This opinion piece from Book Riot – In Defense of ‘Other Girls’ in YA – is definitely worth a read. It tackles the rather unpleasant trope of, ‘Not Like Other Girls‘.

I have to say, this trope has always seemed like a fairly obvious failing of the genre to an older reader like me; someone who never had teenage/YA fiction growing up and went straight from children’s to adult novels. Not that I’d have described it as a trope until quite recently. (Thank you TV Tropes! 🙂 ) This tendency for ‘teen fiction’ writers to pitch the female – or male – protagonist against her own gender has long since been a source of irritation for me – I’ve always found it sexist at best and misogynistic at worst. I’ve notched it up to the – sorry guys! – juvenile nature of the story and moved on. Sure it’s great to have a feisty (Ugh!) heroine who’s intelligent and snarky but being the ‘other girl’, the one who’s maybe not so academic, is a bit reserved/unsure, wasn’t born beautiful and wears make up, etc., should not render her contemptible. I can’t relate to such skewed depictions of girlhood and womanhood at my current age, as a shy teenager I’m pretty sure I would not have felt inspired by these characterisations; I’d have felt bad about my (very ordinary) self – and been alienated by it.

Clocking the prevalence of this trope in teen fiction does appear to have been a bit of a ‘wake up call’ for the author of the piece. She’s a Twilight fan though, need I say more? 😉

As ever, TV Tropes comes to our rescue with an awesome exposition: “On the surface, it’s nice to hear someone say you’re special. It’s flattering to the ego to hear that you’re better than the competition. That might be why this line is almost only found in young adult and teen stories. Writers may not expect teens to take subtext or larger social implications into consideration. However it’s meant, this line can be interpreted as a backhanded compliment. By saying that your intelligence, sense of humor, or independence make you “different from other guys/girls,” it’s implied that the rest of your gender sucks (compare You Are a Credit to Your Race).A more tactful person may ease the blow to feminism by saying she’s different from other girls he knows or the kind of girls he usually dates. The inverse of this works as well.This line is also commonly used with girls with superpowers or some other kind of secret for the irony factor.Often said by the Ladykiller in Love. Compare and contrast I Can’t Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me. Related but distinct tropes include Real Women Don’t Wear Dresses, Madonna–Whore Complex, Makeup Is Evil, Beauty is Bad, and Slut-Shaming. A Female Misogynist may describe herself this way. This trope is one of the most Common Mary Sue Traits, although a character described this way (or who describes herself this way) is not necessarily a Mary Sue.” – TV Tropes

Click on the links to read my previous rants about female characters and Mary Sues! 😀

Anyways, if you want to be woke to the damaging trope, ‘Not Like Other Girls’,  have a read!

 

Art credit: found at Tumblr and Girl Almighty

#staywoke