Over the past week I’ve read a few blogs about YA covers, and how many are gender-biased and geared for girls—thus excluding boy readers. Maureen Johnson posed an interesting challenge in an article for the Huffington Post asking authors to re-imagine non-gender specific book covers, and the results are quite thought provoking.
I was surprised,
though, that in all of these articles, no-one took objection to the caliber of covers now
gracing many of our YA books targeted for girls. I can’t help but notice that nowadays there
seems to be a trend for “girls’” books to have the prerequisite saucy
supermodel glaring at me from the cover.
A perfect Revlon face, airbrushed to the nines, billowing hair, pouty
lips straight from a lipstick ad. And
the dresses! (or level of UN-dressed, as
the case may be.) I mean, I can appreciate a pretty dress as much as anybody, but
enough already. (I considered posting
some of these covers for illustrative purposes, but decided against it. My purpose is not to single authors out. Besides, you know these covers when you see
them. Suffice it to say, Frances Hodgson Burnett would be shocked.)
Do we really need to
fill our young girl’s minds with these unrealistic images? Aren’t they bombarded enough as it is with this
ideal of the perfect female form in every movie, commercial and magazine
ad? I thought books were supposed to expand the mind, not brain-wash readers into society's warped idea of perfection. My twelve-year old reads these
things, fer Cripe’s sake! And more and
more often, I find myself leaving my YA book face-down if I find myself reading
one of those books in public. It’s embarrassing! Writers put their hearts blood into developing a main character and in the end it's all reduced down to a hot girl in an awesome dress. Not to mention--what types of lasting impressions do these images leave with young minds? This surface-level selling of the female form has a name, and the twenty-dollar name for this practice is “the objectification of women”. Sex sells. On all levels, it seems.
So I leave it to you,
my (wanna be) published comrades, let's consider well the future covers we choose to grace
the labors of our pen and heart. Represent our story well--and leave the booty-call to those who lack an imagination.
~Just Jill