ve had the honor of hosting. They tackle the issues of girls, girls reading, and girls stories head on. As always, if you want to write anything this week on these broad topics, please link back to your work here, and I’m happy to create a big round-up for readers. I love reading about this topic and love more to share your words.
Considerable debate has been devoted to the subject of the Unlikable Female Protagonist, a common pest of the natural world. While it is not our intent here to contribute to the extensive literature on her value as an object of study, we hope that by clarifying and outlining her identifying characteristics we may make a valuable and practical addition to the current research being conducted in the field.
The Unlikable Female Protagonist (UFP) is indigenous to a highly diverse spectra of ecosystems, climates, and geographical zones.
The Unlikable Female Protagonist: A Field Guide to Identification In The Wild
I wish more YA books featured strong girl friendships – the kind worth every bit as much to the heroine as a boy, the kind who aren’t shoved off stage or reduced only to giving relationship advice, who fight the monsters or evil government right alongside the heroine. Here are three girl friendships that I think are really, really awesome.
– from Positive Girl Friendships in YA by Jessica Spotswood
But when it comes to using past experiences as power, there is no greater female voice in YA than that of Cheryl Rainfield. A survivor of incest and torture, Cheryl understands exactly what it means to have to be your own hero. She escaped her horrific situation. She saved herself. She became her own hero, many times over. But, more than that, Cheryl somehow kept her grip on that power, and has used her writing to share it with others who need to see that possibility exists for them, too.
– from Cheryl Rainfield, a Hero for Girls by Jennifer Brown
I love “unlikeable” characters. I write “unlikeable” characters (or at least I try). And to be honest, I am an “unlikeable” character. I don’t sit quietly in a group. I won’t back down in an argument. I’m ambitious and arrogant and maybe a little bitchy just because I happen to feel like it. I will always suggest we do something I like and I will always have an opinion. I won’t stay quiet for the benefit of group harmony. If I get irritated I will tell you so and leave.
In other words, I am a real person with all of the complex emotions and feelings that being a humans have. And I’m not the only woman that happens to be that way.
– from I Love “Unlikable,” I Write “Unlikable,” and I Am “Unlikable” by Justina Ireland
Let me also say that if someone wrote me a letter like this, I’d be speechless. The world is wide, and feminism is wide. Lots of valid choices exist, and I’m questioning yours in public, which is pretty damn cheeky. So I hope you never see this letter. But this book made me panicked enough that I had to write it all out. I send you my apologies. People have called me a misogynist (and a transmisogynist) in my writing, so I think A LOT about why those readers believe I screwed up. Did you screw up? I don’t know. I can’t know. All I know is my reaction.
– from Whose Feminism(s)? by Kirstin Cronn-Mills
Across all categories of YA—contemporary realistic, fantasy, mystery, traditional romance, magic realism, dystopian, and everything in between—the kinds of authors and books that I personally love and admire feature complex, interesting, multilayered female characters. Characters who surprise me, who challenge my expectations, who force me to reconsider my own beliefs, who open my eyes to new ideas and possibilities, who illicit some kind of emotional reaction from me. Characters I’d like to write about. Characters who embody the complex traits I like to discover in girls and women in real life.
Yet, by and large, role model reviewers seem to be Scarlet Lettering these girls—young female characters who are, on the most basic level, just being human. They’re exploring their (sometimes unpredictable, often contradictory, usually confusing) emotions. They’re confronting new situations and fears, and are often handling them with less grace and aplomb than adults think they should (or, more likely, with less grace and aplomb than we think we would’ve handled things at that age).
Challenging the Expectation of YA Characters as “Role Models” for Girls
I write stories about girls. And a lot of the time, some people get very upset with the way my heroines actor react to what’s going on around them.
My girls have been called mean, uncaring, whiny, stupid and that’s just a start.
Here’s the kicker. The people saying these things? Other girls. Other women.
– from Some Girls Are Not Okay and That’s Not Fine by Elizabeth Scott
In my high school experience, it was my friends who were my constant, my tight-knit group of four (and then five, and then six) who were the center of my world. Boys were there, of course – to swoon over and crush on and date and go to the prom with and sob over at two AM. They were there filling the pages of my journal and the subject of hours and hours of phone calls. But when I think back on my high school experience, the boys were the cameos and exciting guest stars, while my friends were the series regulars. Friendship was, in experience, more important to me than romance. So why hadn’t friendship featured more in my books until now?
Why did it seem like friendship was always taking a backseat to romance in YA?
It just seems like, more often than not (and I count myself in this group) authors are much more focused on the romance, and the friend often takes the role the BFF takes in a rom-com – there in the background, to talk to the heroine about her boy problems, and not do much else.
– from More on Girl Friendships in YA by Morgan Matson
I really like reading about girls who are strong and accomplished and quick, who use powers both physical and supernatural to survive and thrive. But as an author who (so far, anyway) writes characters who are far more human than superhuman, I’m also a fan of girl characters who use cleverness and intelligence to make their way, whether it’s book learnin’ or street smarts. It’s a running theme in my own books, too. Asha, the narrator of my first book The Latte Rebellion, is bright and academic, but her bright ideas also land her in major hot water. Fortunately, she’s clever enough to swim rather than sink. We need realistic, believable girl characters (and guys!) to show us that brainpower is just as important as physical strength, and sometimes more so. So, for women’s history month, I present you with my list of Favorite YA Girl Characters Who Kick Ass With Their Brains. (And not just with their ass-kicking boots. Though I would dearly love a pair of those…).
– from Girls Kicking Ass With Their Brains by Sarah Stevenson
We can’t all be Judy Blume. Or really none of us can, but the fact that we all agree she is the queen of navigating sexuality as a teen means there’s probably something to learn there. She didn’t trap us into one notion of what a relationship looked like, and she didn’t tell us sex was a goal that meant a relationship was real or valid or that a happily-ever-after was coming. She didn’t insist there was only the first kiss and the first time with nothing in between. She didn’t seem to have an agenda.
And listen, sex as a teen can make love feel more real, can bring a relationship to the next level. Of course it can! Just as marriage can work out and it can be a valid goal for a 20, 30 40 or whatever-something woman. But examining what literature and media are telling us is vital. And understanding our wants in that context elevates our understanding of ourselves. We have to give teens the chance to evaluate themselves in the same way.
YA literature has a responsibility to make a space for girls to think about sexuality on a broad spectrum. We owe it to girls to give them something we don’t have—more than one ideal Relationship Narrative. Open space where there used to be claustrophobic one-path hallways. A chance to decide for themselves what love looks like, and what sex looks like in all its forms.
– from How to Relationship by Corey Ann Haydu
The girls and women who get abortions are our sisters, our daughters, our friends, our mothers, our readers. It is the stigma of abortion that prevents us from sharing these stories with our fellow women and the world, and it is that same stigma that might make us cautious, as writers, to approach the subject in ways that diverge from the acceptable abortion narrative: the good, unpromiscuous girl whose birth control failed or whose boyfriend convinced her that just this one time without a condom would be OK. This girl usually tells one or both of parents about her pregnancy. She agonizes over her decision. She has a bright future that must be saved through abortion. That kind of abortion is acceptable. It makes sense. She won’t make that mistake again. She learns. She’ll be better at being a good girl in the future. But a girl who never even tried to use birth control? Who wasn’t in love or a virgin? Who doesn’t tell her parents? Who slept around? Who might not know who the father is? Who doesn’t agonize over her choice? Who doesn’t have a bright future? Who has to wait until the last minute because she doesn’t have the money? Who hitches a ride to the abortion clinic because she has no other option? Who is getting her second, her third, her fourth abortion? Her story remains largely untold—it isn’t acceptable. This girl, she makes bad decisions. She might not learn a lesson. Her story may be complicated, but it deserves to be told just as widely and boldly.
Abortion, Girls, Choice, and Agency
If we are to have a feminist YA, we must write about all the girls, not just the ones that are “likeable”. Because “likeable” is just another way of prescribing a right way to be a girl. Because girls and women are complicated and deep and layered and messy and infinitely fascinating. Because if male characters are allowed to be those things and still be worthy of reading, so should female characters. Because I don’t want to read just one kind of woman. Because I don’t want to be one kind of woman. Because if we do not give our female characters the right to be all kinds of women, how do we expect our readers to know they have that right, too?
On Being A Feminist and Daring to Write “Unlikable”
1. Friendship stories encourage us to seek out good friendships.
Books that show healthy friendships encourage us to foster these relationships in our lives. How many of us wanted an amazing spider for a best friend after reading Charlotte’s Web? Someone who would save our hides from becoming bacon when the world turned against us? E.B. White created such relatable emotions in her two unlikely characters of Wilbur the pig and Charlotte the spider, it’s not surprising this book is the best selling paperback of all time. The ending still chokes me up. Another classic series, the Betsy-Tacy-Tib books by Maud Hart Lovelace, centers around three best friends who are constantly getting into trouble for things like throwing mud at each other, and cutting off each other’s hair. When I read them, I longed for a friend I could throw mud at. (Instead, I had sisters, who were almost as fun.) To this day, I still seek out the kind of people I can be silly with, because of those girls.
Why Friendship Books Are Essential
That’s what I’ve seen with the strong women in my life. They may get knocked down; they might make mistakes along the way, but that doesn’t stop them. They move forward drawing on their own unique strengths and the ones they’ve gained on their journey—and there are so many ways to be strong. One way of course, is through plain physical power. I know a lot of women with incredible physical endurance—and ones who can pack a wallop! But there are many shades of strength, including bravery, compassion, intelligence, perseverance, vision, curiosity, cleverness, ambition, resolve, and so many more.
Maybe the books I write are appropriate. Maybe they are not. But I think it should be up to the daughters to make that decision, not the mothers. Censorship—even on a familial level—only closes doors. We may want to guard our daughters’ innocence, we may fear that giving them access to books that depict sexuality in raw and honest ways will encourage them to promiscuity, or will put ideas in their heads. I don’t think our daughters need guardians of innocence. I think what they need is power. Let your daughter read my books, Concerned Mother. Read them with her. Have a conversation. Tell her your stories. Let her see your secrets, and your shames. Arm your daughter with information and experience.
The concept of intersectional feminism has been around and discussed for many decades, but law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, a black woman, is credited as being the first person to coin the term in 1989, which is loosely defined as recognizing that women experience different layers of oppression, including race, class, gender, ethnicity, and ability. So, in other words, the reasons my white female friends didn’t seem to quite get what I was going through was because most of their experiences were colored through the experience of being a white woman. Full stop. Race and ethnicity weren’t an issue for them, and typically class and ability weren’t, either. I remember sitting in my therapist’s office in Chicago several years ago when she asked, “How do you define yourself?” I looked at her, confused, and she said, “If someone asked you to define all the things you are, what would you say and in what order?” It didn’t take long for me to reply: “Black. Woman. Writer.” To me, I am all of those equally, but I know society doesn’t always see or treat me that way.
What About Intersectionality and Female Friendships in YA? by Brandy Colbert
In actuality, science fiction is the perfect arena for exploring sociological issues, because the genre has long taken on hot topics and attempted to reframe them in a way that might help us view our own world differently. We can take a fresh look at race, class, or terrorism without the baggage we have when reading the news, then return to those real-world issues with a fresher, deeper understanding. Women like the ones I’ve mentioned have proved they are not afraid to do this. In fact, they excel at this, one of the most fundamental values underpinning science fiction writing.
Women carving out a space for themselves in science fiction is changing the face of the genre, and changing it for the better. It is broadening and deepening the conversations we have in science fiction. If we keep reading and writing, who knows what brave new worlds we’ll discover next?
– from Staking Our Claim in Science Fiction by Alexandra Duncan
One has to be curious in order to listen. Children’s and YA lit represents the bulk of the books actively contributing to the formation of a child’s values, and, where middle grade is concerned, the majority of the books that end up in a child’s hands are, on some level, prescribed by adults. This is a desperately important time to be cultivating a curiosity in young people about others’ experiences, and we’re not going to be able to do that properly if we remain entrenched in the same ideas about “boy books” and “girl books” that we’ve been working with up to this point. Books can be powerful tools for change in this respect—to teach young boys and girls to look outside themselves, to frame empathy as a trait not reserved for girls but as an important part of being a boy as well. The way in which we talk about gender with regard to books for kids and teens is certainly not the sole problem here, no more than any other aspect of American culture—but unlike those other aspects, we are in a unique position to be a part of the solution. The choices that writers, publishing professionals, booksellers, educators, reviewers, etc make with regard to framing gender can have a profound impact on these issues. Because books are one place where smart, kind, passionate men whose life experiences have simply prevented them from connecting with the perspectives of women can find that connection.
But first, we need to let them in the room.
– from On Curiosity by Jordan Brown
