So somebody at The Hairpin thinks she’s at Slate and writes a contrarian article that praises the Twilight series for its supposed insight into what teenage girls are “really like”. In the process she let’s out the following sneer towards the Stieg Larsson Girl Who… novels:
Lisbeth Salander, the heroine of the popular The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo series, is emotionally stunted but, damn it, she actualizes herself! She punishes the people who hurt her, she sleeps with whomever she wishes, she zips around on a motorcycle, and she’s a master computer hacker. In other words, our actualized female heroine might as well be a tiny man.
It’s a weird sort of feminist critique that sees revenge, an active sex life, computer hacking and riding a bike (!) as inherently male and a woman engaging in them as “a tiny man”. Wasn’t the whole idea of feminism that women should be able to do the same things as men, should be able to seek revenge, have sex, play with computers and even feel a throbbing engine between their legs if they want to? Sure, there has been a backlash agains the idea that this is all feminism should be, that women should turn themselves into surrogate men to be taken seriously (something Joanna Russ already addressed back in 1975), that traditionally female-coded activities are unimportant and engaging in them is unfeminist. There’s even a point to make about how male-written action girls/heroines can sometimes become men with breasts.
But.
This article isn’t the way to do that, considering it’s written to praise the Twilight series for its supposedly true to life portrayal of what it feels like to be a teenage girl, when for all intents and purposes this series actually offers a reactionary view of what womanhood should be about, viz that a girl is only fulfilled if she’s married and preggers weeks after finishing high school. No need for motorcycles, computers or revenge, though some room for properly married but somewhat creepy sex.
In short: before you can argue about the relative worth of “feminine” and “masculine” pursuits, you have to have people who agree that these are not inherent to your gender.
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