What are Your Thoughts on Chick-Lit?

"Chick lit claims to be representative of women’s lives, their hopes, fears, dreams and values. But it’s actually about white, upper-middle-class American and Western European women…—a chance for women of every color and age to be portrayed as annoying, shallow twits… chick lit claims to be the story of the Everywoman, when really, it’s the story of Some Women of a Certain Class. Which is pretty ironic, given that chick-lit authors cry elitism more often than their characters accidentally trip on their own designer shoes and fall into tall, handsome strangers." ...

...I personally think Chick-Lit represents the negative side of feminism, as the Spice Girls were the negative side of “Girl Power”. The romantic plot and fairy tale endings hide the dark subtext that love, marriage and finding the man of your dreams is completely secondary as long as you can get your end away. Or maybe there’s the OTHER side that Bridget Jones puts across, the indecisive woman who can’t decide who she wants to sleep with and spends ages thinking about it at the expense of the feelings of those very same men.

As a writer myself, I do agree that there need to be more strong, female central characters (which is why a vast majority of heroes in the stories I write are female), but is this really how we want to see women in real life? Instead of the strong, mothering figures that truly do look for true love and family happiness, are we now left with selfish, indecisive slappers?"

You can read the full article here.

Recently we received a response to this article from one of our readers.

"...I dislike the fact that you are hinting that chick lit is meaningless and mindless. My novel, just as many other chick lit novels I've read deals with real-life issues that many women I know have personally dealt with, including depression, grief, heartbreak, self-image, self-worth and financial difficulties. Just because you slap a pink cover on something doesn't mean it takes away the heart and soul of it, nor the brain...

...Just because I enjoy a nice pair of shoes doesn't make me an airhead who cannot write. I have read Jane Austin, William Shakespeare and Maya Angelou among many, many others and consider myself a whole person, in the real world and the literal world. To imply, "Instead of the strong, mothering figures that truly do look for true love and family happiness, are we now left with selfish, indecisive slappers?" is an ignorant and snobby generalization. My central character, just like many that I have read, is a real woman who wants to be loved and learn to love herself. In my view, wanting to be loved and love someone in return is the least selfish thing there is. Demoralizing the work of many successful, smart, funny and soulful woman, on the other hand is selfish."

You can view our readers full response here.

So, WritersNewsWeekly.com wants to know what your thoughts are about the Chick-Lit genre?  Please feel free to share your comments here or email editor@writersnewsweekly.com.