Guest post written by author Claire Eliza Bartlett
Claire Eliza Bartlett grew up in Colorado. She studied history and archaeology and spent time in Switzerland and Wales before settling in Denmark for good. She is the author of We Rule the Night, The Winter Duke, and The Good Girls. When not at her computer telling mostly fictional stories, she works as a tour guide in Copenhagen, telling stories that are (mostly) true. Claire invites you to visit her online at authorclaire.com.
My daughter,
You were born just after the autumn solstice, in the weirdest year I have lived through to date (I sort of hope it’s the weirdest year I ever live through, but we’ll just have to see.) Already, I have become an entirely different person: before, my life revolved around writing books and being a good friend and trying to make the world a slightly better place. Now, my life revolves around you, your present and your future. When I’m not taking care of the immediate essentials, I’m thinking about everything to come: how to baby-proof the house, what to get you to stimulate your development, how to teach you to be a good and kind and strong human being and woman.
In 2019, when we thought the world was bad enough, a colleague of mine had a daughter. We bought him a card, of course, and sent it round the office for signing. Most of us wrote variations on “Congratulations! Can’t wait to meet her!” Except one colleague. That colleague, you know the one. The peer (or fellow student, or friend’s boyfriend, or teammate) who thinks being a dick and being edgy are the same thing, who thinks he can get away with anything because he always has.
“Congratulations!” my colleague wrote. “I can’t wait until she turns eighteen!”
And that was that. She was being sexualized and she wasn’t even six weeks old.
How do I protect you from people like that?
I can’t keep you from being put in a box. The truth is, we put women in boxes all the time. We have the good girls, the bad girls, the nerdy girls, the slutty girls—and oftentimes, we decide who is what before we get to know them. Because of course, if we knew them, we’d understand that no one can be boxed that way. When I was little, I knew about these boxes, even if I couldn’t articulate it. I knew that there were some girls who were good and cool and some who were not, and I wanted to be like the good ones. I wanted to read about the good ones, too. So I filled my bookshelves with stories about girls who kick ass and take names. I filled my shelves with girls who wielded swords and magic and wisdom, and not a mascara brush. These were the books, I thought, that I would read to my daughter one day. Surely these books were feminist because they had girls who wouldn’t be pushed around, because they featured women who were Not Like Other Women. I thought books were feminist because of what some men sold me a lie about what good, feminist women should be like.
Up through my early twenties, genre literature – especially YA – was rife with this Not Like Other Girls trope. It turns out there’s a pre-approved version of an Independent Woman, and she’s the white woman who can be beautiful without caring about being beautiful, who is outside of the usual girly crowd because she’s too different, somehow un-feminine, and because the girly crowd is full of, well, those girls, and we all know how those girls are. The Independent Woman likes boy things, because liking girl things is bad. The Independent Woman is smart, and all the other women in the story are not. The Independent Woman has enough so-called masculine qualities that male readers can be comfortable liking her, and the Independent Woman is sexually desirable enough that male readers can feel comfortable lusting after her, too. So many women in genre literature are shown to be special in relationship to other women; they are smarter, geekier, more athletic, prettier, nicer than any other girl on the page. In short, disturbingly, they allow us as readers to dislike women in general, while liking the protagonist of the story.
My daughter, I don’t want you to be this kind of strong, independent woman. You can be strong without punching down, independent without being alone. I will read you the books I wish I’d found as a teen: books about girls who are friends with each other, who all have unique abilities and personalities, and use them to support each other. You will learn that all girls are unique, and in this we are all the same. We will read real-life stories of incredible women who became even more incredible when they worked together. We will read contemporaries and fantasies and thrillers and romances full of women who care about each other, and we will read books that challenge sexism, not by having a single woman who’s as good as the boys, but by showing women as we truly are: a force that defies masculine ideas of which girls are special, and which girls are just girls.
All of us are just girls. And all of us are special.
I wish I’d grown up with a book like The Good Luck Girls by Charlotte Nicole Davis, which is a harrowing story of how girls can become close through trials of fire. I wish I’d grown up with a book like Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu, in which girls band together to take a stand against both individual and institutionalized sexism. I wish I’d grown up with a book like The Life and Medieval Times of Kit Sweetly, which challenges a male-centric view of history through a group of women supporting each other. But, my daughter, you will grow up with these books. And whatever we need that we can’t find, I’ll write. Together we will read stories where women aren’t defined by men, but by themselves and by each other.
Of course, all your life men (and women too) will try to put you in a box of your own. I only hope I can teach you to defy that, and to look past the boxes that have been constructed around other people.
And Mommy’s going to teach you something extra special. All those gross old men who want to sexualize you for being a woman? All those men who ‘can’t wait’ until you turn eighteen? Mommy’s going to teach you to kick them in the balls so hard that they’re singing soprano for the rest of their lives.
Love,
Claire
