Stephanie Meyer Side-Steps Anti-Feminist Allegations

I have a few (million) issues with the series known as Twilight (link opens to the wikipedia page about the series) over what I see as the glamorization of emotional abuse. So when I got linked to Stephanie Meyer’s faq section on her website , I was interested as to what she might say about the chauvanistic messages in her book.


When I hear or read theories about Bella being an anti-feminist character, those theories are usually predicated on her choices. In the beginning, she chooses romantic love over everything else. Eventually, she chooses to marry at an early age and then chooses to keep an unexpected and dangerous baby. I never meant for her fictional choices to be a model for anyone else’s real life choices. She is a character in a story, nothing more or less. On top of that, this is not even realistic fiction, it’s a fantasy with vampires and werewolves, so no one could ever make her exact choices. Bella chooses things differently than how I would do it if I were in her shoes, because she is a very different type of person than I am. Also, she’s in a situation that none of us has ever been in, because she lives in a fantasy world. But do her choices make her a negative example of empowerment? For myself personally, I don’t think so.

In my own opinion (key word), the foundation of feminism is this: being able to choose. The core of anti-feminism is, conversely, telling a woman she can’t do something solely because she’s a woman—taking any choice away from her specifically because of her gender. "You can’t be an astronaut, because you’re a woman. You can’t be president because you’re a woman. You can’t run a company because you’re a woman." All of those oppressive "can’t"s.

One of the weird things about modern feminism is that some feminists seem to be putting their own limits on women’s choices. That feels backward to me. It’s as if you can’t choose a family on your own terms and still be considered a strong woman. How is that empowering? Are there rules about if, when, and how we love or marry and if, when, and how we have kids? Are there jobs we can and can’t have in order to be a "real" feminist? To me, those limitations seem anti-feminist in basic principle."

 

Really, Meyer? What about the allegations of abuse by Bella’s love interest, Edward? Like the way he dismantles her car so she can’t see her friends? Locks her in his house for the same reason? Or how Bella jumps of a cliff (literally) just to "hear his voice in her head"?

Bella’s choices are troubling, sure, but it’s the blatant romanticism of what she and her interest does, excuses of him doing these things "out of love" and "to protect her" that makes her an anti-feminist figure and indeed make you one as well.

I felt UWMKatie’s dissection of the books was pretty excellent, and what was even even more poignant to me was that she had not even read the last two, which progress leaps and bounds in the sick, male-dominant sexism department.

Disclaimer: This post was written by a Feministing Community user and does not necessarily reflect the views of any Feministing columnist, editor, or executive director.

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