In Defence of Chick Lit

Rebecca Gibson offers a staunch defence for the much criticised chick lit branch of literature.


According to Wikipedia (sorry, the OED doesn’t have a definition for this one), chick lit is ‘genre fiction which addresses issues of modern womanhood, often humorously and lightheartedly.’

Personally, I can’t see what’s so terrible about that. Criticism of fiction that specifically focusses on the concerns of modern women – including, yes, finding and sustaining a relationship, but also often finding and sustaining a career that enriches and inspires the woman in question – often feels party to that strange and insulting myth that feminists can’t enjoy ‘girly’ stuff.

That somehow if you enjoy painting your nails or the colour pink then you’re letting the side down, letting the patriarchy win.

And that’s what the boundless contempt aimed at chick lit is really all about – this preoccupation with the idea that a book can’t be about women, by women, for women without simultaneously being of worse quality than any other book and, through discussion and reinforcement of supposedly ‘girly’ topics, contributing to the patriarchal structure of our society. I consider myself an ardent feminist, and I paint my nails at least once a week. I’d really like to dispel this myth.

Bridget Jones’s Diary addresses anxiety about body image and the desperate need to avoid the single thirty-something lifestyle. Body image issues are frequently so prevalent in our own society that it would arguably be irresponsible not to address them. And while we’re at it, when is the last time anybody criticised a male lead for desiring companionship?

I shouldn’t have to explain the advantages of reading The Devil Wears Prada as a text concerned with the priorities of modern career women. If more literature was as concerned with female characters working hard and long to get the things they want in a man’s world, then I don’t think I’d be writing this article in the first place.

Women shouldn’t have to feel apologetic and dismissed because they are reading books relevant to their lifestyle when other literary genres are not addressing their concerns adequately.

It could be argued that the recent overwhelming success of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy by E. L. James is a sign that chick lit is losing its stigma and becoming more accepted in popular literary circles.

But this would be an erroneous argument, not least because Fifty Shades of Grey should be classed as erotica above anything else (and badly-written erotica at that), and that particular genre is a whole different ballgame. To be frank, the idea that E. L. James’ success presents any kind of step forward in the field of women’s writing is puzzling to me.

I feel it would be an oversight not to mention it in an article such as this, focusing on a woman’s ability to enjoy and reclaim the literature that’s been considered contemptible since its conception.

However, I would cast myself into the fiery pits of Hell before I would discuss Fifty Shades of Grey as an empowering or at all positive representation of female agency. If this is what people think chick lit is, clearly we still have a long way to go.

Yes, there is badly-written, uninspired chick lit. But there is also badly-written, uninspired literary fiction, and before we start judging I think we should at least acknowledge that we are not judging these two genres by the same standards.

Ultimately, we need to do something about that, and stop shaming women for enjoying books that are written specifically to address them.