Beach Books

It’s the curse of “women writers” that our work is held to entirely different, and largely ridiculous, standards compared to the work of men. Part of the problem is that our work is consistently placed in these odd little categories that are separate from the writings of men and that when it’s critiqued it’s done so with either one of two connotations being placed on it. The first is, if its subject matter is anything remotely related to women or women's lives, that it is “chick lit” or “women's literature” which is akin the kiss of death for an author - similar to how a man might feeling upon finding out that the woman he is dating finds him “cute” but has a hankering to know if his best friend is single. The second is that if the book is insightful, provocative, witty, or anything of a respectable nature and it doesn’t concern women or the domestic lives of women then it is begrudgingly noted as “surprising” and people will be thrilled that it isn’t “chick lit”. If by some strange of events the book is, heaven forbid, both insightful and about women then it will be noted that the book is “unique” and “brave” a long with some interesting commentary on why the author would bother to waste such a book on an ill-educated demographic - the beach readers, as it were.

So any writing that women do is instantly categorized within the context of the authors gender and is essentially judged by whether it fits the standard modality of the popular, if pitied (by critics, male authors, and  academics), genre of “women's literature” - as opposed to what? Literature? What it comes down to is that the writing of the contemporary female author is marked, categorized, reviewed, and even shelved, according to whether it is chick lit or it isn’t chick lit. The unfortunate outcome of such grouping being that anything that deals with women, their lives, their relationships, their problems, their thoughts, their jobs, and (god forbid) their sexuality is immediately deemed to be little more than a fluffy, future romantic comedy for hollywood, with a few pairs of cute shoes in it unless it’s depicted with violence, disdain, or as a trial to be overcome.

Where are the male stereotypes of this kind? Where are the awards for “male authors” and “mens literature” and why aren’t they categorized, grouped, and otherwise fenced off from “regular” fiction as books by women are? Why is it that women find it necessary to hind behind masculine or gender-neutral pen names if only so that they might blend in with their writing counterparts as opposed to standing out and being unfairly judged? Why is it that we have contests and awards and notability specifically for women, like women are some sort of special case that our writing has to be judged differently regardless of the category, genre, style or literary merit whereas mens writing is the standard and thus the authoritative nature by which the lesser writing of mere women must be judged.

The point here is that just because a book is written by a women doesn’t mean it should automatically be categorized as thus - especially since there is no corresponding term for similar writing by men. It’s important that we remember that writing is writing is writing. Regardless of where we come from or what gender we happen to be we are still people, still human, and whether we’re men or women we have a great deal in common which means it’s really a disgrace to everyone involved if we separate, categorize, and otherwise shun certain types of writing because all that happens is that we do a disservice to many good writers and remain stuck in antiquarian beliefs about men being able to appreciate the work of women. These kinds of ancient disregards for the creative abilities of women and the ideas that such creations can only be useful and appreciated by other women must be done away with and we should embrace a new literary world where people read books based on the merit of the book and it’s writing as opposed to what the gender of the author happened to be.

The general disdain with which fiction by women is treated is also a mark of how valued women writers are in our society. The esoteric and less than conventional genres of literature that men have spawned are smiled at fondly and given a nice pat of congratulations while any book written by a women that isn’t worth of sitting on Hemingway’s shelf is instantly shredded to pieces by reviewers and academics alike who are so quick to fan the flames of the “fluff read” fires and claim that there simply isn’t a place for “serious” writing in the world of women's fiction. On top of this is piled every bad review of every bad book ever written. It’s not enough to say that just one book has no merit because it’s shallow and materialistic (qualities associated with writing by women far more often than they are with writing by men, as it were) but because it’s written by a women the entire genre is condemned along with it by a few writers that just wanted to give their readers something light that happened to mention highlights or mascara. Just because a few men out there have written some terrible shoot-em-up novels with cardboard characters and as much plot as you can find in a paper bag doesn’t mean that we label all masculine writing as “mens writing” and presume to think that the entire genre is nothing but an ongoing bloodbath with a few smutty scenes tossed in. Such a characterization would be considered outrageous and yet that’s exactly what has happened with women's writing. Because just a few authors didn’t care so much for, shall we say, depth - the female authors that took the time to truly develop their writing, create real stories that move and stir us, the ones that have provided us with genuine, respectable fiction are being ignored and lumped in with all the authors because of their gender and god forbid they have anything of a pastel coloring or flower resembling nature on their covers that they might be further moved away from the category of writers who are labeled as “serious.”

All in all it’s a shame that we have to label and sort not only our books put our people in this way and I for one hope that others will soon catch on to the grievous error they are making.