
Why must we hate the things teen girls love? (2015) - Tomte
https://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/why-do-we-hate-things-teen-girls-love
======
wincy

      Jensen says that belittling 
      adults for reading 
      "Twilight" or other young 
      adult literature is 
      “connected to the idea that 
      work/creative pursuits with 
      an intent to reach teens or 
      children is feminine.” She 
      also points out that women 
      who write the genre are 
      frequently overlooked while 
      men are celebrated.
    

JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter, which are literally the most popular young
adult books of all time, right?

This article just seems like much ado about nothing, people make fun of
everything that isn’t something they like. Seeing a bunch of girls screaming
at a concert is a little scary. Going to an evangelical church makes me feel
the same sort of creeped out feeling, when people engage in “worship” which
consists of listening to music and swaying and crying and all this weird
stuff. I think I’d get a lot more flak for busting out my old Eminem albums
than I would if my sister busted out her old *NSYNC stuff.

~~~
abhorrence
She's known as JK Rowling rather than Joanne Rowling for exactly this reason.
Her publishers thought her book wouldn't become popular if they were obviously
written by a woman.

~~~
Yetanfou
Ah, so that is why J.R.R. Tolkien and T.S. Eliot and H.R. Giger and Mr. T only
used first letters. OK, you've got me there on Mr. T but for the rest, what
utter silliness. It is not as if female authors/artists have not had success
before J.K. Rowling entered the stage. If this is true - and to me this is a
big 'if' as this thing about her publisher trying to hide the fact that she
was a woman could well be part of a political message - that publisher had
some seriously skewed idea of what makes people like (or buy) books.

~~~
mcphage
You’re attempting to reason backwards. Rowling’s publishers abbreviated her
name to hide she was a woman. This does not imply that everyone who uses an
abbreviation for their first name when being published. So your attempted
counter-examples are meaningless.

I suggest brushing up on basic logic to prevent these mistakes in the future.

~~~
Yetanfou
...or maybe I did so to indicate that using abbreviated names is a common
thing among authors, men and women alike?

In a market where authors like 'Suzanne Collins', 'Jean M. Auel' and 'Marion
Zimmer Bradley' (who happen to be the first three somewhat recent female
authors who popped up in my head) manage to sell millions of books without
hiding the fact that they are women this 'explanation' sounds more than
contrived. Women write books, this has been a thing since Hildegard von Bingen
picked up her quill somewhere in the 1100's. The idea that people somehow shy
away from female authors is preposterous - which is also why I suggested it
may be a political statement.

I do wonder whether J.K. Rowling dressed up like a man and turned her voice to
sound real low when she did readings from her books, when she appeared to
receive the multitude of prizes she won for those books and for all those
other occasions where she appeared in public.

~~~
alex__c
Perhaps this article will show you what your interlocutor means:
[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/06/catherine-
nich...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/aug/06/catherine-nichols-
female-author-male-pseudonym)

It is not a new phenomenon for women writers to be taken a shade less
seriously than their male counterparts.

------
rayiner
Comic books are stupid too. (And teenage boys are absolutely mocked for their
entertainment. Let me tell you about Dave Matthews Band, the direct-to-dvd
sequels to Starship Troopers, etc.).

~~~
noobermin
However, sports and shopping aren't stupid. Fangirldom and fanboydom is
generally looked down upon.

~~~
wincy
Sports is a way for us to satisfy a primal part of our mind and pretend we’re
going to war with people from other towns.

Shopping has been tailored by very smart people to break down our
psychological defenses, cause analysis paralysis, at which point we succumb to
marketing and buy whatever has been had the most advertising dollars spent on
it, thereby being emblazoned in our mind as what’s best regardless of its
actual quality, because our brains aren’t well suited for the sheer number of
choices we’re presented with while shopping.

Maybe “stupid” isn’t the right word for shopping or sports, but both of the
modern versions of these things are designed to exploit and extract profit by
manipulating built in human circuitry.

------
sharkjacobs
> teen girls are often very intentional about what they're interested in and
> aware of the social influences behind those media products, and they
> deliberately use excitement and passion as the foundation for community-
> building and empathetic development.”

I think this is a more important part of it than the article does credit, this
kind of feminized excitement is really stigmatized (hysteria)

~~~
freeflight
I don't see how that's any different from other fandoms, sports clubs fans for
example, but those usually have to deal with the far worse stigma of being
"dumb and violent".

In that regard, I don't see how the author can differentiate between
"deliberate use of excitement and passion" vs "accidental use of excitement
and passion" or whatever else is supposed to be the opposite of that.

Adding the gender angle to this feels kinder surplus, especially in the
context how it's usually done in one direction. I'm pretty sure with a bit of
time and effort one could write a similar piece about the culture of the
"seduction community" and how their antics are just a manifestation of
"community building and empathetic development" with their fellow peers.

No need to talk about objectification, after all, I didn't see it mentioned in
this piece either, even tho it should be equally relevant.

------
amriksohata
I think it's the hysteria that is hated more than anything. Boys like teenage
girl bands too but don't have the same obsession in their behaviour. No idea
the reason for this, environment?

~~~
xiphias2
It's also an act of jealousy: so few man in the world get an unrealistically
huge amount of female attention (and set the bar extremely high), that as a
teenage boy was impossible to compete with for most of us guys.

------
michaelchisari
"Dear Stephanie Meyer" by Lindsay Ellis touches on this as well.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O06tMbIKh0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8O06tMbIKh0)

------
fapjacks
Well, this is certainly fascinating. Apparently this whole time we've all been
the cool kids and the cliques of teenage girls are actually the uncool
outsiders!

------
PeterStuer
This article feels like an extreme example of confirmation bias, and yes, I'm
fully aware of the potential reflexive symmetry in that observation.

