We owe a debt of gratitude to SMeyer for reminding us of a woman's place

[penmage]

You know what I love about this article? (And by "love", I mean "insert strongly-worded angry emotion here")

I love the part where she bashes Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants for being too damn empowering:

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is about female empowerment as it’s currently defined by the kind of jaded, 40-something divorcées who wash ashore at day spas with their grizzled girlfriends and pollute the Quiet Room with their ceaseless cackling about the uselessness of men. They are women who have learned certain of life’s lessons the hard way and think it kind to let young girls understand that the sooner they grasp the key to a happy life (which essentially boils down to a distaff version of “Bros before hos”), the better. In Sisterhood, four close friends might scatter for the summer—encountering everything from ill-advised sex with a soccer coach to the unpleasant discovery that Dad’s getting remarried—but the most important thing, the only really important thing, is that the four reunite and that the friendships endure the vicissitudes of boys and romance. Someday, after all, they will be in their 50s, and who will be there for them—really there for them—then? The boy who long ago kissed their bare shoulders, or the raspy-voiced best friend, bleating out hilarious comments about her puckered fanny from the next dressing room over at Eileen Fisher?

How dare we read books about women being friends with women? We are teaching our daughters--our precious daughters--that there is something better than being with A Man. What kind of lessons are these? What are we thinking by leading our impressionable girls astray?

Thank god for Stephenie Meyer and Twilight, which

centers on a boy who loves a girl so much that he refuses to defile her, and on a girl who loves him so dearly that she is desperate for him to do just that, even if the wages of the act are expulsion from her family and from everything she has ever known. We haven’t seen that tale in a girls’ book in a very long time.

And thank goodness for Bella, who is

an old-fashioned heroine: bookish, smart, brave, considerate of others’ emotions, and naturally competent in the domestic arts (she immediately takes over the grocery shopping and cooking in her father’s household, and there are countless, weirdly compelling accounts of her putting dinner together—wrapping two potatoes in foil and popping them into a hot oven, marinating a steak, making a green salad—that are reminiscent of the equally alluring domestic scenes in Rosemary’s Baby).

Thank god we have a writer who can remind our daughters--and ourselves--where the woman's place is: in the kitchen, deferring to the man. Thank goodness we're no longer polluting our girls' minds with Ideas. Who thought it was so smart to teach girls that they'd be okay without a man? Who was it?

I would demand that they be found and brought to justice, but I'll settle for insisting that they read all four Twilight tomes instead.

Comments

[siadea.livejournal.com]

*clap.*

*clap.*

*clap.*

*deadpan* You go, Mrs. Meyers.

...No, no, keep going, you're not far enough.

[siadea.livejournal.com]

--oh! Question. Uh.

Wasn't Rosemary's Baby supposed to be horror?

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I could say something crude about how she must have missed the bits where Rosemary was being raped by Satan because she was too busy rereading the domestic scenes over and over again like home economics porn, but I'll behave. Just this once.

[eyelid.livejournal.com]

being raped by satan is just evidence of how much satan really loved that girl, right?

[eyelid.livejournal.com]

lol, win

[octoberdreaming.livejournal.com]

*is incensed* I feel a Letter to the Editor coming on. WHAT.

[littlelotte.livejournal.com]

*headdesk* Why are people so stupid?

[glvalentine.livejournal.com]

This essay came on the heels of someone telling me I was "overreacting" to the Twilight series. The email pointing her here was a sweet email to write, I won't lie.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

These books are obscene. Could they be worse role models? Do you think they could if they tried?

Sometimes, I think my favorite part is how all the moms across America loved the books because they had no sex, and so they were more than happy to let their twelve-year-olds read them--and then Breaking Dawn busted on to the premises, which Bella and Edward unable to keep their clothes on for five minutes.

Sure, it's married sex. But still. But still.

[eyelid.livejournal.com]

Could they be worse role models?

well, he could beat her up and she could tell him that's just great...

oh, wait. that's in book four, right?

well, he could forbid her to see another love interest, including cutting her brake lines to prevent it...

oh, wait.

[g33kgrrl]

When Mom and I were shopping on Saturday this last weekend, I gave her the rundown on what was up with Twilight (disclaimed by "Now, I only read the summaries on lj, but..."). What you said here was her biggest reaction (besides "SPARKLE?!") - "Wow, there must be so many parents who read the first one and let their kids read the rest, and then that fourth book... suddenly, that becomes a very adult book, and not just about the sex."

[maleficently.livejournal.com]

You know, it's a wonder the writer of said article can see to write, what with her head shoved so far up SMeyer's....

Well, you get the picture.

[hatam-soferet.livejournal.com]

Puckered fanny, to quote?

[dimethirwen.livejournal.com]

That is the stupidest fucking article that I've read in years.

[raptorgirl.livejournal.com]

...How did this article get published? Is this a joke?

[penmage.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I feel like Twilight's a joke. A big joke on the industry and America. I'm still waiting for the punchline.

[dungeonwriter.livejournal.com]

She marinades steaks for her dad, before lying to her dad to meet with a guy who has to actively resist ripping her limb from limb.

Ladies, meet your new role model.

[laurenthemself]

Twilight can go fuck itself right in its fucking fuck.

Sorry, you don't get coherence. I rant!

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

bookish, smart, brave, considerate of others’ emotions, and naturally competent in the domestic arts

Ah, "bookish." The polite way of saying, "She did nothing else with her free time for the entire series."

And "considerate of others' emotions"? Yeah, she seemed to really give a shit when she was flirting with Jacob to get what she wanted, going places with her friends and treating them like crap, and when she was lying to her parents about Edward.

The "naturally competent in the domestic arts" bit just makes me laugh, too. Because you'll notice she didn't add "modest" to that list, considering the bitchy condescending comments Bella made under her breath every time Charlie said, "Uh, I can take care of myself, you know." But of course, Bella knew better because she'd spent the past sixteen years being "naturally competent" at being more of an adult than her airheaded mother.

Sheesh.

EDIT: Oh, and that story at the end is lovely. "When the boy I was dating was going to ditch school with his friends but changed his mind, thank God he decided to be responsible for once, but when he decided he wanted to ditch with me it was romaaaaantic!"

[sneaker328.livejournal.com]

Wow. That is really infuriating.

It's funny, because having just read the first Twilight, which I found to be not as bad as I'd expected- just a harmless, pulpy, wish-fulfilling teen romance- I was comparing it (unfavorably, of course) to the other young adult books aimed at girls I'd read in the past few years- The Sisterhood of Traveling Pants, which is a lovely series with a far more relatable and real group of young people that has a positive message about the power of love and friendship. Now that I've started the second book, with Bella constantly whining about how she wants to be turned into an immortal monster just to get some nookie with her sparkly boyfriend (whom, she tells us repeatedly, she doesn't even deserve), this bullshit from Meyer is even more egregious.

Suck it, Meyer.

[elissa-carey.livejournal.com]

I know not a thing about Ms. Meyer, but I would hazard two guesses:
1) She is unmarried and has not had many relationships. Forgive the all-too appropriate pun, but she is seriously romanticizing. "Defile"? Who the heck says that with a straight face? I'm not even going to get into the wonderful crudeness between the sheets she's apparently never enjoyed, either.
2) She doesn't know much about cooking. Marinating steaks and putting potatoes in the oven is nothing to brag about in the cooking department. When she's making shrimp gumbo or chicken marsala from scratch, then maybe it's braggable. Also? I find nothing alluring or compelling -- weirdly or otherwise -- about popping potatoes in an oven. If the potatoes were Spud People from Pluto, maybe.

Things like this are why most of the time I'm glad to not know anything about the author of a book or books. Ms. Meyer would likely get along terribly well with Orson Scott Card.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

They're actually both Mormons. Hmmmm.

[bevhale.livejournal.com]

I've been hissing about wish-fulfillment fantasy for a while now. The idea that if you want it badly enough the universe will rearrange itself so you can have it. 2+2 will equal 7 because you want it so very very much.

Not only does the "proper little woman" thing bother me, the type of relationship she has established for Bella and Edward makes me cringe. I think the problem is also that she's made a sparkly vampire who is the perfect boyfriend- dangerous, but not; a cutie who will never get old and fat; someone so in love he is willing to give up everything for her; and who watches over her at night just because he's so much love.

This ignores the idea that basically Bella is a happy meal on legs and that his obesession with her looks much like stalking to me.

Of course, I could just be out of touch.

[akamarykate.livejournal.com]

Holy frelling slapjacks, that's just...

You know, part of my "everyone I work with is insane" bafflement lately rests in two women my age, one married, one not, both trying to convince me how entirely awesome Those Books are. And I just...I can't...

Somehow, I manage to contain myself and just say, "All I know is that if one of my nieces reads the books, that's fine, but we'll need to have a talk with her afterward about what a healthy relationship really is."

But this just makes me sporfle with inarticulate rage, and I haven't even had coffee yet.

Oh yes. Thank goodness for Bella.

*wanders off, muttering...*

[etoilepb.livejournal.com]

Having read only LJ's assessments of Twilight and not the book(s) itself ( / themselves), I was holding off on genuine hatred.

But those comments, right there? Genuine hatred.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

I thought for a minut that the article you quoted was by Meyer--and I think some folks in the comments think it is, too.

I think this essay is an egregious interpretation of, uhm, the whole world, but especially Meyer's books and the Traveling Pants books. I don't think Meyer herself would agree with the slant of this article, frankly. She has, for better or worse, intentionally or unintentionally, written a text that has some seriously effed up values, but I believe her intentions were better than this article suggests, and I think, at worst, she's deeply conflicted about the role of her gender in her church, and couldn't reconcile it even in a fiction book.

Further, Meyer seems to believe that Bella is an unreliable narrator, and even if Bella perceives herself as a domestic goddess, no one actually acquires that status by baking some potatoes in the oven. I suspect Meyer knows this.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

I believe her intentions were better than this article suggests

(Yes, better than this article suggests. This article slings mud under the guise of frosting, without even knowing it.)

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Wait, did I really read the phrase "equally alluring domestic scenes in _Rosemary's Baby_?"

Am I, like, misremembering the plot of Rosemary's Baby?

[penmage.livejournal.com]

I actually think it's quite appropriate that she reference Rosemary's Baby, considering the Rosemary's Baby-esque pregnancy in the fourth book.

This article is full of WTF.

[esc-key.livejournal.com]

There's a lot of WTF? going on in this article (and I could only read the beginning before stopping), not the least of which is the totally random reference to Rosemary's Baby. I was unaware that was some kind of cooking memoir!

The author must have a really screwed up idea about good literature if she only wants chastity books with "compelling" cooking scenes. (Are they the only compelling scenes in the books?)

I have an odd new love for Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants now, though.

[eyelid.livejournal.com]

The author must have a really screwed up idea about good literature

well, she thinks twilight was "Fantastic." nuff said.

[eyelid.livejournal.com]

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is about female empowerment as it’s currently defined by the kind of jaded, 40-something divorcées who wash ashore at day spas with their grizzled girlfriends and pollute the Quiet Room with their ceaseless cackling about the uselessness of men.

SOMEONE is bitter and jaded here, definitely....

[onmyshore.livejournal.com]

So much of the Twilight series disgusts me I don't even know where to begin (Stephanie Meyers' terrible writing is the least of my concerns).

[lnbw.livejournal.com]

Someone else linked me this article, but I only got as far as "I hate Y.A. novels; they bore me." before I rolled my eyes and gave up. Now I will have to read all the way through for even better tidbits of stupid!

[emsbookshelf.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

"I hate Y.A. novels; they bore me."

That sentence, near the beginning of her article, instantly made me discredit the rest of the article. Obviously, she hasn't been reading YA novels or she would know that there are a ton of great ones.

[janni.livejournal.com]

smart ... considerate of others’ emotions

The Bella who walks into dark alleys, can't cross the street without putting her life into mortal danger, ditches all her mortal friends, and uses at least one of her werewolf ones?

And that's only in the first two books. Yeah.

[ricardienne.livejournal.com]

I can’t remember a thing about geometry except the useless phrase side-angle-side,

...this is actually what ticked me off the most. I realize that hating on math is pretty much a point of pride in our culture, but using that as the sign-off for this essay about what girls *really want* for role models is beyond infuriating.

[aethereal-girl.livejournal.com]

It's funny cos the one thing I've used geometry for after high school is making dress patterns.

Oops, I forgot, domestic skills aren't learned skills, they're natural instincts!

[ex-fashioni.livejournal.com]

How hard am I laughing that you chose to highlight two of the same passages I did (with appropriate ire).

The article made my hackles rise in a way that almost defies description.

If it's okay, I'll be friending you.

[reginaspina.livejournal.com]

I’m not sure this is the best place to introduce myself, but hey, I love a strongly-worded rant about ridiculous assumptions so I’ll just say here that I’ve friended you! We have many of the same interests, including but not limited to Sherwood Smith, Neil Gaiman, and retold fairy tales! And I love a good book rec, which seems to be a substantial portion of your journal.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks for dropping in! Judging from the tags along the right side of your journal, I suspect we've got a lot in common--so, great to meet you!