A few months ago, I was chatting with someone called Bob. Obviously Bob wasn’t his real name, but I won’t name him for privacy reasons, nor will I tell you how I know him or where we were at the time. It’s a real life thing, and I don’t like naming and shaming people when I have to deal with them every day.
Anyway, I was talking to this Bob fellow about the Divergent movie, and I asked if he was going to see it. His response was something I hadn’t expected, because he’s an avid movie fan and goes to watch almost every single release when it’s out here in the UK. His response was, and I quote “I won’t be seeing it because it’s one of those crap teen books, isn’t it?” I laughed it off, but looked for an out because I didn’t want to be a part of the conversation any more. But while I had a few hours to myself at work, I was thinking to myself, ‘does he think it’s bad because it’s supposedly a romance? Or does he assume it’s going to be bad because he’s sexist?’
It might seem like a bit of an odd claim, and you might be thinking “Amber, how in the world did you get that from that?” and okay, I get that. It probably seems like a bit of a leap on my part. Let me explain my thought process to you.
The world we live in views romance as feminine, there’s no denying it. Romcoms are often advertised as for female viewers – or, rather, what people assume female viewers would like – while science fiction, epic fantasy and horror are seen as masculine. Romance is cute and delicate and lovely – all things that are associated with women due to stereotypes. Of course, it’s neither accurate or true. Plenty of men love a good romance (even if they won’t admit it because they’re afraid of being emasculated), and plenty of women, myself included, enjoy action movies and science fiction novels. But according to the stereotypes set by our society today, love is for girls.
Relating to this, Young Adult novels also come with a stereotype. Non-readers who know little about the category often assume that YA is soley for teenagers (which I kind of get, due to the term Young Adult), and that it is filled with teenage romance. A lot of people blame Twilight for this because it is arguably the biggest franchise to come out of YA literature. That’s not counting Harry Potter, because that series started out as a children’s series however it may have ended up.
Twilight blew up a few years ago, and then everyone started to learn that Young Adult was a legitimate category. More and more authors started to write books primarily for teenagers because they now knew that the market was there, and more and more readers – teens and adults alike – started to read YA. With this sudden explosion, it was hard for non-readers to stay in the dark, but they would have heard more about Twilight (which, let’s be honest, is a romance novel) than any other book. They would have made the connection between Twilight, the romance, and Young Adult novels, and that would have stuck.
So now many people associate Young Adult novels with romance novels, because that’s what has been marketed and shoved in their faces. They have no idea about the other genres within YA, and they don’t know that YA is a broad category with room for everything, and it’s definitely not filled only with teen romance. They have no way of knowing what’s out there in terms of YA, because they refuse to read it. And why? Because romance is seen as a bad thing. Romance is feminine.
And that is how I reached the conclusion that many people shun Young Adult books, and also adaptations of them. Maybe my brain is being a bit overactive, which it has been known to do. But you can’t deny that there’s a somewhat direct correlation here.
Bob, the guy who started this all, seems to be accidentally sexist, because our society has shaped and moulded him that way. And I know for a fact that Bob doesn’t have a problem with the “teen” part, because he was happy to go and see The Lego Movie. Twice. He probably didn’t even realise that what he was saying came across as sexist. In fact, I’m 100% sure that he didn’t, since he and his wife are active feminists. However, there’s no denying that what he said could have been an incredibly sexist remark, because he pretty much stated that Romance, the devious stereotypical feminine genre, is crap.
What do you think? Do you think I’m speaking as much sense as my friend Bob here, or do you see where I’m going with this? Do you agree that, in short, people typically view Young Adult as a feminine genre and therefore look down upon it because in our society women are viewed as the lesser, weaker sex? Or maybe I’m talking out of my arse and am treading dangerously close to delusion.
Lauren says
You definitely have a point here, I think. Because the YA genre as seen by those not surrounded by it, don’t tend to correlate it with actual teenagers, but something ‘worse’: teenage girls. Many times I’ve heard the insult ‘acting like a 13 year old girl’ being applied to men especially during times when romance is involved, as though romance is not only applicable to just the female of the species, but to teenage girls specifically, making them, and by extension anything associated with them, the worst of the worst in terms of societal worth. YA is for teenagers, and romance is a notion held by ‘silly teenage girls’, and therefore the two must be mutually inclusive.
I think it’s also sexist from the point of view of “it’s written by a woman therefore it probably isn’t any good”. YA is one of the few literary genres in which female writers are fairly prolific, and I think that often, when society sees a movie based on a book by a female writer, they automatically assume that it will be lesser, somehow. It doesn’t seem to make much of a difference who the screenwriter/director is in regards to gender, only the creator of the story behind the movie.
It’s definitely a thing, and it definitely comes from a sexist point of view. Yet another inequality that needs to stop tbh
Bri says
You have a fairly good point as to why YA is looked down upon, simply because it’s got teenage girls. And the creator of the story. I’m not bashing on any author here, but when you think about it, there is a correlation between them now that I think about it. If the author is male and the movie rights to his book are bought then you have a large amount of men going to see it, even if the movie is sort of romance orientated overall. If a woman write a book and the movie rights to it are bought, there’s likely to be more female people who watch it. There are the exceptions to this, usually it’s sort of reversed somehow but sometimes depending on the intended audience there’s a more even split. But you do make an excellent point about it.
Amber says
I didn’t even think about how movies based on books by male authors generally have a larger male audience. It’s an interesting point!
Amber says
LOVE YOUR COMMENT. Of course.
And YES, I didn’t want to touch upon the female authors thing in this post, because I have drafted another discussion with that being the focal point. I definitely think that since female authors undeniably dominate the YA genre (even if the few male authors are the ones who win the awards, which I also have a lot to say about) it’s looked down upon because obviously female authors can’t write anything other than cheesy romance. The world would probably implode if a female author was to write, I don’t know, an epic fantasy or a sci-fi novel or something…. wait.
Alice says
I think this really depends on the YA. I would agree Bob has been sexist without realising (I don’t think you can be accidentally sexist, only ignorant). Yet, there is certain YA I look down on because of the negative representation of women – Twilight, for example, does not teach young people a good message. And then you have marvellous YA like Eleanor and Park that I think everyone should read, and then there is the LGBT YA which I think is tremendously important. Even though I tend not to read YA as I prefer more complex prose.
Genre is unfortunately gendered by our patriarchal society, that’s no doubt. And I wouldn’t be surprised if YA was gendered in the same way as say, Romance.
Morningstar says
“I would agree Bob has been sexist without realising”
Really? What exactly are you basing this assumption on? After all, you have no idea what his motivation is outside of not wanting to see another YA novel adaption in movie format, which has nothing to do with gender.
The only way to assume sexism is to assume that YA is now a gendered genre, which it isn’t (being neither gendered nor a genre). In fact the only place I’m seeing a consideration that YA is a gendered genre is right here, among the OP & the commenters.
So the assumption of sexism seems to be predicated on the further assumption of personal ignorance on what is and isn’t YA, instead of taking his words at face value as a declaration of a lack of interest based on knowing what a YA novel is.
Occams Razor states that the hypothesis that requires the least amount of assumptions is usually the right one.
Amber says
At this point, I just want to ignore Morningstar because they are completely missing the point of my post and what I was talking about.
Anyway, I think it’s totally understandable to look down upon individual books because they either represent women poorly, or are offensive. Twilight is a horrible book when you look at the messages behind it, and is definitely a negative representation of women as a whole.
I just wish people didn’t use Twilight or other books like it as a reason to not read within the YA category. Or, at least, as a reason to look down upon those who do read it. I.e. those poor, poor teenage girls who are into kittens and cheesy romance and sparkly vampires.
The fact that genre and categories are gendered really frustrates me, and stereotypes like these need to stop.
Kyra says
I think they do! I honestly think a lot of adults think that YA novels is full of cheesy, pathetic love stories (which some are) because they think that teenagers, especially girls, will eat up any soppy love story that is thrown at them. I am a teenage girl and I think a lot of adults think that the YA books I read are ridiculous, yet they are filled with amazing stories. Examples being The Fault in Our Stars, Perks of Being a Wallflower, Life As We Knew It etc. A lot of people probably think that the only things in YA are weak characters and cheesy love stories because, like you said, Twilight may have given people that impression.
Great post! 🙂
Amber says
Thanks, Kyra 🙂
Yes, a lot of people think that teenage girls love a good, cheesy romance, and aren’t interested in anything else!
Nikki says
This is a really interesting leap to make, but I don’t think it’s off-base at all. I know a lot of people think “YA” is primarily for teen girls and always has romance. I’ll give them the romance angle – it’s a rare YA book where there is noooo romance to speak of. The problem comes when teen romance is automatically judged as “crap”, and when those “it’s crap” assumptions extend to include everything else about the story – and the rest of YA – *because* of the romance. Just because a story has romance in it doesn’t mean it’s crap.
It’s these broad generalizations and stereotypes – of gender, of books, of age-range, etc – that cause these problems. You can’t tell me that just because one YA book is crap, the rest of them must be, too. By that reasoning, I could say that all adult fantasy books are disgustingly sexist because one of them is, or all cookbooks are worthless because one’s recipes all turned out gross. That’s just ridiculous and patently untrue.
Amber says
Exactly, romance isn’t crap at all. Sure, there are a lot of bad romances (ha, *sings*) in YA, but that’s true of every genre. There are also a lot of great ones. And there are some books without any romance at all, if that’s what you’re looking for.
I love your comment, by the way. I want to quote the whole thing. Like I just said to Ula, stereotypes can spiral into dangerous territory depending on what the focus is, and they really need to stop.
Ula @ Blog of Erised says
I get your point and would probably make the same leap as you, only I’d argue it down with the guy for hours on end if he was willing 😀
I think YA has a bad rep because bad books stay in your mind longer and harder than good ones, especially when they become movies and get involved in your life to a point where you can’t escape them – movies, commercials, clothing, jewelry, ‘the next *bad YA book*’ books etc. So it stays with you. You saw it, it’s shit. You remember that for ever and ever. And refuse to see another YA-book-to-movie ever again even though it barely gets better than Divergent’s adaptation these days.
So I understand Bob’s reluctance. But I also see what you mean, and agree. There is a problem of stereotyping and I wish it stopped. One bad experience doesn’t make the entire genre crap. And that goes for everything – food, people, you name it. Generalizations suck.
Morningstar says
The only stereotyping I see here is people stereotyping the motivation of Bob since you actually have no idea what Bobs actual motivation really is (if Bob exists at all and isn’t a fabrication designed to strengthen the authors own ideology). This means that the people here are stereotyping Bob as some kind of sexist without any evidence.
You know what they say Ula: Physician heal thy self.
Amber says
Oh, you caught me. Bob is a fabrication, because people don’t really think YA is feminine and therefore weak. It’s all in feminists’ minds!
*points to the comment below*
Tatum says
bro did you even read the post
Amber says
Haha I couldn’t have argued with him because it probably would have resulted in tears and a panic attack 😀
Bad things definitely stay with you longer than good things, and the same is true with books.
And yes, stereotyping is a huge problem too. People stereotype all kinds of things, to the point where it often becomes ridiculous or offensive or petty, or downright dangerous depending on what we’re talking about.
Morningstar says
“Anyway, I was talking to this Bob fellow about the Divergent movie, and I asked if he was going to see it. His response was something I hadn’t expected, because he’s an avid movie fan and goes to watch almost every single release when it’s out here in the UK. His response was, and I quote “I won’t be seeing it because it’s one of those crap teen books, isn’t it?” I laughed it off, but looked for an out because I didn’t want to be a part of the conversation any more. But while I had a few hours to myself at work, I was thinking to myself, ‘does he think it’s bad because it’s supposedly a romance? Or does he assume it’s going to be bad because he’s sexist?’”
So instead of asking him why he thinks that you are going to instead make wild guesses at his motivation for not being interested in a book you personally thought was good…. Hmmmm, sounds like an appeal to motive to me which can be summed up thusly “Someone didn’t like a type of book, of which a book I liked belongs, it must be because he’s sexist.”
The fact is he was right: Both the movie & the book its based upon were pretty terrible. They were the newest instance of shallow, empty storytelling, with world building with all the depth of the shallow end of the kiddie wadding pool. Throw in what your average 13 year old school girl thinks romance is, with lots of longing glances at the stories under developed male mysterious-protector love interest (whose only role is to be mysterious & to be a protector) taking precedence over actual narrative & what you’ve got is a specific book that mainly appeals to a very specific demographic of people.
But he’s perfectly within his right to say he’s not going to watch a movie based on a YA novel, an overwhelming majority of YA novels are pretty terrible, especially the ones directed at a primarily female demographic that lack for a lot of diversity: Female YA novels have a tendency to stick to one subgenre & run it until it dies on the vine, to be replaced by the next go to sub genre. The go to sub genre of the moment is urban fantasy/romance. They also have a tendency to be incredibly shallow as a general rule.
So no, chances are good that he is disinterested on the basis that the material is likely to be shallow, not because he’s sexist. Maybe in the future instead of jumping to conclusions, you might actually use your god given ability to communicate, to actually communicate in the moment, rather than hiding your opinion on a blog where you essentially declare him to a sexist, without any founding in reality: You know, intellectual honesty & all that jazz.
Amber says
Your comment is fantastic, thank you for essentially proving my point.
Firstly, if someone doesn’t like a book that I did then I couldn’t really give a crap. I run a book blog, I am active in the book community, and I have talk to people and friends who disagree or hold different opinions to me all the time. In fact, my co-blogger and best friend hated Divergent. Believe me, I can handle opposing opinions. And I quite enjoying discussing with people online when they didn’t like a book that I loved because I like to hear their thoughts. If I didn’t then I wouldn’t run a book blog and I would stay far away from Twitter.
Secondly, “the fact is he was right”. Your opinion isn’t a fact, but good on you for standing by it that strongly.
I’m just going to take some quotes out of your comment for a moment:
“13 year old school girl”, “female YA novels have a tendency to stick to one subgenre… urban fantasy/romance”
So you agree with me that a lot of people associate Young Adult fiction with romance. Romantic YA, in your opinion (or was that factual?) is a female thing. And this is exactly what I’m talking about in my post. You instantly connected romance with femininity and girls, and you go on to say that romantic YA is shallow. Which is what I said was the issue with society in my post. If you think that all YA is like this, or even all urban fantasy/romance within YA is shallow or weak, then you haven’t been reading enough YA.
Of course he is within his right not to go and see a movie. It’s a movie. But my question was whether society as a whole looks down upon Young Adult fiction because they associate it with romance, and are therefore being sexist, whether they know it or not.
Maybe in the future instead of telling me not to jump to conclusions, you could take into account that I may not be able to use my “god given ability to communicate” because of the environment that Bob and I were in at the time, or because I suffer from anxiety. I don’t think getting into a debate with Bob would have been the answer, especially since this post isn’t even about Bob, he was just the jumping off point for a discussion on a bigger problem.
And I will talk about feminism and sexism on my blog because my blog is my outlet. I think I’m doing quite the opposite of hiding my opinion; I’m actually sharing it with dozens of people. Feminism and sexism are both important to me, and I will talk about them wherever the hell I wish.
Judith says
Morningstar, Amber doesn’t say that he is a sexist person. She just says that his reasoning is sexist. And I think your comment and view on YA is as well. But I’m not going to comment on that, because I think Amber explained that perfectly. The only thing I want to point out is how you say that “female YA novels have a tendency to stick to one subgenre.” If you truly think that all YA novels are the same, in your case, “urban fantasy/romance”, you haven’t read enough YA novels, and I think it’s an unfair generalization. Of course, that is not what this post is about at all, but I highly suggest you go to your library and check out some YA novels. I promise you they’re not all “urban fantasy/romance”, and they’re definitely not all the same. And thank you, because you are the perfect audience for this post.
Morningstar says
“Secondly, ‘the fact is he was right’. Your opinion isn’t a fact, but good on you for standing by it that strongly.”
Oh don’t mistake that for an opinion, from a technical stand point it was a poorly written book, as was the movie based on the book.
“So you agree with me that a lot of people associate Young Adult fiction with romance.”
No which is why the first cheery picking is from a paragraph about a SPECIFIC book & not a genre (which YA is not) & the second literally starts with the qualifiers of “female YA novels”, rather than just “YA novels,” let alone a specific genre. The point was made that the CURRENT go to sub-genre for female YA fiction is urban fantasy/fiction, which it objectively is.
This is of course backed up by the Tor UK numbers from last year that show that the two genres in which women authors are most overwhelmingly prolific are Urban Romance & YA (with a focus on the teen version of Urban Romance).
“And this is exactly what I’m talking about in my post. You instantly connected romance with femininity and girls, and you go on to say that romantic YA is shallow.”
Yes the SPECIFIC YA title, Divergent was shallow: Don’t conflate a single book to an entire non-genre, nor the current trend in female demographic focused YA is Urban Romance as anything more than what it is: A positive trend (not positive as in good, positive as in upwardly mobile).
Like it or not its a fact of both the publishing industry & its support industries such as libraries. There is not a lot of diversity among female YA novels at any given time, they will predominately try to ride the coat tales of the last popular thing.
“But my question was whether society as a whole looks down upon Young Adult fiction because they associate it with romance, and are therefore being sexist, whether they know it or not.”
Except that that wouldn’t be sexism, that would be an accurate portrayal of the majority of female focused YA novels & even if it weren’t the case it still wouldn’t be sexism, even if the fictional persona you created mistook all YA novels as novels for teenage girls, it would simply be a lack of interest. You can’t even go so far as to say its being looked down upon, its simply stating a lack of interest.
“he was just the jumping off point for a discussion on a bigger problem.”
Even if you had to invent the problem yourself apparently.
Lauren says
I find your comments on this post really quite fascinating, because you seem to be under the impression that YA has a female only subgenre; as though ’13 year old girls’ are the only ones interested in books like Divergent (as an example), and that other YA books where romance isn’t a focus are inherently meant for readers who aren’t 13 year old girls. With each comment you make, you are only proving the OP’s point even more, because your view here comes from a place of sexism. Let me give you some context: I watched the movie with my husband, who said it was “pretty cool”. I then watched it with my 14 year old daughter, who said “the romance was generic and crap, but the dude with the tattoos was totally hot”. So from this point of view, Bob’s opinion might have been made too hastily; he could have found the movie much more enjoyable than my teenage daughter did, despite the fact that you seem to think that she is who the story was designed for in the first place.
Is ‘The Maze Runner’ “one of those crap teen books”? Or ‘Ender’s Game’? How about ‘Harry Potter’? Because Bob didn’t say, “No, I won’t be watching this film because the book it’s based on is shallow and poorly written from a technical standpoint.” Bob heard it was based on a YA book, and just assumed it would be ‘crap’. What the OP here was discussing was whether or not people (like Bob) assume a YA adaptation will be ‘crap’ because of sexism. And as you can see from the comments, most people here seem to think that there is an element of that involved.
You seem to be throwing around a lot of accusations here when really, all that was needed was for you to state your opinion that you disagree. I really only ever see this kind of vehemence to a topic such as this when someone feels as though their opinions are being threatened. Tell me, are you one of those #NotAllMen people?
Judith says
You already know how I feel about this post. I want to make everyone read it. Before you sent it to me, I hadn’t linked the dislike for YA with sexism, but I think it’s a great way to describe it. After all, I have heard the term “girly teen movies” way too often. YA is feminine and femininity is bad, right? Sigh.
Tatum says
my favourite thing about this post is how much it seems to have offended dudes.
Meg says
Same
Celine says
If Bob assumes a movie about a YA book will be romantic, and therefore not fitting with stereotypical maleness, I think he’s right in a way. One of the reasons I don’t read that much YA, or at least intersperse it with plenty of adult fiction, is because almost all YA books have a romantic plot. Honestly, they’re everywhere. Almost every single dystopian book has a love interest. Rebel battles are alternated with kissing and swooning. In a mystery, the main character will find their soul-mate when solving the crime. In a paranormal, the main character falls in love with someone not-human and tries to make that work somehow. Romance is EVERYWHERE in YA.
So although it’s sad that Bob won’t see a movie because of a stereotype, I completely get it
Kathryn says
I realize I’m a tad (OK quite a bit) late to the party here but this was interesting and I don’t really care so:
OK, so I don’t know Bob (obviously) and you do, so it’s safe to say you probably have more insight into his potential motivations or non-motivations than I do. However, and I speak as someone who is both familiar with the YA genre and has no issue watching romance films, his remark is exactly the reason I didn’t go see Divergent. [I only just got round to watching it because I’m ill and wanted something mindless to watch (I ran across your post googling to see what people thought about it since I think it was annoyingly crappy about women for a supposedly ‘wahoo empowerment and kickass heroine’ film but that’s a whole other conversation)]
Anyway my point is that YA tends to follow a few specific, often non-well-thought-out plotlines with thin characters and thinner relationships and who would want to see that movie? (Well me, but I didn’t expect it to be good)
Don’t get me wrong there are a few gems but they are overwhelmingly outnumbered by what I described above.
And even if we take your premise and sub-categorize further into Bob thinking it was a romance-YA which is why he didn’t want to go see it, I also think that would be a fair comment as (in my experience anyway) most romance-YA is terribly written and features terrible (or just neither original nor inspiring) relationships. Again boring to watch. Of course trying to write a thinner relationship between a thin characters was always going to fall flat [Hahaha I’m sorry but I really couldn’t resist!]
(In my opinion) It wasn’t intrinsically sexist but it might have been for Bob – the only way to know is with more info. I was going to ask whether he watched The Maze Runner since that officially falls into the same category but, in my head at least, that is less YA-associated and the trailer didn’t make it feel YA. Although bits of the film itself did have that vibe to them so maybe it would be a better test than I think; I’d be interested to know in any case.