The Sparkle Project

Several days ago my friend sent me the list to Bitch Magazine's list of 100 Young Adult books for the feminist YA reader. I thought it was a great list and got a lot of great recommendations from it. There were one or two which I found to be problematic, most notably the inclusion of Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce. I never reviewed the novel because The Book Smugglers did a much better job of doing so than I ever could have. They discussed the perpetuation of rape culture and victim blaming, most notably displayed in one scene where one of the sisters, a wolf hunter, comments on the scantily dressed, make up wearing young girls the wolves prey upon, asking if they'd dress the way they do if they knew wolves were going to attack them for it. Like Ana and Thea, I was disgusted by this part of the book and it ruined any further enjoyment the story may have given me because I couldn't get that image out of my head of someone shaking their finger at a young woman, telling her she should have known better than to wear that dress or dance like that or have a few drinks. It was rape culture of the highest order. I didn't think it was meant deliberately on Pearce's part but reality and intent are often so far away and the fact that it's become the norm in our society to have such attitudes says a lot about the way we perpetuate lazy stereotypes and myths. So I commented on Bitch as Pandora (I've been studying a lot of Greek tragedy lately for my course so I used that name, plus it's easier to pronounce than Ceilidh) expressing my concern and they took the book off the list. I didn't ask them to do that but they made the judgement call and they have the right to stick by it.

A few other books came off, notably Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan, which I haven't read, and YA writers got pissed off. Maureen Johnson requested that her books be removed from the list too, citing some sort of YA author solidarity. Since I took particular offence to her calling the discussion on Bitch's website 'waffling' I thought I'd reply, first on Twitter and now here.

I don't think Sisters Red is feminist YA. I understand that such a definition is subjective but when a book perpetuates a norm of victim blaming and rape culture like that does then I can't possibly support it. I understand there's a massive difference between reality and intent and @JacksonPearce didn't mean it but then the story just reeks of lazy writing and easy conveniences - pretty girls should know better, wearing short skirts is bad, the victim is partially responsible when SHE NEVER IS! - and still perpetuates that rape culture that's permeated our society to the point where sometimes we miss it. @booksmugglers didn't miss it & I applaud them for it. Besides that, the book also clearly favours the pretty passive sister who is easy to love over the damaged, scarred older sister who is more interesting but harder to write which I didn't think was fair. The way so many YA authors are reacting to this action is embarrassing. I know they're cliquey but that doesn't mean they can't question each other's work. I didn't ask for Bitch to remove Sisters Red from the list, they made that desicion. It wasn't bad journalism as some said. Obviously, if everyone at Bitch had read every book that would have been better but here we are. Frankly, throwing a hissy fit over this and calling Bitch and their commenters' discussions waffling won't solve anything. Why don't we fucking discuss the positive and problematic areas of YA and feminism together instead of throwing our toys out the pram? Bitch made a judgement call based on genuine concerns. They have a high standard to live up to and rightly so. They didn't tell people not to read the book and neither did I, they didn't call for it to be removed from bookshelves of from other websites, they didn't censor anything. They made a journalistic decision to remove something they saw as potentially problematic from their list. Simple as that. If YA authors think this is some form of waffling censorship then they're sorely mistaken.

Pandora's going to keep the box open on this and welcomes further discussion. The industry deserves at least that much.

I have never read your work. I make a point of never paying first hand for books written by noted liars. So when I heard that you were writing YA novels under the pen name of Pittacus Lore, entitled “I Am Number Four” I was intrigued but not enough to put money down for the privilege. When I later discovered that not only had the movie rights already been purchased for the at the time unreleased book, but they were already making the $60million film, my cynicism fell from “glass half empty” to “glass empty and smashed across the floor.” Call me old fashioned but I can’t help but think there’s something incredibly artificial and greedy about churning out a book specifically to make a movie of it so you can see the Benjamins roll in. I disliked it when Thomas Harris did it for Hannibal Lecter and I dislike it in a genre I hold close to my heart.

Maureen Johnson posted this Wall Street Journal article on twitter and it’s safe to say you have not gone up in my estimation. Your business Full Fathom Five, created specifically to be a quick, effective conveyor belt of ideas for books solely to be sold to the film market feels incredibly disingenuous to me, not to mention working specifically in the field of multiple book series to milk the cash cow even further. I guess some people would call you a savvy businessman, especially since you employ many writers, pay them next to nothing, then get them to do the legwork. 28 writers working on 27 series? I can feel the creative integrity drain out of me just thinking about it.

But here’s what really got to me about this article, aside from one of your colleagues pitching a YA series idea and insisting that the heroine’s parents be dead (because parentless children have it so good and nobody’s ever read about that before). Your entire attitude to this venture is that of a man obsessed with nothing but monetary gain. The ideas you pitch are derivative but not without promise, yet you seem concerned only with how commercial you can make them instead of how interesting, intriguing or challenging your ideas can be. Teenagers aren’t stupid, they don’t deserve to be talked down to by businessmen in factories churning out stuff they are told they should like because it’s ‘bad-ass.’ You say that “the book world is less accepting of radical ideas” right after a mention of Dreamworks’ marketing team wanting you to create a saleable logo for your Pittacus Lore books. Here’s the truth – the publishing world has been accepting of radical ideas long before you were ever born. It’s how books like Lolita got published. There is a place in our world for low-brow trash and I happily indulge in it myself from time to time, but is there a place for buillshit? Not so much. Your books will probably sell well and the movies will probably make a lot of money too (I notice that there is interest in another movie of one of your company’s yet to be released books starring Jaden Smith) Literature is not something that can be churned out, packaged and dolled up in explosions, and if you seriously think that teenagers deserve nothing but the same old crap then I feel sorry for you.

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks in terms of pop culture, the phenomenon I am equal parts fascinated and horrified by. Between the Marie Claire article where Maura Kelly told the world that fat people repulsed her to Taylor Swift’s less than subtle attacks on exes and love rivals through the medium of terrible pop country music, one can’t help but wonder why the hell women still put up with this shit.

I was comforted by the justified backlash Ms Kelly’s article received, including planned protests, but we need to remember that Marie Claire deserve more blame than Ms Kelly, a self confessed recovering anorexic who really shouldn’t have been given that article to write in the first place. I’m not excusing her borderline bullying but let’s face it; Marie Claire knew exactly what they were doing. I shudder to think how many page views they got out of this debacle. When was the last time you saw a model or actress above a US size 10 on their covers? Actually, how often do non white, non skinny girls make it onto these magazines?

The problem with the show that repulsed Ms Kelly so much, CBS’s “Mike and Molly” has nothing to do with showing intimacy between the title couple (it’s one of the better aspects of the show – I can’t be the only one that thinks they are adorable on screen), it has to do with the overreliance on fat jokes and taking the easy way out, using the overweight characters as punch-lines rather than giving them the characterisation they deserve. There’s a good show in that mess somewhere (and if I’m being completely honest there, I keep watching in the hope that the good will one day outweigh the bad) but if we keep living with this attitude that it’s okay to mock, deride and bully people based solely on how they look, how are we ever going to change anything? Ms Kelly tried to apologise in the most half arsed manner possible, making the teeth-grinding claim that the severely underweight also make her feel uncomfortable – because eating disorders are such relaxing experiences. A lot of great bloggers have discussed this subject much better than I have and you should definitely check them all out.

Then we go to the opposite end of the mean girl spectrum and here we find Taylor Swift. Her latest album is selling like hotcakes but, as with her previous work, there are things that concern and annoy me. Full disclaimer; I don’t like Taylor Swift’s music. It’s catchy enough but her voice isn’t strong enough (even less so live) and she relies on clichéd, schlocky tropes of innocent love, believing Romeo and Juliet and the Scarlet Letter are happy ever after romances, teardrops in the rain and the infuriating virgin/whore complex she gets away with solely because she’s still seen as some sort of victim thanks to Kanye-gate. Her new album verges on psychotic with her less than mature and stable take on exes and in one song, “Better Than Revenge”, she takes a less than subtle swipe at a girl who apparently stole her boyfriend, believed to be actress Camilla Belle:

"She's an actress / But she's better known for the things that she does on the matress."

Now, who would like to tell me what’s wrong with this?

Slut shaming is common, far too common. I’ve discussed it during the Sparkle Project since it’s the easiest way to make a girl a villain (because as Ms Swift is so keen to point out in her song “Fifthteen”, a girl’s worth is in her hymen) and apart from unhealthy relationships being portrayed as positive, it’s my least favourite trope in the genre. Beyond it being incredibly lazy writing, it does nothing to help women. To quote one of my comedic heroes Tina Fey “You have all got to stop calling each other sluts and whore. It only makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and whores.” Like with bullying and discriminatory attitudes, bad things happen when good people do nothing. Right now with everything going on in the world, where it seems like there isn’t a lot of love or hope for young people, we can do so much better than shameless victim playing, slut shaming, size-ism, anti-women attitudes and all that mess. We certainly don't need people like Swift's fans to be complete children doing stuff like this. Remember how I said that impressionable teenagers are influenced by entertainment and so called role models? There's exhibit A right there. It's Ms Swift's schtick to do stuff like this, to pretend to be the naive little girl who is always the victim fighting against the mean girls but rhe truth is she is the epitome of a mean girl. Genuine people don't slut shame others in the name of record sales and petty squabbles. We know better than that.

I spend a lot of time tearing YA books apart for stuff like this because I genuinely believe that we can do better than this. We certainly deserve better. We don’t need people like Becca Fitzpatrick justifying harassment by saying it’s sexy. We don’t need people like Maura Kelly and Marie Claire to tell us what is and isn’t beautiful. We don’t need mean girls like Taylor Swift to push the lies about sex and women being bad. We don’t need perverts like Terry Richardson trying to pass off sexism and harassment against women as art while the guys get off Scott free. There’s a whole lot that needs fixing, I hope we’re all up for the job.

"Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson is about rape. It's a wonderful book but it's not an easy read. It's honest, brutally so, and often heartbreaking, but it's brave and tackles issues that are still seldom talked about today. It's a modern day YA classic so obviously it's a top target for book banners.

Like this jerk.

No, I don't feel bad for calling him a jerk because this man is so ignorant it makes me feel angry just to think about him. In his so called Christian crusade to rid schools of filth, he calls for the removal of "Speak" from the shelves (along with "Slaughterhouse Five" which is just so ridiculous I can't even find the words to describe how stupid it is) because it is "soft pornography." For him to think that about a book containing rape is disgusting, not to mention him outright lying about the book's intent. But the wider issue here is censorship.

Books are powerful things. They can change people, change opinions and hell, they can change the world. Books like "Speak" are why I'm a YA fan. It's gutsy and talks about a taboo issue with unflinching honesty. It doesn't talk down to teenagers or dress up issues. It's not afraid to talk about rape, even when others are. And fear is what really drives censorship. Fear and ignorance. It's the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and refusing to listen to reality. By pulling the book, or any book, from the shelves of a school or library or bookshop, you are denying people, especially young people (the vast majority of the top 10 most challenged books in USA are aimed at teens and children), the chance to explore new topics and new worlds and maybe even think twice about things. What message does it send out when you write incoherent rants about rape being equivalent to soft core pornography? Don't teenagers and young women have enough to worry about? It's crucial that we change perceptions about women and rape. In Scotland, a recent Rape Crisis Scotland survey of more than 1000 people found that 23% of people thought a woman was partially responsible for her own rape if she was drunk, while 17% thought she bore some responsibility if her clothing was revealing. No. Rape is rape. It's not sex. It's NEVER the victim's fault.

"Speak" authour Laurie Halse Anderson rebutted this stupid man on her blog and offers links and advice on how you can tackle this issue head on. Banned Book week is coming soon and I heartily recommend you pick up "Speak" and read it if you haven't already, or any number of books people try to take away from readers. The strongest weapon readers have against people like this is just reading the books.

Anybody who is unfortunate enough to follow me on Twitter probably saw me post a link to this article written by YA author Hannah Moskowitz entitled “The Boy Problem” and they most certainly would have seen me react accordingly. For 10 consecutive tweets. My apologies for that. So to christen the new blog I thought I’d share my polished opinion here.

Moskowitz states in her blog biography that she’s the author of several books, most of which have yet to be released, and also states that most of them have male protagonists so maybe she’s doing some sort of self promotion here. She also offers a brief disclaimer that this piece is her opinion and there will always be exceptions so I’m going to offer exceptions. I can understand where she’s coming from to a point and she’s made some other interesting blog posts about the genre, including one about the exclusivity of YA which I agree with more than this. Right now the genre is very geared towards a female audience because the trend is for Twilight style books. It’s easier to promote something as “The next [insert trend here]” and this is nothing new. We did it with Harry Potter, we’re doing it with Twilight and Percy Jackson and it won’t be long before we do it with the Hunger Games. I can’t comment on her point that boys don’t read YA because obviously I’m not a boy but it does seem like an odd generalisation to make. Gender specific trending is nothing new and while I’m okay with it to an extent (I’d still love more gender neutral media, not just in literature) it is true that since the current bit trend is very much for girls, all the attention is on that. But my main problems with Moskowitz’s article start here:

Write a girl the same way everyone has been telling everyone, forever, to write a girl’ free of gender stereotypes, three-dimensional, and relatable. Seriously, please do, because right now the most popular YA books aren’t pushing this point Moskowitz is making. I’d love to see well written characters of both genders in YA getting the attention they deserve. They’re not being written badly to empower women, far from it. Right now the genre is brimming full of great stories for both boys and girls, not to mention the wide spectrum of literature that teenagers move onto after YA. Right now, as Tamora Pierce offered in her fantastic rebuttal, the market is more open to girls because girls buy more books while boys are more likely to borrow from libraries and the like. Pierce also writes about why she writes female heroes here.

I wish I could conclude this slightly less ranty piece in a more original manner but Ms Pierce said it best. Both boys and girls need heroes and both need books. We all need strong characters and less sexism and less bullshit.