male privilege and male feminism in the knife of never letting go
So there's this tumblr blog, fierceyaheroines that I may or may not have developed an unhealthy interest in. Maybe. And I've been suggesting some heroines that their original list didn't have--Gemma, Felicity, Ann, and Pippa from the Gemma Doyle trilogy, Deryn Sharp from the Leviathan trilogy, and, today, Viola Eade from the Chaos Walking trilogy. And today's suggestion of Viola got me thinking--well, does Todd Hewitt deserve some kind of special mention on a site dedicated to heroines even if he's male? See, there's a quote Todd says about Viola that I used for the entry, but it got me thinking that the quote says very little about Viola while speaking volumes about Todd. So here I will essentially repost my submission to fierceyaheroines (with a few edits for things like clarity upon rereading the submission) from where I start writing about Todd.
[mildish spoilers for The Knife of Never Letting Go, super mild spoilers for Leviathan and moderate spoilers for The Hunger Games]
Even though [fierceyaheroines] is all about YA heroines (and righteously so), I think the male protagonist from [The Knife of Never Letting Go], Todd Hewitt, deserves a special mention for being the only male character from any YA fic book I can remember ever reading for being a feminist. I don't think he or anyone else he knows has even heard the word "feminist" and in fact, his world holds some really misogynistic views. But yet you get his glorious exchange on page 380 (Todd is the first person narrator):
"The army your girl's been talking about has been spotted marching down the river road," Doctor Snow says. "One of our scouts just reported them less than an hour away."
"Oh, no," I hear Viola whisper.
"She ain't my girl," I say, low.
"What?" Doctor Snow says.
"What?" Viola says.
"She's her own girl," I say. "She don't belong to anyone."
[commence my cheering]
Have you ever seen this sentiment expressed in any YA fic book, ever? 'Cause I don't think I have but let me tell you it is beautiful. Normally YA fic seems to be inundated with trite romances and some rather possessive male leads, but Todd and Viola's relationship reminds me of Lyra and Will's. There is total respect there and, for the majority of the story, little to no romance to cloud things.
Now let me say that I know that I'm giving Todd the total benefit of male privilege by essentially giving him laughably low standards for awesomeness. Believing women are individuals in their own right is really just human decency so Todd is really just being a decent human being more than a feminist. But I think given the context that this book exists in, author Patrick Ness giving Todd this line and this character trait is astounding. Just look at other instances of sexism in fiction marketed to children and young adults. JK Rowling used her initials instead of her name because her publisher didn't think boys would want to read books written by a woman even though her name was the androgynous Jo. Deryn Sharp, even as a badass heroine and wonderful female role model whom I adore, has to dress up as a boy because it is understood within our culture that maleness is somehow better; we applaud Deryn for playing into this system because we understand that this is the only way that Deryn will get the opportunities and fair treatment she deserves that would otherwise be denied to her because of her sex (and I reiterate that this is not a criticism of Deryn or Leviathan, but a criticism of the context within which she and her story exist). And then there is the misogynistic and racist plague that is Twilight (not in italics for a reason) that I just don't want to get into right now.
Do you think "shipping wars" between The Hunger Games fans would be nearly as vitriolic if Gale or Peeta had ever said something about Katniss being her own person*? Or if Todd's sentiment were commonly expressed by men, fictional or real, within the greater realm of pop culture? Men do play an important role in feminist activism, and their privileged status is precisely why they can make such a large impact on gender equality. It's fucked up, but it's true.
*It seems to be lost on people that the story is about the impacts of violence on children and young adults, and how one girl, Katniss Everdeen, is fighting an oppressive regime while dealing with increasingly worse symptoms of PTSD after living through unimaginable violence. The love triangle subplot is just that-a subplot. It doesn’t fucking matter if she ends up with Peeta or Gale, and your opinions on each character doesn’t change the fact that all these kids are traumatized and trying to deal in their own way. For both Gale and Peeta, they’re dealing by attempting to validating their romantic feelings. For Katniss, she’s dealing by fantasizing about assassinating the president. DO YOU SEE THE DIFFERENCE ‘SHIPPERS? The love triangle is trivial and the story is about Katniss, a human being and her own person defined by her own personality, not by which boys want to stick their tongues in her mouth. I know that sexual exploration is an important part of growing up and becoming your own person, but it kinda has to take a back seat to war and political injustice. [Yeah, this aside was not included in my original post. But this is my livejournal, so whatever, I do what I want.]
So this ended up turning into way more of a thing than I originally intended. I still stand by my original intent of this submission, that Viola Eade is a totally fierce badass feminist heroine, even if I spent most of my time considering male privilege/sexism/male feminism/etc. I still stand by that Todd Hewitt deserves some kind of mention for expressing pro-rights feminist opinions, especially as a fictional fourteen-year-old boy in a misogynistic society that kids, but especially boys, in our own patriarchal/kyriarchal society are meant to look up to and identify with. (Though perhaps he doesn't deserve this mention on this particular blog, but it's [fierceyaheroines] that got me thinking about it so it's this blog that I'll submit this to.)
[/spoilers]
So let me now take a minute to remind my future self (if I reread this) that, at the time I write this, I am about a month shy of my 19th birthday, and I'm procrastinating starting my giant ton of homework that's been assigned to me after my first full week of my sophomore year at Cal. (Seriously, it's irrational how much homework I've received in a single week.)
I rant about my mom’s boyfriend, Jim, all the time for being arrogant and clearly believing that he deserves his male privilege. It’s something I haven't written about because, frankly, Jim pisses me off to fucking much for me to want to leave any kind of record of his existence. He plays a game where he tries to piss me off by being intentionally sexist and misogynistic, and my only comfort is that he’s also pissing off my mother as well, who is, you know, a strong woman with feminist ideologies. He criticizes what foods I eat and how much I consume, even though I’m at a relatively healthy, if heavier than aesthetically ideal, weight, and I’m fairly certain he could be medically classified as obese. (Yeah, Jim’s a real catch. His only redeeming qualities seems to be that he’s rich, lives in a nice house, and aquicises (how the fuck do you spell that word???) to my mom on my brother and I living there part-time). My mom does most of the housework-cooks, cleans, does laundry, goes grocery shopping, etc. If Jim does one thing to help around the house-like grilling chicken my mom bought and seasoned, or taking the clothes out of the washer and outing them into the dryer (after my mom put them in the washer in the first place and will fold them when they come out of the dryer), or picking up something from the grocery store on the way home, its like he deserves a fucking medal that says “bets boyfriend EVAR!” It’s disgusting, and it is male privilege, just like it’s male privilege to laude single dads who are actually, you know, dads while just expecting mothers, single or otherwise, to want to take care of their brat children and condemning them if they do a less than exemplary job of childrearing.
And that’s basically what I’ve done here with Todd. He isn’t real. He only has the privileges that I allow him to have, which means that I am giving him his male privilege. I’m not really sure how I feel about this, because, frankly, I do think that quote is very important given the context that it will be read by boys and girls growing up in sexist societies. I think it’s important for male role models like Todd to have these kinds of views so that they are normalized in the views of children, especially boys. I feel conflicted right now, and I think that this is where I’ll stop for now. Perhaps I’ll come back and ad more later.
I'm also going to link to my other recent post on ya fic, " 'shipping for young women" because, in my head, they exist a bit in tandem and I just reread it and am resolved to go fix the truckload of typos and grammar errors in it.
[mildish spoilers for The Knife of Never Letting Go, super mild spoilers for Leviathan and moderate spoilers for The Hunger Games]
Even though [fierceyaheroines] is all about YA heroines (and righteously so), I think the male protagonist from [The Knife of Never Letting Go], Todd Hewitt, deserves a special mention for being the only male character from any YA fic book I can remember ever reading for being a feminist. I don't think he or anyone else he knows has even heard the word "feminist" and in fact, his world holds some really misogynistic views. But yet you get his glorious exchange on page 380 (Todd is the first person narrator):
"The army your girl's been talking about has been spotted marching down the river road," Doctor Snow says. "One of our scouts just reported them less than an hour away."
"Oh, no," I hear Viola whisper.
"She ain't my girl," I say, low.
"What?" Doctor Snow says.
"What?" Viola says.
"She's her own girl," I say. "She don't belong to anyone."
[commence my cheering]
Have you ever seen this sentiment expressed in any YA fic book, ever? 'Cause I don't think I have but let me tell you it is beautiful. Normally YA fic seems to be inundated with trite romances and some rather possessive male leads, but Todd and Viola's relationship reminds me of Lyra and Will's. There is total respect there and, for the majority of the story, little to no romance to cloud things.
Now let me say that I know that I'm giving Todd the total benefit of male privilege by essentially giving him laughably low standards for awesomeness. Believing women are individuals in their own right is really just human decency so Todd is really just being a decent human being more than a feminist. But I think given the context that this book exists in, author Patrick Ness giving Todd this line and this character trait is astounding. Just look at other instances of sexism in fiction marketed to children and young adults. JK Rowling used her initials instead of her name because her publisher didn't think boys would want to read books written by a woman even though her name was the androgynous Jo. Deryn Sharp, even as a badass heroine and wonderful female role model whom I adore, has to dress up as a boy because it is understood within our culture that maleness is somehow better; we applaud Deryn for playing into this system because we understand that this is the only way that Deryn will get the opportunities and fair treatment she deserves that would otherwise be denied to her because of her sex (and I reiterate that this is not a criticism of Deryn or Leviathan, but a criticism of the context within which she and her story exist). And then there is the misogynistic and racist plague that is Twilight (not in italics for a reason) that I just don't want to get into right now.
Do you think "shipping wars" between The Hunger Games fans would be nearly as vitriolic if Gale or Peeta had ever said something about Katniss being her own person*? Or if Todd's sentiment were commonly expressed by men, fictional or real, within the greater realm of pop culture? Men do play an important role in feminist activism, and their privileged status is precisely why they can make such a large impact on gender equality. It's fucked up, but it's true.
*It seems to be lost on people that the story is about the impacts of violence on children and young adults, and how one girl, Katniss Everdeen, is fighting an oppressive regime while dealing with increasingly worse symptoms of PTSD after living through unimaginable violence. The love triangle subplot is just that-a subplot. It doesn’t fucking matter if she ends up with Peeta or Gale, and your opinions on each character doesn’t change the fact that all these kids are traumatized and trying to deal in their own way. For both Gale and Peeta, they’re dealing by attempting to validating their romantic feelings. For Katniss, she’s dealing by fantasizing about assassinating the president. DO YOU SEE THE DIFFERENCE ‘SHIPPERS? The love triangle is trivial and the story is about Katniss, a human being and her own person defined by her own personality, not by which boys want to stick their tongues in her mouth. I know that sexual exploration is an important part of growing up and becoming your own person, but it kinda has to take a back seat to war and political injustice. [Yeah, this aside was not included in my original post. But this is my livejournal, so whatever, I do what I want.]
So this ended up turning into way more of a thing than I originally intended. I still stand by my original intent of this submission, that Viola Eade is a totally fierce badass feminist heroine, even if I spent most of my time considering male privilege/sexism/male feminism/etc. I still stand by that Todd Hewitt deserves some kind of mention for expressing pro-rights feminist opinions, especially as a fictional fourteen-year-old boy in a misogynistic society that kids, but especially boys, in our own patriarchal/kyriarchal society are meant to look up to and identify with. (Though perhaps he doesn't deserve this mention on this particular blog, but it's [fierceyaheroines] that got me thinking about it so it's this blog that I'll submit this to.)
[/spoilers]
So let me now take a minute to remind my future self (if I reread this) that, at the time I write this, I am about a month shy of my 19th birthday, and I'm procrastinating starting my giant ton of homework that's been assigned to me after my first full week of my sophomore year at Cal. (Seriously, it's irrational how much homework I've received in a single week.)
I rant about my mom’s boyfriend, Jim, all the time for being arrogant and clearly believing that he deserves his male privilege. It’s something I haven't written about because, frankly, Jim pisses me off to fucking much for me to want to leave any kind of record of his existence. He plays a game where he tries to piss me off by being intentionally sexist and misogynistic, and my only comfort is that he’s also pissing off my mother as well, who is, you know, a strong woman with feminist ideologies. He criticizes what foods I eat and how much I consume, even though I’m at a relatively healthy, if heavier than aesthetically ideal, weight, and I’m fairly certain he could be medically classified as obese. (Yeah, Jim’s a real catch. His only redeeming qualities seems to be that he’s rich, lives in a nice house, and aquicises (how the fuck do you spell that word???) to my mom on my brother and I living there part-time). My mom does most of the housework-cooks, cleans, does laundry, goes grocery shopping, etc. If Jim does one thing to help around the house-like grilling chicken my mom bought and seasoned, or taking the clothes out of the washer and outing them into the dryer (after my mom put them in the washer in the first place and will fold them when they come out of the dryer), or picking up something from the grocery store on the way home, its like he deserves a fucking medal that says “bets boyfriend EVAR!” It’s disgusting, and it is male privilege, just like it’s male privilege to laude single dads who are actually, you know, dads while just expecting mothers, single or otherwise, to want to take care of their brat children and condemning them if they do a less than exemplary job of childrearing.
And that’s basically what I’ve done here with Todd. He isn’t real. He only has the privileges that I allow him to have, which means that I am giving him his male privilege. I’m not really sure how I feel about this, because, frankly, I do think that quote is very important given the context that it will be read by boys and girls growing up in sexist societies. I think it’s important for male role models like Todd to have these kinds of views so that they are normalized in the views of children, especially boys. I feel conflicted right now, and I think that this is where I’ll stop for now. Perhaps I’ll come back and ad more later.
I'm also going to link to my other recent post on ya fic, " 'shipping for young women" because, in my head, they exist a bit in tandem and I just reread it and am resolved to go fix the truckload of typos and grammar errors in it.