“She only had one friend; she didn’t like socialising and couldn’t stand leaving her house and the comfort of her pet dog. She was plain. Plain hair, plain face – plain. Except from a magical super power she inherited when she was sixteen. It was probably after her parents died…or was it after she nearly died? I don’t know, I can’t remember which one it is – one of them. It’s always one of them.”
I’m tired. I’m tired of reading the same chick over and over again. Let me listeth the traits of the young adult fiction female protagonist:
- Plain.
- Gains some kind of power/has transformation around or on her sixteenth birthday.
- Has one friend – usually a guy who’s in love with her but she doesn’t see him as more than a friend because they’ve known each other for ages.
- She’s in love with the mysterious, angsty stranger who wears leather jackets in the summer and treats her terribly.
- She doesn’t like parties or going out with her friends. Her idea of fun will be whatever the author finds fun – the author is almost certainly not a teenager and it’s probably knitting or something…
- She’s relatively good at school and is probably bullied – but not like really bullied, just teased a bit by bullies cut out of a really bad high school movie.
- Her parents are dead.
- She lives with her grandmother or uncle or something…
- She has a pet and it’s probably a dog for some reason and never a cat.
- She’s not funny, she’s not very smart but her intelligence is reiterated to the reader again and again even though any dilemma she gets into is normally solved by some outside source and not her.
- She doesn’t dress well; doesn’t care about makeup or fashion because that would be seen as vapid. Oh, oh she won’t wear heels and will mock any girl that does.
- Oh, and she probably doesn’t like other women and any other girl in the series will either be non-threatening and secretly mocked or patronised by the protagonist, or they’ll be there as an enemy – normally only an ‘enemy’ in the lovers quarrel sense, not for any other better reason.
- She gets magically good at something she’s never done before.
- Did I mention she’s a cunt?
I think that’s everything. Good to get that off my chest. I’m not going to spend this next paragraph apologising for the fact that this is a hard pill to swallow. Pick up any YA book (specifically fantasy) and I guarantee the main female protagonist will tick at least five of these boxes. I’m not trying to be mean – I’m just being honest.
I’m tired. I’m tired of going into bookstores and every book I pick up contains this girl. Who the hell even is this girl? I’ve never met her. When I was a teenager, I wanted to be this girl. Fuck knows why because she’s a bit of a dick from my perspective ten years later. Oh did I mention the trait where she doesn’t ever listen to orders or rules but is always rewarded when she ignores them and ultimately messes up and gets someone killed?
I’m tired and I give up.
Not creating – never that. No I give up reading young adult fiction. Give me a holler when YA authors start creating realistic female characters. I want to say again but I’m not sure that was ever true. I think a lot of the time authors create the character they wanted to be in high school, and for whatever reason, this chick isn’t particularly endearing or something to aspire to. Maybe it’s like armour? I’m not sure and I can’t be arsed to psychoanalyse people I don’t know. What I will do is instead of continuing to rant about what I don’t want to see, I’ll rant instead about what I do want to see.
I want to see real girls and I want an author to write them without judgement. Why can’t a character be introverted with friends? I’m introverted, I have friends. Why can’t a character be smart and actually pretty? Why can’t a character love high heels, makeup and fashion and not be an airhead? Why can’t she be smart too? Who was it that dictated that girls who like pretty clothes are stupid? Who was it that dictated that girls who read books are better? There is no better. There are just women.
And why are girls in books always stuck in their roles? There’s the female friend, as mentioned above, who’s only there sometimes as cannon fodder. And the other female there to steal the MC’s beau. What the fuck? Why, in this age of feminism and girl power, aren’t I reading about girls who are best friends? Girls who compete against each other not for men but for careers, for academic achievements, for sports games – for anything other than the handsome stranger who treats the MC like shit for most of the goddamn book!
I want to read a story where the greatest relationship is between a girl and her female best friend. I want to read a story where she’s a badass in high heels who loves to read books, is scared of spiders but swears like a sailor. Who started these strict formulas that so many YA authors have decided to stick to? Who are they, where are they and can I hunt them down? It’s such a dangerous trope. People believe that because it’s encouraging things like reading, to not get in trouble with the law, to be a good little woman, that it isn’t dangerous. But it is. Encouraging anything more than another, pushing it down teenagers’ throats and brainwashing them to believe they have to be a certain way – whether that’s skinny, pretty, fat, tall, short, brave, smart, stupid, sexual etc – is dangerous. For god’s sake, let them be.
As authors, it’s our responsible to write diversely across our characters. But we’re not doing that if we’re writing the same chick over and over and over again. We’re part of the problem. Maybe it’s that you, as a writer, are scared to write something or someone you don’t know. Maybe you’ve never met a girl who wears heels, reads books, is scared of spiders and swears like a sailor. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t write about her. From personal experience, I’m not as smart as Emily in Hillside Academy, but I make damn sure she is always the smartest person in a room. I don’t understand fashion very well and live in my pyjamas but that doesn’t mean that Elivia isn’t killing it at every social function in the latest fashion – I buy back issues of Vogue! Just because I don’t play field hockey doesn’t mean I can’t write Anna. Just because I can’t play piano doesn’t mean I can’t write Erika. I can’t dance ballet but Susannah can. It’s the same for any character. Just because you can’t, doesn’t mean they can’t. Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean your character dislikes it too.
Don’t be scared to write someone you don’t know. You’re a writer. Research it. Create real girls for the next generation to relate to. Write across the board, from the girls who like to wrestle on the weekends to the ones who like having their nails manicured. Don’t encourage the problem that’s like cancer in the young adult genre. It’s up to us – I won’t be the reason another girl, like me, wonders why when I’m reading a book, there isn’t a chubby pretty girl in sight.