What are we doing to our girls - a rant
OK, I'm probably not going to come across as terribly coherent, it's Monday morning and I have to get this out of my system.
So I've been reading a lot of YA chick-lit the last few days. I read the first 3 books in the Gossip Girl series a few months ago. This weekend I've read the first two books in the It Girl series, and I'm finishing the second book in the A-List series. I've also read the first of the Clique series and will be reading the second book likely tonight or tomorrow.
Why am I reading this? Market research. A lot of people have said to me that the novel I'm writing is more YA than anything, so I'm reading what's out there to see if they're right, and I think they might be.
I'm also enjoying this stuff. It's fun, and fluff and reminds me of the Sweet Dreams and Sweet Valley High series that were popular back in the day. Except these girls have way more money and read like a catalogue of every designer name out there.
They are fun books, but they are also raising my hackles. I've been reading these keeping my nieces in the back of my mind because my nieces are at the age these books are geared for. And I'm supremely irritated by the message these books are putting out.
Absolutely, these books are popular because they are an escape to the fantasy world we all wish we could live: the lives of the rich and famous, the wealthy and the popular.
So what is exactly the message they're sending? To be popular you have to have the 'in' look, whatever that may be for your school. To be loved by a boy, you need to be skinny with perfect hair, and the perfect clothes and if you're a little trampy that helps.
I'm noticing this the most with the A-List series, probably because it's most prominent. Samantha is, God forbid, a size 8, which we all know is just too fat, bordering on morbidly obese and the reason no guy shows any interest in her. Cammie is the supper hot trampy one which all the guys fall over. That is until Anna, the classy skinny hot girl comes to town and after being there for 3 days has countless men and boys asking her out.
Gossip Girl and It Girl aren't far behind. What surprises me there is that Jenny Humphrey who is not as pretty as all the others, gets the guys, but that's probably because she's a DD and winds up in situations where she ends up with a trampy reputation when she's generally innocent of all of that.
I worry about the girls who have body-image issues, which, granted, we're girls, we all have them, who read these and start to buy the message. Because that message isn't just in the books. That message is in magazines. It's on every television show and every movie, and every music video and every comment you hear on the radio.
Uncool girls aren't loveable. Any girl bigger than a size 2 is unlovable. A girl with spots or freckles or wrinkles is unloveable.
And that, my friends, is just not true.
Or is it?
So I've been reading a lot of YA chick-lit the last few days. I read the first 3 books in the Gossip Girl series a few months ago. This weekend I've read the first two books in the It Girl series, and I'm finishing the second book in the A-List series. I've also read the first of the Clique series and will be reading the second book likely tonight or tomorrow.
Why am I reading this? Market research. A lot of people have said to me that the novel I'm writing is more YA than anything, so I'm reading what's out there to see if they're right, and I think they might be.
I'm also enjoying this stuff. It's fun, and fluff and reminds me of the Sweet Dreams and Sweet Valley High series that were popular back in the day. Except these girls have way more money and read like a catalogue of every designer name out there.
They are fun books, but they are also raising my hackles. I've been reading these keeping my nieces in the back of my mind because my nieces are at the age these books are geared for. And I'm supremely irritated by the message these books are putting out.
Absolutely, these books are popular because they are an escape to the fantasy world we all wish we could live: the lives of the rich and famous, the wealthy and the popular.
So what is exactly the message they're sending? To be popular you have to have the 'in' look, whatever that may be for your school. To be loved by a boy, you need to be skinny with perfect hair, and the perfect clothes and if you're a little trampy that helps.
I'm noticing this the most with the A-List series, probably because it's most prominent. Samantha is, God forbid, a size 8, which we all know is just too fat, bordering on morbidly obese and the reason no guy shows any interest in her. Cammie is the supper hot trampy one which all the guys fall over. That is until Anna, the classy skinny hot girl comes to town and after being there for 3 days has countless men and boys asking her out.
Gossip Girl and It Girl aren't far behind. What surprises me there is that Jenny Humphrey who is not as pretty as all the others, gets the guys, but that's probably because she's a DD and winds up in situations where she ends up with a trampy reputation when she's generally innocent of all of that.
I worry about the girls who have body-image issues, which, granted, we're girls, we all have them, who read these and start to buy the message. Because that message isn't just in the books. That message is in magazines. It's on every television show and every movie, and every music video and every comment you hear on the radio.
Uncool girls aren't loveable. Any girl bigger than a size 2 is unlovable. A girl with spots or freckles or wrinkles is unloveable.
And that, my friends, is just not true.
Or is it?