Is the Term “Chick-lit” Offensive?

In a word: Yes. In a few more words: Yes, depending on what you call chick-lit, and who wrote it.

A heated discussion about the term chick-lit (again?) took place in The Guardian last week. Self-identified humor writer DJ (Diane) Connell wrote a piece, “Who in Playboy Mansion Hell Calls Women Chicks” that elicited a prickly response, “Light Does not Mean Stupid,” from admitted chick-lit author Michelle Gorman.

Both women got things right and get things wrong. The biggest problem is that Gorman, who makes plenty of good points, isn’t really writing in direct response to what Connell says.

Connell finds the label offensive because it not only “condemns a work of humour [sic] to the ghetto of the light and frivolous but it is also ridiculously outdated. Who in Playboy Mansion Hell still refers to a woman as a chick?”

She goes on to say:

“‘Chick’ offends me but it is the tacking on of ‘lit’ like an accessory that really causes my testosterone levels to spike. Whatever lit is, it is certainly not literature. It is much lower on the food chain, something light and unimportant. While I admit there are plenty of light novels written by women, there are just as many, if not more, “easy reads” churned out by men, and I am not just talking about the so-called lad-lit genre. Just visit the thriller and horror shelves of your local airport and look for titles such as The Sniper’s Nest and Hell’s Teeth. These books are no better written than romantic comedies but they are still taken more seriously.”

She’s right. “Chick” is an offensive the term, but “chick-lit” isn’t generally meant as compliment, so complaining that it’s sexist and outdated is a little pointless. And since women are using it, they’ve reclaimed it, or something. As for chick-lit not being literature…well, that’s true. At least not high literature, just like the airport thrillers Connell refers to. It is also true that these types of books, which are often written by men, are taken more seriously when there’s certainly no reason for them to be.

Gorman responds to Connell:

“…I take issue with those who dismiss all chick-lit as poorly-written fodder for the dim-witted reader. There are some appallingly bad books (as I discovered), but that’s true of every single genre. And there are some dim-witted readers, and that’s also true across the genres. But saying that chick-lit can’t be well-written is a little like saying that pretty girls can’t be smart. It’s ludicrous. And it’s wrong. There are some very good writers of very funny chick-lit and, as a writer, to purposely distance yourself from these talents isn’t only short-sighted, it’s insulting.”

Gorman is right, or at least I’m assuming she is. (Guess who doesn’t read chick-lit? Wait, I did read Valley of the Dolls last year and loved it. Missed-my-train-stop-loved-it, so whatever, I’m in!) To assume that all chick-lit is poorly written fluff and that the writers of it aren’t smart and talented is dumb. Gorman is clearly smart and is having a great time in the genre. That’s awesome. She wants the chick-lit to be taken seriously and to change what chick-lit means. That’s cool too. She also, along the way, agrees with Connell about chick-lit being shit on in a way that dude-lit just isn’t.

The real issue, and this is what Connell was getting at, is that since chick-lit isn’t considered “real” literature (she obviously doesn’t think its real literature), having your work categorized as chick-lit when it’s not is going to piss you off. The term, at least for now, is pejorative, so clearly you would distance yourself from it. And while I think Gorman is right about chick-lit not getting the respect it might deserve, she also admits that she’s not aiming for serious literature, or even funny literature that is striving to be deeper than the average book, so she shouldn’t be offended if someone doesn’t want their book filed in that genre. Stephen King is a good, beyond-popular writer and he seems like an all-around great guy, but most writers I know wouldn’t want their work compared to his. That’s fair. And if Jane Austen was writing now I’m pretty sure she’d be pissed if her work was labeled chick-lit and that would be fair as well. There’s a similar thing with YA – YA is awesome as a genre and a lot of it can hold its own against real literature because a lot of it is real literature. But I know many authors who are writing novels for an adult audience with teenage or child protagonists and they’ve been told that, with YA doing so well, their work might be taken on and marketed as such. I know many authors don’t mind that, but those that do are allowed to be frustrated.

My fiction is predominantly about women, and if someone called my work chick-lit, I would absolutely be insulted. Calling it bad would be much better. Bad would mean, “Hey, I approached this seriously but sorry, it sucks/is boring.” If someone were to read it and refer to it as chick-lit I assume they’d be saying, “I didn’t take this seriously because it’s a bunch of stories about women written by a woman and therefore it can’t be real literature, therefore it is chick-lit and therefore I have lower expectations of it than I would of something else.”

Women writers aren’t taken as male writers and a lot of books by women writers who don’t want their work presented as chick-lit are given the chick-lit treatment purely for marketing purposes. That is a real problem and it’s a problem worth fighting. Maybe Connell shouldn’t have been so dismissive of the genre, but I think Gorman, who is upset that chick-lit makes some female authors “spit with gender bashing venom” should support Connell in her concerns about respect for female writing in general.