Gender of writing, Chick Lit and Fantasy

[salinea]

There's a whole discussion that happened last week on Ran's Board which my friends from there most probably know all about, but about which I'd be curious to have some other opinions. (BTW, I use the nickname "Stranger" in those forums).

It all started with a post about Kushner's novel Priviledge of the Sword started by Pat, who beyond his activity on that forum also manages a Fantasy blog, which I think has a pretty good reputation.

Anyway, one of the thing that caught my eye was that Pat, among other things, called Priviledge of the Sword "chick lit through and through". Other people gave good or bad opinions about that novel or Kushner's novels generally speaking. Ran, notably, denied that it was Chick Lit, whereas Calibandar called it "the girliest books I've laid my hands on in recent years".

Discussions about the "male-ness" or the "girly-ness" of specific books is something I have seen often, and which I may have sometimes made use of myself, even though I don't like it, to refer to some hard-to-define aesthetics. So I started a thread about that subject, using Pat's thread as an example, in which I asked a lot of questions to people : Chick Lit, What is it? Why isn't there any Boy's Lit?

I had two agendas with this thread : pointing out the sexism in calling some books Chick Lit in order to dismiss their quality, and questionning which specific images and idiosyncracies were associated with which gender and why. The thread saw much more discussions about the first point, both in agreement and disagreement, although some people did good effort to answer my second point as well. The discussion grew in some points somewhat heated and even wanky, but wasn't uninteresting.

A certain amount of people did agree that "Chick Lit" described a specific genre of book about female protagonists in urban, modern setting with an irreverant tone and some sexual situations, that such a genre had nothing to do with Kushner's writing. Some people also agreed that Chick Lit wasn't a good name for such a genre because it described what kind of market the genre is aimed at instead of the content of the books; and because it can cause confusion about other books, like Kushner's. Although lots of people still disagreed about that, so I'd hardly call it a consensus.

Last part of this little debate, Pat's eventually posted his final review of Priviledge of the Sword at his blog yesterday. Unsurprizingly, he was still mostly negative about it, but also persisted in calling it "Fantasy chick lit" and "one of the 'girliest' novels [he's] ever read", moreover he extrapolated this description by saying :

"There's a very "girly" approach to the narrative. It focuses on undying/forbidden love, corny romance, flowers, jewelry, gowns, fabrics, and an inordinate amount of emo moments. For crying out loud, the characters shed more tears in this book than bridesmaids at a wedding! There is only so much crying one can take, after all. In addition, the emo male characters are not authentic."

You'd think he was talking about about badfanfics ^^ I'm not entirely surprised by this reading because earlier at Ran's Board, I'd seen ErrantBard, who appeared quite sane otherwise, say about Swordspoint :

what I would say classify it as "chick-lit" in my mind is, from memory:

Flowers and effeminate looking men with open shirts on the cover, first

Prominence of homosexuality in the relationships

Pure love

Invincible yet sensible, fragile, honourable hero.

Insufferable whiny useless support characters you're supposed to pity rather than wish dead, for some reason

A plot revolving around the feelings some people have for each other.

A number of which terms had me raise my eyebrow in regard of Swordspoint. But hey! People read books are see different things in it. It happens.

It makes sense that a certain lack of sensitivity about specific genres that one doesn't like mean that one blurs the distinction between those genres. Thus romance, mannerpunk, and Chich Lit elements are all confused and equally dismissed as if they were equivalent although to anyone looking into those seriously it's obvious they're very far from being the same. The fact that all these different elements are, for some reason, associated with female taste and female writing is of course what makes such confusion problematic and sexist.

The thing that really makes me angry there is that several people as well as Pat have defended their use of the term by saying "what is so bad about works written by women that cater to what women want to read?" even though they're very obviously using the word "Chick Lit" or "girly" to dismiss and criticize a specific type of writing : "corny romance", "inordinate amount of emo moments", "the emo male characters are not authentic."
That's not the description of a genre of writing that one doesn't like but that's still considered as legit. That's a description of bad writing, through and through. A bad writing that is typified as female.

Now, while I'm still infuriated about the structural sexism of such use of terms, I'm also still curious about which elements are associated with specific genders and why.

Comments

[koyotesdaughter.livejournal.com]

I broke down and joined in the discussion over at Pat's, and I'm sure I'll regret it.

Sadder and more offensive than the original review is the number of responders who are instinctively brushing this argument off as a bunch of hard-line (female) feminists overreacting to a non-issue. Never mind that half of those objecting to Pat's wording are male, and that one of the first to complain in his comments (Andrew Wheeler) was actually objecting as a member of the publishing industry and not as a matter of gender mis-stereotyping at all.

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

*thinking of james bond and bad noir and all the corny masculinist stuff that's lurking around street corners on a foggy night in a trenchcoat leads me to coin the term "dick-lit"!*

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

To preserve my sanity, I am not going to go read any of the posts referenced here.

I also think we ought to assign them to read James Tiptree, Jr.'s work which, as Robert Silverberg said, famously, is "ineluctably masculine," and make them define what makes it masculine, especially since it was written by a woman.

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

There's so much to be angry at here, that instead I'd like to focus for just a minute on something that's frigging hilarious.

A plot revolving around the feelings some people have for each other.

Oh dear God! Lock up the horses, hide the china! Writing about *people*? Who have *feelings* about other *people*? Why, that's just crazy talk! What will these gals think up next?

To quote the great philosopher Kaylee Frye, "Sometimes people have feelings. I'm referring here to...people."

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

This is a great post. I find "chick lit" a hugely problematic term myself for many of the same reasons, and I find what is marketed as such at least as disturbing. If I were to think of defining characteristics of what is marketed is as chick lit (not what women like) I would say:
1)materialism (often gold digging)
2)repentant playboys
3)fear of aging
4)worth measured by romantic success

Now I'm not an expert on it, since I tend to not think of myself as a shallow person who only likes sparkly pink covers and stories of people with extravagant lifestyles. What I do know disturbs me a lot, though.

I like a good romance plot line as much or more than the next person. But is that the sum total of my interests and depth? No. Do I relate to or idolize these shallow, often nasty, socialites? In no way shape or form.

I often dismiss the problem of "chick lit" because it is so clearly ridiculous as marketed, to be quite honest. But when it starts merging with "girly" and crossing over commercial genres, that's a concern.

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about ideas of "femaleness" recently, and all of them are problematic for me. The traditional domesticated woman and the steretypical career driven feminist both fill me with anxiety. Why do we as a society feel the need to dissect being a woman into little pieces and tell someone they can only be one? For that matter why do things like being nurturing or logical have to belong to only half on humanity?

I do think that men and women are different, but all attempts to define these differences seem to do both sides a disservice.




On another note. redcandle17 suggested you as a potential friend to me because you like George R.R. Martin and also for general intelligence and such. This post certainly supports that description and you seem to have a few other friends in common with me. So this is me saying hi and friending you.

[rumpelgeist.livejournal.com]

I came here Much too late apparently. I am thinking that for better or worst You made him think twice about using the Term Chick lit though not Necessarily because he has reexamined his own Beliefs about gender but because He now knows it is a loaded term. I feel for him as a Fellow sexist knowing full well my concept of sexual identity, gender, orientation is as Prejudiced as the next person. It is Perhaps that he does not realize that he Is sexist since he believes his Prejudices to be truths That he can use this term with impunity and Not feel even the least apprehensive about it. He would never think of talking about how he bartered with a salesman for his Car and say he "jew'ed it down" or say he ate some food that did not make him feel Food for long and say he "chink-ed" it or talk about How good he is dancing and state he "niggered it across the dance floor." He would Not say these things Because he would know he was using demeaning, prejudiced Terms, because people from these minorities Have stated pretty clearly what they feel about it and Perhaps because he realizes his own Racial prejudices much more than he does his sexual ones. I am Glad you took the time to explain This to him and if He ever uses these terms again I am hoping someone will take time to Show him it is not acceptable.


On a Side note I am trying to find Published authors who started in Fandom and have found three books. I am trying To find more and Was wondering if you knew Any. I like to find books from Little-known authors.

[spes-unica.livejournal.com]

Here via ithiliana's journal

"emo male characters are not authentic"

Um. Ever seen/heard of the British TV series Life On Mars (http://www.bbc.co.uk/lifeonmars/) - the basic premise is that a contemporary copper goes back in time to 1973 where they don't do anything by the book and political correctness etc. is a foreign country. You want emo? angst? a male protagonist who sheds tears in almost every episode? All written and produced by guys...