fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5027 ]

[ SECRET POST #5027 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5027 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 42 secrets from Secret Submission Post #719.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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01. https://i.imgur.com/Q9MjpX6.png

It's so easy to write a character with individual likes and interests who doesn't feel superior to other girls with different likes and interests too. You just don't throw in your own gross opinions about how shallow and awful you think most young women are.

Literally that easy.

I wish publishers saw it that way.

They see the dollar signs of "not like other girls" selling.

Right???

I agree and I don't know if "appealing to teenagers" is really even a justification when so much of YA is effectively targeted at adult readers now!

Like, is this what YA pushers have in mind when they say that YA deals with themes that adult fiction doesn't? It definitely feels that way sometimes.

This stuff pervaded media and fic and everything when I was a teen, and it made me kind of think that to be the best I could be I had to be not at all like other girls.

It took me a long time to realise that actually, being a woman isn't inherently a bad thing and that liking feminine things like fashion, kids, etc, isn't inherently bad either. I think it's a fundamentally misogynistic take because it instantly labels femininity and girls as bad.

As a teen it drew me in because I felt like a different creature entirely from the girly girls who were popular and would bully me. Now I wish there had been more stories where girls had a range of personalities and interests and still all got on. The only thing I've seen that's even remotely close to that is, embarrassingly, the first season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

(Cozy werewolf anon)

I have to second the MLP: FiM thing. As a writer, I really try to emulate making female characters people and if I wanted to use an example of a property making female characters people whose different interests were not degraded or put down, MLP: FiM is it. Season one especially!

Like, it's what I want in Miraculous Ladybug and am NOT getting at all.

People are contradictory. Characters can be contradictory. There's no reason to put down other characters to make the main character "look" better. Like, isn't that what we tell teens NOT to do b/c it's disrespectful behavior and toxic.

Sorry you went through that OP. You aren't alone in this. Glad you're doing better.

Aw thanks Cozy Werewolf Anon (the best anon name btw! How is selling your books going??)

It took me twenty years, but I'm pretty happy with where I'm at now. But you know, a lot of my friends who were also not girly girls still really look down on feminine stuff. C'est la vie I guess.

FiM season one had stands very much alone for me in how it portrays female friendships. It is an A plus series. It's a shame that the main writer/producer left, it seemed to lose its magic after that. Ironically.

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(Anonymous) - 2020-10-10 21:24 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2020-10-10 21:37 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2020-10-10 21:43 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2020-10-11 00:23 (UTC) - Expand

"stories where girls had a range of personalities and interests and still all got on" was a huge fad for book series in the 80s and 90s. The Babysitters Club is the most well-known example and possibly what popularized the fad, but there were dozens of others. Girl Talk, Saddle Club, Pen Pals, Pony Pals, Magic Attic Club, Diary SOS, and more. I've been visiting their pages on Goodreads for nostalgia lately. And according to the "similar books" recs, it seems books like that are still being written, they just aren't huge hits like I guess the YA books the OP is talking about are? (I haven't read any popular YA except The Hunger Games, and have personally never seen this "pit all girls against each other" in any of the YA I read)

I was a "weird" girl so definitely remember the appeal of this. At the same time age has kinda taught me that I can indulge those parts of me without shitting on other women and girls.

But society kinda encourages us to do that so I can't hate teenage girls for doing what they've been directed to do. I also feel that we can maybe find ways to explore these feelings that are healthier and don't treat other human beings like competition or inferior.

Idk. I'm tired so probably not articulating this well. I'm trying to say I see both sides of the argument but I think you only start to appreciate that with a bit more experience of the world outside your high school corridors. And that's still not to say that teenage girls can't be smart, because of course they can be. It's just that when so many of their general interests are dismissed as dumb OF COURSE some of them are gonna veer away from that and get a superiority complex.

I get where you're saying and completely agree.

you articulated fine. It's a definite society problem one becomes aware of with age and expanded POVs. It does help I think a lot of booktubers who have large teenage audiences are also willing to talk about it.

One of the good things about having so many social media connections now is that people can do that more easily.

I know from my own experience that it would've been good for me to have someone opening a dialogue to say that just because the e.g. "princess" girls were being mean to me didn't mean they were automatically devoid of their own problems and rich inner lives. I mean, I did sort of already know that but when you're 15 and angry at people for bullying you for no reason you don't necessarily step back for a second. Any media that had "those" girls getting taught a horrible lesson still appealed to me regardless because I was hurting. And a lot of media certainly exploits that sort of dynamic.

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(Anonymous) - 2020-10-10 21:29 (UTC) - Expand

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sparklywalls - 2020-10-10 21:45 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2020-10-10 22:04 (UTC) - Expand

yeah, i was an easy sell on this kind of writing as a teen too because i didn't care about make-up, or fashion! and it wasn't until i was much older that i looked back and realised how horribly sexist that kind of trope is, just in a different way, and how badly it still squashes us into little boxes.

you can be nerdy and like books.

or you can like make-up and clothes.

CHOOSE ONE! and like, that's just so horribly limiting whichever angel you come at it. i'm glad it's being seen for the cruddy writing it is these days, but i also sadly get how teen girls who aren't a-typically feminine can get sucked into writing like this when everything else in society is telling you to be pretty and like make-up.

the real freedom is realising you can like whatever the fuck you want: screw other people's hang-ups and perceptions.

One of the really girly teens my friend works with told my friend that she was bored all the time and that's why she did her nails every day. When my friend asked her why she didn't take up a hobby like reading, or drawing, or anything - the girl told her she wasn't smart enough for hobbies, especially not for reading. It made me so sad to think there are young girls out there who believe that.

That's so tragic.

Like, reading takes practice and I remember having teenagers my age be completely baffled on the bus about me reading a 300+ page book. They never said they didn't think they were smart enough or else I would have given them a hug, but um. Yeah.

Schools really kill the love of reading, IMO.

Couldn't doing her nails every day be her hobby?

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(Anonymous) - 2020-10-11 00:45 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2020-10-11 08:03 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2020-10-11 17:59 (UTC) - Expand

You're friend sounds like an asshole.

Oh man, I remember this trope so well. My first original story that I wrote when I was in high school also had these tropes and I was so embarrassed when I reread it a couple years later. I wish I could tell my teenage self that it's okay to like both books and makeup and that wanting to be girly isn't a bad thing.

I think this trope is less prevalent these days. Like, you'll still have female characters who don't like fashion and prefer to drink tea and read books, but they don't have that "not like other girls" thing going on.

Somewhat related to post - I remember some parody script of “She’s All That” (a movie where popular teen boy asks the! most! unpopular! teen girl in school to prom on a dare but it becomes real), where the boy is asked what girl is the most unpopular. Someone suggests something like, “What about that girl who loudly swears and belches and picks her nose and also stabbed 3 guys last period?” and he’s like, “No... hey, that one girl dressed in overalls likes art and almost tripped on a step! That’s real unpopular!”

I get where this trope comes out of and why, but I swear the moment I see it in fiction nowadays I just nope out of the book/film/show. Especially fiction written more recently! Don't have the time for misogyny anymore.

I never connected with *any* of this stuff when I was (arguably) the target audience. I was 13 in 1980, but i wasn't remotely interested in reading 'The Babysitters Club' books, and I don't even remember any of the other ones Anon upthread listed.

I was a 'weird girl' and didn't care about being weird, but none of the YA stuff that's out now seems like it would remotely interest 13-year-old me, either.

I feel like teenage girls who believe they're not like the other girls have no friends.

Can confirm. As a teen I had the standard Not Like Other Girls hobbies. I also had few friends and even fewer were other girls. I still do, and I still don't.

It isn't that the character has certain interests itself that makes the trope- but more that opinion of their belief that they're better or more substantial 'than the other girls' if only because they believe their interests are that much more significant in a way 'the other girls' couldn't possibly understand.
It's a bogus is what it is. How I see it is that most of these POV's are written by people wanting or jealous of those who were popular in the past and attempting to 'show them' by perceiving their opinions and interests as being superior in a way 'those popular kids' just couldn't understand... or something like that anyways.

Never feel sorry for what you like. For what you like about you especially! Tropes and opinions are all based on more or less specific interpretations, interpretations that don't necessarily have anything to do with you. <333

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