Most women who read the
contemporary novels Twilight and 50 Shades of Gray would not likely view
them as sexist novels that are demeaning to women and portray them as inferior
to men. However, when one views these novels from an analytical perspective, it
becomes apparent that the female main characters represent women as being
unprofessional and dependent on men. The portrayal of women in both novels also
emphasizes the idea of viewing women as sex objects.
When I was younger and less critical of literature, I
read the entire Twilight series. At
the time, I was young and impressionable, and I found the story romantic and
the characters compelling. However, upon rereading it when I was older, I was
astounded to notice several sexist themes that had not come to my attention in
the past. One of those was the main character Bella’s lack of professionalism,
which manifests itself in the absence of professional goals and a remarkable
unconcern for her professional future. In the novel, Bella and her boyfriend
Edward, who happens to be a vampire, are high school students living in Forks,
Oregon. After the two begin to pursue a serious relationship, the author pretty
much stops mentioning Bella’s schoolwork completely. Most juniors in high school
who want to pursue a successful future are very concerned with college plans.
However, Bella seems not to care about college at all; after meeting Edward,
maintaining their relationship becomes her top priority. This novel’s target
audience is young girls in middle school and high school. Considering the high
rates of teen pregnancy in the United States (thirty-four women out of every
thousand between the ages of fifteen and nineteen will become pregnant each
year according to CBS News), I hardly think it’s a good thing for young women
to be reading a book about a female character who abandons her academic goals
and responsibilities to pursue a romantic relationship.
50 Shades of Gray also
includes an alarming lack of professionalism on the main female character’s
part. The main character, Anastasia Steele, is a recent college graduate with a
job as a book editor. Even though she has just begun her new job, she spends
most of her time at work texting her boyfriend Christian Grey. The author does
not discuss any of the details of the character’s supposed “dream job”, and
Anastasia’s career is largely irrelevant to the story. In fact, her boyfriend
often meddles in her professional life. After Steele is sexually assaulted by
her boss, a topic which will be further discussed later on in this post, her
boyfriend buys the company she works for and makes her the head editor. Therefore,
the novel is promoting the message that women are professionally inferior to
men and that their success in the workplace depends on male assistance.
Both novels feature female leads that are incredibly
dependent on the men in their lives. In both cases, the women are portrayed as weak
and require male assistance. In Twilight,
it is understandable that there would be some situations in which Bella would
need Edward’s assistance; after all, he is supernaturally strong and she is
only a human. However, he becomes domineering over every facet of her life. For
instance, she depends on him to remind her when she should be eating more, and he
becomes her sole transportation to school even though she has her own vehicle. He
also handles all conflict situations caused by the disproportionate and
unrealistic number of additional males who pursue romantic relationships with
her.
Since 50 Shades of
Grey actually began as a Twilight fan-fiction,
it makes sense that it would have a lot of the same patterns. Anastasia becomes
increasingly dependent on Christian; like in Twilight, he urges her to eat as though she cannot remember to do
so on her own, although she obviously did not starve when she was single! She
also depends on him financially. He buys her a new car when hers becomes
unreliable, and provides her with sleek, professional clothing to wear to her new
job, a wardrobe that she would probably be unable to pay for herself. In both
novels, the female characters protest these overtures initially, but always in
a faux-pouty, pseudo-determined, halfhearted manner.
Finally, in both novels, the female characters are
portrayed as sex objects. Readers are probably assuming that this is the
portion of the post where I discuss the phenomena of a BDSM lifestyle and how
the sexual component of 50 Shades of Grey
is demeaning to women. I’m not going to say that. In fact, the sexual
components of the book are proof of how far women have come. They can now
freely admit to and express their sexual preferences, no matter how unorthodox.
Furthermore, one of the female characters in the novel is a dominatrix, the
ultimate symbol of a sexually powerful female. However, Anastasia is portrayed
as a sex object in another way.
Throughout the novel, all the men in Anastasia’s life are
attracted to her, despite her self-proclaimed plainness. Her coworker, her
close male friend, her boss, and the man she interviews for professional
reasons, Christian Grey, whom she later begins a romantic relationship with,
are all attracted to her and make sexual advances towards her. Most due so in an
incredibly forward, sometimes lewd, manner. Her encounter with Grey is
especially demeaning; she enters into it with the intention of their meeting
being an important professional encounter and leaves all a-flutter with sexual
desire and romantic notions, all thoughts of professionalism abandoned.
Twilight shares
this phenomena. Although Bella is described as an average girl, from the moment
she arrives in her new town, the majority of her male classmates are enthralled
with her. Although their intention are never clearly defined, they literally do
not know her at all, so their sudden interest cannot be reasonably attributed
to her personality. She too is portrayed as a sex object.
Most women probably feel that literature has come a long
way from colonial times, where the bible was the only best-seller. However, it
is my hope that these astute observations can open women’s eyes to the fact
that the genre of contemporary literature does not portray women in a realistic,
or respectful, light. If this is how two of the most successful novels of the
past five years are portraying women, I shudder to think of all the other
examples of sexism that may be cluttering our bookshelves, I urge women
everywhere to think before they financially support an author who is
contributing to the continuance of demeaning portrayals of women in modern
literature. We have come a long way, but we are not there yet.
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