An Awesome Mini-Essay I Just Had to Share (and comment on)

On Tumblr (courtesy of thebooker -- who is also awesome), I discovered this reply to an ask by Samanatha Shannon, the young British author of The Bone Season series, which I'm frankly not very interested in considering how I don't feel like reading long fantasy series at the moment, but it is nevertheless awesome. I didn't reply to the original post, though I did write some notes in my tags, and I'd like to expound a little bit on that here.

(Also I am so behind with blogging, ack. But today was not a good day.)

http://sshannonauthor.tumblr.com/post/112959377403/what-do-you-think-about-the-portrayal-of-girls-in

In general, I agree with Shannon, and I think she points to a common issue in the world of YA (and possibly entertainment at large): generalizing. I'm not fond of generalizations anywhere, but man does it bug me with books. It's just incredibly simplistic and an uninteresting way to analyze and present something. It almost veers on laziness, reducing a story to just a few buzzwords that become inseparable from it.

Now, obviously some of it is a publisher's marketing choice, the "perfect for fans of X!" or "similar to X!" thing, but the media doesn't do a great job either in perpetuating the idea that YA is all about vampires and "problem stories" and tragedy and dystopia and above all else, romance for silly teen girls, which sort of just reiterates what the average person thinks a teenage girl is like. And even though I've probably never been the best representation of an average teenage girl, and I've had my share of frustration, particularly with the common patterns and unrealistic teen relationships that I've found across the board in YA, the truth is that it's a "genre" (more like market) that is growing and not strict at all. I read The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgewick recently, and that contained four stories that did not center around teenagers; admittedly some of the characters were young, but there was one about a dad for goodness's sake. The choice of market does not impose too many restrictions, it seems like.

And, I mean, this isn't meant to detract from the main point either, I just think it's something that can be broadened. I think there's certainly more scrutiny on female characters, and while some of it is well-intentioned I can't deny that it's often had a negative impact on me. There have been times when I've analyzed myself like a character and felt that I wasn't "groundbreaking" enough. Is it bad that I want to have a career in English and writing, even though I have high grades across the board and could have just as well gone into a STEM field? Does it reflect negatively on my abilities that it's my boyfriend who is a fourth-rank blackbelt and I know next to nothing about self-defense, despite the fact that we have a healthy relationship that challenges stereotypes in other ways?

No, it shouldn't, but Strong Female Characters are often only pointed out if they're the badass ones--the Katnisses, as Hale says. Those who have great physical abilities that make them physically equal to men, often in societies that aren't anything like our own. And while it's certainly refreshing to see that (especially on the screen, for me personally), it's just not everything. If you're a person living in this boring world (represented by contemporary fiction, most likely), it doesn't matter if you would survive the Hunger Games or slay a dragon. There are all sorts of facets of life that can make you a strong person, like intellectual ability, compassion, ties with those around you, the will to continue through each day and love yourself, and perhaps most importantly: flaws, the knowledge of their existence, and the will and struggle to be better. And it's also perfectly okay to lean on others--yes, even the men in your life--in times of despair and need.

Just be who you are. You don't have to fit into any criteria.