There is a lot to unpack in that simple question. Not only do we have to ask why women are doing so much better writing and publishing YA novels than breaking into film, but also why, at the same time, adults seem to be flocking from conventional novels to YA. Is it a matter of the chicken and the egg?
3 comments:
Young Adult is an interesting genre in books. It feels like an inbetween because there are many teenagers that read these books because they love the stories and romance in them. I think that is why adults go to those books too. I know that I enjoy reading young adult books because they are filled with adventure, romance and struggle. These books may be filled with a lot of different stories but they are easier to read. I know that I choose these books because I want to be reading as much as I can without getting lost in the amount of character and pages. I feel that more “adult” books are so dense that trying to read a few chapters a day is a large feat because you have to have really good comprehension to keep up with the story as you break it apart each day. The young adult books tend to be a faster and more simplistic read but still satisfying to those reading for fun.
This article takes a different perspective on the film industry by instead of just saying that women aren’t being a complete part of it, that women are actually completely dominating another industry. And while this sentiment and statistic does not preach equality, it does inspire hope for professionally working women everywhere. While the author does not delve into this subject, she does mention, “The motherhood penalty is high in many professions, but particularly in filmmaking” which is completely true and could honestly be the backbone behind the prejudice against women in the film industry. Films take a long time to make, and missing out on even a day during the process can completely uproot the process of making them, and having a baby can make someone miss weeks or even months. Women are constantly expected to be the one to take the fall and miss work for their children’s sick days, and this expectation could be the root of the stigma against females in the film industry.
This is one of the first times I have heard an article discuss a possible reason for the exclusion of women from the film and entertainment industry. The perception of women as producers of "low brow" work as opposed to males as seasoned producers of "high brow" work is a tremendous handicap. This seems to speak to an underlying assumption that when a woman produces a piece of work it is inherently cheapened by the gender of its creator.
We are putting on The Rover currently; this was an issue for Aphra Behn's time. It is absurd that these kind of legitimacy evaluations are plaguing modern times. In a way this reason for female work being produced or well-regarded less is more disheartening than those that frame women as a threat to men within the workplace. How does on even begin to remediate or change engrained perceptions of legitimacy, especially after they have been allowed to stand for so long.
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