Sunday, June 14, 2009

Chick Lit

You know what I noticed yesterday at my favorite used-book store?
There's whole bookcases marked by the genre Chick Lit.
GENRE!!! It's a genre!!! Why?
and besides Chick Lit was the Romance section ...
Guess what? Everything was pink, whole isles of pink covers
pastel pink, hot pink, blinding amounts of pink
with titles like "Better in Bed" and "Cliques and Love"
Meaningless books about meaningless things,
Preppy girls talking about virginity and hot boys
Lip gloss, shopping, hating school, boys, boys, boys.
Those romance books? With the half-naked girls swooning and draped over the arm of those half-naked overly-muscular ape-like men.
No wonder women and girls are deemed less competent than boys and men.
These books are all used and continue to fly off the shelves, why?
Because women and girls really do read this trash and enjoy it,
Delving into stacks of these so-called novels,
frittering away their summers and endless years,
killing off brain-cells, reading these ... I hate to even call them books.
Don't women understand that they can read better books and not lose any femininity?
Being intelligent and learning and enjoying intellectuality is not wrong or unfeminine. Jesus, why? Women have come so far and it is people like these who hold women back.
Why do they even place these "books" next to the science fiction and the mysteries?
Why next to the philosophies of the Dalai Lama?
I don't understand it, so I walk away with "Crime and Punishment,"
"Brave New World," "Vinegar Hill," "Napoleon's Buttons," and "One Heart."

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