As an author I am always asking myself what my responsibility to my audience is. Recently two literary phenomena -- the Lean In proposal and the success of the Fifty Shades trilogy -- caught my attention in Vanessa Garcia's article in the online news and blog website called the Huffington Post. In several ways I was in agreement with Garcia, and yet something really annoyed about her essay, almost as annoyed as I was with the four books, their popularity, and the discussions of these books I see at least weekly. Let me see if I can get that out there for you all to think about and respond to, please.
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General criticisms of E.L. James's trilogy look at the story’s poorly edited and weakly constructed nature, a fanfiction that became popular enough to justify tweeting and publication by Vintage Books. Who is to blame for the less-than-sterling prose and predictable, often frustrating plot? At the foundation the author is claiming responsibility because she "created" the story; however, if readers had not flocked to the story online, she might not have continued it and very likely would not have re-crafted it for mainstream publication. However, as an author I can tell you that the errors that plague these books fall very heavily onto the shoulders of the editors and proofreaders at Vintage Books, too. An author can get easily lost in her own creation, so having a second, third, even fourth pair of eyes and an engaged mind is very important for us: that is a role that agents and editors should be playing.
Further complaints about the trilogy look at the relationship between the two main characters. These complaints come from a range of people: feminists angry at the submissive model of Anastasia; anti-sex folks annoyed at what they call vulgar passages; kinky folks both thrilled and terrified that it will attract others to BDSM. If you are a kinky person and have these worries, Peter Tupper's book to the left (the icon on the left) may help you understand what is going on in this series. The Fifty Shades trilogy has been called anything from "romantic," to "eye-opening," to "trash," and even "dangerous" for the readers. However, these fears and praises seem to buy into a few stereotypes that are simply not correct though a recent study suggests that the relationships shown in the book are undoubtedly abusive.
First, there is this very odd but very common belief that if you read a book and enjoy it, that must mean you will try to behave and think exactly like the characters in the book. The same concern exists for the Lean In book from Sheryl Sandberg, if you look at some of the criticisms her non-fiction book has received. Several critics have suggested that if women follow her advice it will set women as a group back by decades in the workforce.
Let's be honest: Authors have no magical power to control their readers. Hell, if we did, we wouldn't be making only 5-10% royalties, and we wouldn't have to work our tails off marketing our own books. Not to mention the fact that our world would be incredibly unstable as the new book of the week shifted all of its readers' behaviors and attitudes. The reality is that just because you read a book, it does not mean it will change your life. As an author I can say that I hope what I write gets my reader to think, but given some of the emails I've gotten over the years I have to say that what someone gets out of my work may have very little to do with what I had in mind or the actual words I used. Sometimes my readers' reactions are a bit disconcerting for me when they fall in love with the baddie or walk away with a message different from the one I was trying to convey. The reader's life and beliefs, heck, even what he smoked today or what she drank last night, can change how they understand any book, fiction or non-fiction.
What about if you enjoy the book? Surely someone who enjoys a book will put those ideas into action, right? Really? Do I even have to address this one? How many of you out there have self-help books just lying about your place that you've read, felt really connected with you, and then, well, you just never got around to it? Yup, that's right. Most readers will never take that next step for even the most general of self-help books, so what makes anyone think they are actually going to put a fictional scenario into practice for more than a few dates or scenes? For all of the kink groups that have seen an up-tick in attendance, how many of them will see those same newcomers in a year, or two, or a decade from now? You can't even keep folks who found kink by themselves in your clubs for more than a few years at most before there is burnout or just plain disgust with all the politicking.
There will be a minority of people who do try out the ideas in these four books. In the case of Sandberg's ideas, they might work for some women, and they might not for others, but the fact is that anyone who works at any type of job and those of us who stay home are constantly negotiating our position in the world, in our families, and in our own minds. If Lean In sounds like something that might help you, give it a try; just don't expect your coworker to try it, too. In the Fifty Shades trilogy the issue is perhaps a bit more risky. Poorly-understood and -described sex might be copied and prove damaging to those trying things out. If you are going to write about sex, I'm a big believer in figuring out what works and writing it realistically. On the other hand, readers should be adult enough to do enough research or go slowly enough that they minimize risk, but we also know we live in a lawsuit-crazy society where folks sue companies over hot coffee that was surprisingly hot. Authors vary in how much responsibility they want to take for such depictions.
The other area of potential harm that many critics cite is the relationship models shown in the books. In short, these critics claim that all four books promote a sexist view; they encourage women (mostly) and men to continue to live in a way that is harmful to women (and somewhat to men). I don't think any of the five authors on Butt-Kicking Women Write About It are cool with sexism, but this worry, which I've seen expressed about all four of these books, is really very burdened by its own sexism. Let me try to explain what I mean.
Just as you really can't believe that everyone who reads and enjoys a book will do what the book says, neither can you believe that readers must identify only with a character of the same sex, race, or any other category they might fall into. Over the generations enough little girls have grown up to reject the "boys as active, girls as support systems" model from literature to create political and social movements as well as private lives that demonstrated that those models were more a matter of nurture than of nature. Little boys, too, did not always buy into the role models they were given in books or anywhere else, and those men then supported the changes in the laws, and society as well, that have increased rights for people who did not look like them. While it may seem more reasonable that one would identify with a character or author of the same sex, that implies that humans beings always behave in a reasonable and predictable fashion. As a historian I can tell you that such generalities are never universals. To be more specific to these four books, when the Fifty Shades series was getting the first media attention, I recall several reports in which male readers who were interviewed explicitly identified with Anastasia and not Christian at all. This finding would not surprise anyone who recalls the studies of Nancy Friday and other sex researchers before and after her. Of course, there were some people interviewed who said they didn't identify with either character, too, but who cares about those folks, right?
So if the problem can't really be about the reader identifying with one particular character or situation and then putting that identification into action, what is the real problem these criticisms are trying to get at?
The problem these critics are trying to express in greater or lesser degrees all deal with the idea that women should be or are submissive. This rubs me wrong in two main ways, not because I wouldn't have a problem with this idea (I do) or that it hasn't been used repeatedly to control women (it has and is) but that there are innate problems with some of the interpretations of this idea.
The first is that submission is weakness, that it is an extreme loss of power, and that lacking equality is an incredibly horrific condition for anyone to exist in. While I cannot personally grok the appeal of sexual (or other types of) submission, I am not foolish enough to think that I have never and will never have to submit to another human being. We submit to other human beings all the time. Why is submission a good thing in one situation but a bad thing in another? For some it is a matter of force versus consent. For others it is a matter of nature versus nurture. The issue of submission is very complex, and few criticisms of James or Sandberg spend the time necessary to really grapple with it. Just saying that it's wrong to show women as submissive is shortchanging the realities of human life. Just saying that it makes you uncomfortable and therefore it must be wrong, period, seems like a last-ditch attack from a grade schooler.
The second problem that I see with the criticism of these books is one of overinterpreting what the author is saying. This happens increasingly all the time online and even in discussions held among friends. The problem is that unless an author states clearly and every time that she (or he) is only talking about a very specific person or small group, the readers (fans and critics alike) often assume she (or he) is talking about everyone. This assumption somehow attempts to make the author responsible both for the words she wrote and the ones she didn't write. Sometimes authors are indeed putting forth such general ideas that they are pushing a sexist or racist or whatever -ist agenda that you can imagine. When they do that, you can rightly critique that view. But often it isn't a matter of what the author writes (or doesn't), but what the reader feels or thinks, that is the cause of this "it applies to every (fill in the category)." As an author I need to take responsibility for what I write; as a reader you need to take responsibility for any interpretations that go beyond my words.
If these four books really did say, “every woman needs to be submissive,” I would feel that some criticisms of them are justified, simply because this idea is just a flat-out lie. I don’t think they do say this; please, someone out there, if I’m incorrect in my understanding of them, prove this to me.
But even if these books did say that every woman should be/must be submissive, they wouldn’t be saying anything new, nor would they be promoting the only message out there for women and men to read. That's a cultural problem, one that goes beyond the individual author into the history of our world and the way we raise children and reward each other for our behaviors and attitudes.
The Fifty Shades trilogy and Lean In are just the latest books to cause a furor about sex and gender roles. The books don't, and can't, create sexism, any more than they can magically cure it. Instead of getting angry with the authors, look to yourself and ask yourself if you are willing to admit that you, too, are buying into the stereotypes. Then ask if you are willing to do something about it, such as buying other books and spread the word, or even writing and publishing your own. I do want to thank Garcia for her article that created my desire to write this week, because she has taken that step, even if I don't agree with everything she wrote, by making it personal and not applying her response to every woman out there.
See you next Friday and go have a piece of good chocolate this weekend!
General criticisms of E.L. James's trilogy look at the story’s poorly edited and weakly constructed nature, a fanfiction that became popular enough to justify tweeting and publication by Vintage Books. Who is to blame for the less-than-sterling prose and predictable, often frustrating plot? At the foundation the author is claiming responsibility because she "created" the story; however, if readers had not flocked to the story online, she might not have continued it and very likely would not have re-crafted it for mainstream publication. However, as an author I can tell you that the errors that plague these books fall very heavily onto the shoulders of the editors and proofreaders at Vintage Books, too. An author can get easily lost in her own creation, so having a second, third, even fourth pair of eyes and an engaged mind is very important for us: that is a role that agents and editors should be playing.Further complaints about the trilogy look at the relationship between the two main characters. These complaints come from a range of people: feminists angry at the submissive model of Anastasia; anti-sex folks annoyed at what they call vulgar passages; kinky folks both thrilled and terrified that it will attract others to BDSM. If you are a kinky person and have these worries, Peter Tupper's book to the left (the icon on the left) may help you understand what is going on in this series. The Fifty Shades trilogy has been called anything from "romantic," to "eye-opening," to "trash," and even "dangerous" for the readers. However, these fears and praises seem to buy into a few stereotypes that are simply not correct though a recent study suggests that the relationships shown in the book are undoubtedly abusive.First, there is this very odd but very common belief that if you read a book and enjoy it, that must mean you will try to behave and think exactly like the characters in the book. The same concern exists for the Lean In book from Sheryl Sandberg, if you look at some of the criticisms her non-fiction book has received. Several critics have suggested that if women follow her advice it will set women as a group back by decades in the workforce.Let's be honest: Authors have no magical power to control their readers. Hell, if we did, we wouldn't be making only 5-10% royalties, and we wouldn't have to work our tails off marketing our own books. Not to mention the fact that our world would be incredibly unstable as the new book of the week shifted all of its readers' behaviors and attitudes. The reality is that just because you read a book, it does not mean it will change your life. As an author I can say that I hope what I write gets my reader to think, but given some of the emails I've gotten over the years I have to say that what someone gets out of my work may have very little to do with what I had in mind or the actual words I used. Sometimes my readers' reactions are a bit disconcerting for me when they fall in love with the baddie or walk away with a message different from the one I was trying to convey. The reader's life and beliefs, heck, even what he smoked today or what she drank last night, can change how they understand any book, fiction or non-fiction.
What about if you enjoy the book? Surely someone who enjoys a book will put those ideas into action, right? Really? Do I even have to address this one? How many of you out there have self-help books just lying about your place that you've read, felt really connected with you, and then, well, you just never got around to it? Yup, that's right. Most readers will never take that next step for even the most general of self-help books, so what makes anyone think they are actually going to put a fictional scenario into practice for more than a few dates or scenes? For all of the kink groups that have seen an up-tick in attendance, how many of them will see those same newcomers in a year, or two, or a decade from now? You can't even keep folks who found kink by themselves in your clubs for more than a few years at most before there is burnout or just plain disgust with all the politicking.
There will be a minority of people who do try out the ideas in these four books. In the case of Sandberg's ideas, they might work for some women, and they might not for others, but the fact is that anyone who works at any type of job and those of us who stay home are constantly negotiating our position in the world, in our families, and in our own minds. If Lean In sounds like something that might help you, give it a try; just don't expect your coworker to try it, too. In the Fifty Shades trilogy the issue is perhaps a bit more risky. Poorly-understood and -described sex might be copied and prove damaging to those trying things out. If you are going to write about sex, I'm a big believer in figuring out what works and writing it realistically. On the other hand, readers should be adult enough to do enough research or go slowly enough that they minimize risk, but we also know we live in a lawsuit-crazy society where folks sue companies over hot coffee that was surprisingly hot. Authors vary in how much responsibility they want to take for such depictions.
The other area of potential harm that many critics cite is the relationship models shown in the books. In short, these critics claim that all four books promote a sexist view; they encourage women (mostly) and men to continue to live in a way that is harmful to women (and somewhat to men). I don't think any of the five authors on Butt-Kicking Women Write About It are cool with sexism, but this worry, which I've seen expressed about all four of these books, is really very burdened by its own sexism. Let me try to explain what I mean.
Just as you really can't believe that everyone who reads and enjoys a book will do what the book says, neither can you believe that readers must identify only with a character of the same sex, race, or any other category they might fall into. Over the generations enough little girls have grown up to reject the "boys as active, girls as support systems" model from literature to create political and social movements as well as private lives that demonstrated that those models were more a matter of nurture than of nature. Little boys, too, did not always buy into the role models they were given in books or anywhere else, and those men then supported the changes in the laws, and society as well, that have increased rights for people who did not look like them. While it may seem more reasonable that one would identify with a character or author of the same sex, that implies that humans beings always behave in a reasonable and predictable fashion. As a historian I can tell you that such generalities are never universals. To be more specific to these four books, when the Fifty Shades series was getting the first media attention, I recall several reports in which male readers who were interviewed explicitly identified with Anastasia and not Christian at all. This finding would not surprise anyone who recalls the studies of Nancy Friday and other sex researchers before and after her. Of course, there were some people interviewed who said they didn't identify with either character, too, but who cares about those folks, right?
So if the problem can't really be about the reader identifying with one particular character or situation and then putting that identification into action, what is the real problem these criticisms are trying to get at?
The problem these critics are trying to express in greater or lesser degrees all deal with the idea that women should be or are submissive. This rubs me wrong in two main ways, not because I wouldn't have a problem with this idea (I do) or that it hasn't been used repeatedly to control women (it has and is) but that there are innate problems with some of the interpretations of this idea.
The first is that submission is weakness, that it is an extreme loss of power, and that lacking equality is an incredibly horrific condition for anyone to exist in. While I cannot personally grok the appeal of sexual (or other types of) submission, I am not foolish enough to think that I have never and will never have to submit to another human being. We submit to other human beings all the time. Why is submission a good thing in one situation but a bad thing in another? For some it is a matter of force versus consent. For others it is a matter of nature versus nurture. The issue of submission is very complex, and few criticisms of James or Sandberg spend the time necessary to really grapple with it. Just saying that it's wrong to show women as submissive is shortchanging the realities of human life. Just saying that it makes you uncomfortable and therefore it must be wrong, period, seems like a last-ditch attack from a grade schooler.
The second problem that I see with the criticism of these books is one of overinterpreting what the author is saying. This happens increasingly all the time online and even in discussions held among friends. The problem is that unless an author states clearly and every time that she (or he) is only talking about a very specific person or small group, the readers (fans and critics alike) often assume she (or he) is talking about everyone. This assumption somehow attempts to make the author responsible both for the words she wrote and the ones she didn't write. Sometimes authors are indeed putting forth such general ideas that they are pushing a sexist or racist or whatever -ist agenda that you can imagine. When they do that, you can rightly critique that view. But often it isn't a matter of what the author writes (or doesn't), but what the reader feels or thinks, that is the cause of this "it applies to every (fill in the category)." As an author I need to take responsibility for what I write; as a reader you need to take responsibility for any interpretations that go beyond my words.
If these four books really did say, “every woman needs to be submissive,” I would feel that some criticisms of them are justified, simply because this idea is just a flat-out lie. I don’t think they do say this; please, someone out there, if I’m incorrect in my understanding of them, prove this to me.
But even if these books did say that every woman should be/must be submissive, they wouldn’t be saying anything new, nor would they be promoting the only message out there for women and men to read. That's a cultural problem, one that goes beyond the individual author into the history of our world and the way we raise children and reward each other for our behaviors and attitudes.
The Fifty Shades trilogy and Lean In are just the latest books to cause a furor about sex and gender roles. The books don't, and can't, create sexism, any more than they can magically cure it. Instead of getting angry with the authors, look to yourself and ask yourself if you are willing to admit that you, too, are buying into the stereotypes. Then ask if you are willing to do something about it, such as buying other books and spread the word, or even writing and publishing your own. I do want to thank Garcia for her article that created my desire to write this week, because she has taken that step, even if I don't agree with everything she wrote, by making it personal and not applying her response to every woman out there.
See you next Friday and go have a piece of good chocolate this weekend!
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