PBS is currently showing movie adaptations of all of Jane Austen's novels, which means her work has been receiving a resurgence of attention. Unfortunately, a fair amount of this attention includes idiotic comments. For instance, Marie Claire called her the original chick-lit author, while Newsweek compared her work to an old-fashioned Sex in the City."" I vomited in my mouth a little.
Despite what seems to be a common assumption, there is nothing light and fluffy about Austen. Her books are intense studies of character and critiques of society, and a dark tone lurks beneath the romantic plotlines and clever dialogue. Poverty, unhappy marriages, hypocrisy and social isolation are themes of many of her novels. So why do so many people regard Austen as merely a chick-lit author? Are they just not very astute readers? Possibly. But I think it is part of larger, disconcerting trend in literature.
In general, I am not against the term ""chick-lit."" It aptly describes a whole genre of books with bubbly covers that are just an excuse to name-drop designer shoes, like ""The Devil Wears Prada."" But this term also gives me pause because it seems that it could be used to categorize any book that appeals to a female readership. Testing my supposition, I went to the Barnes and Noble website and searched under ""chick-lit."" The majority of the 700-plus titles that came up could be unquestionably categorized as chick-lit, such as ""Confessions of a Shopaholic."" However, sprinkled among these light-as-cotton books were Amy Tan's ""One Hundred Secret Senses,"" Jane Hamilton's ""A Map of the World"" and even Margaret Atwood's Booker Prize winner, ""The Blind Assassin."" Oh yeah, and ""Middlemarch.""
I can only hope that these books ended up there by accident. One can only imagine some poor woman's shock when she opens her package from Barnes and Nobles and digs into George Eliot's ""Middlemarch,"" expecting to find the tale of a socialite searching for the perfect shoes to wear during the unpredictable March weather, and instead finds herself reading a dense novel examining the psychology of society in nineteenth century England.
But whether placed there by accident or not, it is troubling that these books are categorized as chick-lit. It suggests that any book written by a woman about a woman can be immediately demeaned as shallow and lacking any literary merit.
Not surprisingly, no books written by men about women, like Arthur Golden's ""Memoirs of a Geisha,"" were included on that list, despite containing just as many characteristics of chick-lit, if not more, as ""One Hundred Secret Senses."" Furthermore, no counter-category exists for books written by men about men. Sure, the term ""dick-lit"" has been thrown around, yet no ""dick-lit"" section exists in book stores, and John Grisham is certainly given more weight in the book world than Sophie Kinsella.
One could argue for days over which books cross the line into chick-lit, but that would miss the point. This all just points to the larger problem: books by women, especially if they are about women, do not get the same respect as books by men. If even Jane Austen can be demeaned as a mere chick-lit author, the literature world still has a long way to go as far as equality is concerned.
Looking for ways to change these chauvenistic stereotypes or just hoping to see a ""dick-lit"" section at Borders featuring Tom Clancy, Ian Fleming and Michael Crichton? E-mail Anna your suggestions at akwilliams1@wisc.edu.
