Stephenie Meyer Blog and Journals

In the third chapter of Eclipse, Meyer spends a great deal of time demeaning every woman who tries to be honest, stand up for herself, and or exhibit any sense of independence. Consequently, this means she makes sure that every male that graces the pages of chapter three is EXTRA MANLY and POWERFUL and full of WELL-MEANING PSYCHOSIS. Intrigued? Then it's time for Mark to read Eclipse.

CHAPTER 3: MOTIVES

Let's have a conversation about the demonization of femininity (and all expressions thereof), shall we?

Today isn't going to be funny, except for one small revelation that inspired this whole thing, but we'll get to that in a second. I know we've discussed sexism in a serious sense and in a wildly absurd sense in addressing the Twilight series, but chapter 3 features a technique that's much more specific and damaging towards a whole lot of you: attacking femininity. 

Chapter 3 of Eclipse opens with a hasty summary of Edward and Bella's trip to Florida to visit Bella's mom. For an event so significant (and the chance for Meyer to give us a full introduction to a character who's been mentioned in every book, I was kind of bothered by exactly how little time Renee is given. The time she is given is an example of how often Meyer crushes any or all expressions of femininity. 

Renee expresses concern over some disturbing traits of her daughter's relationship with Edward:

• "The way you move--you orient yourself around him without even thinking about it. When he moves, even a little bit, you adjust your position at the same time. Like magnets...or gravity. You're like a...satellite, or something. I've never seen anything like it."

This is, quite understandably, very creepy. It's also an expression of emotional concern on Renee's part and something that, in Meyer's apparent worldview, is a very female thing to do. So what does she do?

She finds a way to belittle Renee's opinion.

• "Don't tell me again," I teased, forcing a smile. "You're reading mysteries again, aren't you? Or is it sci-fi this time?"

Emotional concern isn't legitimate in Meyer's world; it's a product of wandering minds, of those obsessed with hokey science fiction narratives. Don't believe me?

• Renee was so easily swayed. Sometimes it was a good thing, because not all of her ideas were practical. But it pained me to see how quickly she caved in to my trivializing, especially since she was dead right this time.

Bella admits it: she is trivializing her mother's thoughts. It might have been easy to just write this off as characterization, but Meyer repeats this theme throughout the chapter: if you're a female or if your actions suggest you're in any way female, you're doing it wrong.

• Edward demands that Bella stay in the car when Jacob shows up to school to talk to Bella/Edward. He refuses to let her be a part of a conversation between two men because it's dangerous.
• Edward physically restrains Bella from being near Jacob because she cannot defend herself.
• Jacob reveals that Edward took her to Florida because Victoria was still trying to kill her, demonstrating that Edward lies to Bella to "protect her." This suggests that Bella is too "weak" to handle the truth. 
• During this entire confrontation, both male characters (Jacob and Edward) act out physical manifestations of their strength and desire to protect Bella: Jacob pulses his muscles and he sucks in large breaths of air while visibly shaking; Edward bares his teeth to Jacob, and grips Bella with as much strength without crushing. What's Bella's physical reaction to this situation? She can't breath and she cries, distinctly "feminine" reactions to a stressful or dangerous situation.
• In a maddening scene that I'll rant about later, Edward and Bella trade notes in class as Bella demands to know what happened the previous weekend when they were in Florida. As soon as Bella becomes angry that she was lied to, Edward deftly changes the subject to make a joke about Bella's inherent clumsiness/weakness. The joke works.
• The chapter ends with four of the other male characters in the book who are not vampires or werewolves (Ben, Mike, Austin, and Tyler) placing bets within obvious earshot of Bella about who will win in a fight, Jacob or Edward. This concludes with Mike making a direct dig at Bella for being the cause of the spat between the two guys.

Obviously, I'm reading a lot of subtext into this and I know someone's going to say it: YOU CAN FIND THIS IN ALL THE BOOKS IF YOU SEARCH HARD ENOUGH. True, but not only shouldn't you find this garbage, I'm not looking hard. It's right there.

I was inspired to point this out because of a small Twitter spat I got into not long ago. And here's your humor for today's review: Yes, I follow Pete Wentz on Twitter. Laugh. Fine.

Anyway, he Tweeted about that new teen mag spoof poster they have and when a fan said that the poster was stupid "unless you're a 13 year old fangirl or a gay guy," he said the following:

While I then took @tttyg to task for her obvious use of homophobic language, my wonderful Internet-partner-in-crime Kasperobscene reminded what was really at work here: the demonization of femininity. 

Much like what happens in Stephenie Meyer's novels, it seems merely being a female or expressing anything regularly associated as being "feminine" is enough to be negative. In the case of the poster drama, the only people who would not find the poster stupid were those who expressed feminine "fangirl" desires. 

Here's the poster:

In this case, the obvious parody of teenie magazines is lost on this girl because, in her eyes, any sort of action that would be an expression of femininity (fangirling) means that the person isn't a true (or smart) fan. They're dumb and the poster is stupid. 

The truth is that things like homophobia and sexism are largely rooted in this problem: being a girl is just a shitty thing in general to some people. Any actions that relate to this, therefore, are demonized. 

Why is this important to you and how does this relate to Eclipse? (And, obviously, to the Twilight series as a whole.)

Through and through, Meyer demonstrates a truly bizarre and disturbing hatred for any expression of this sort of thing. I've certainly ALL CAPS yelled about it before in my reviews, but the context here is more important, at least to me. The "intended" audience for Twilight is women. The author is a woman. Most of you reading this and most of the people on Buzznet are women. 

What baffles me, time and time again, is that this type of misogyny is so damaging, yet it's largely ignored. It's not even an issue of subscribing to binary gender roles, though Meyer certainly makes sure that her men are "men" and her women are "women." To me, it's about something much worse: characters and their actions being maligned simply for not being on the right side.

As women, as feminists, as homosexuals, as transgendered men and women, as simply human beings, there's something disturbing about an author seemingly choosing to isolate her disdain for just one element of her characters or any actions those characters exhibit. In a world where gay men are still beat up for appearing to be women, where trans women aren't viewed as legitimate, and where the opinions of a female are still regularly ignored over that of a male, isn't it time for us to stop taking this shit? You might think so, but misogyny affects each and every one of you, no matter what gender you identify as, no matter your sexual orientation. Isn't it time to tell authors like Stephenie Meyer that we're sick of them feeding us their bullshit?

A final note that has nothing to do with this: There is a section in this chapter in which Edward and Bella trade notes in class. Meyer, in an attempt for "authenticity," has her editor or publisher come up with a "font" for each of their respective handwriting. So, even as Meyer attempts realism through this method, it made me laugh that every "t" and "h" looked exactly like the others, since people clearly write identical letters in their penmanship.

You're not Dave Eggers, Meyer. Stop.