The pretty girls
In response to several comments on my post about Feminism in YA, I’d like to clarify what I meant by “girls who are gorgeous.” As I said in my previous 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?
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Originally published at KarenKincy.com