“Who cares about pretty?”: Examining the construction and performance of femininity in Young Adult literature Samantha Poulos Department of English Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences The University of Sydney A thesis submitted to fulfil requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2020 1 Statement of originality This is to certify that to the best of my knowledge, the content of this thesis is my own work. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or other purposes. I certify that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work and that all the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources have been acknowledged. Name: Samantha Poulos 2 Contents Abstract 4 Acknowledgements 6 Introduction: “Can’t I be strong and go to prom?” 8 Chapter One: The Joy of YA Literature 20 Chapter Two: Gender Binaries and Feminist Histories 56 Chapter Three: The Rhetoric of “Choice” 101 Chapter Four: The Masquerade of Femininity 134 Chapter Five: Liminality and Rebellion 160 Chapter Six: Masculine and Queer Women 189 Conclusion: “There are many ways to be brave in this world.” 224 Bibliography 235 3 Abstract This thesis investigates the feminist project of revaluing the feminine and seeks to understand the seemingly dichotomous relationship between femininity and strength as presented in young adult (YA) literature. By performing a close reading of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series and Veronica Roth’s Divergent series this thesis will examine, using Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, how femininity is constructed and performed and why, and then further examine how to understand femininity existing outside of a hierarchical gender binary. A framework of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s paranoid and reparative reading is used throughout, to look suspiciously at these texts while also allowing for space to examine how they offer new understandings of femininity. In order to revalue the feminine, first we must understand how it is constructed, performed, sustained, and valued, and then through deconstruction can we seek to revalue, reconstruct, and recreate new potential femininities that exist beyond hierarchical gender binaries. To start, this thesis argues that YA literature is a unique and potentially transgressive fictional space that can reflect and subvert contemporary theories of gender, feminism, and identity. It then offers a historical overview of feminist and gender theory to interpret the hierarchical gender binary where femininity is positioned as Other. It later challenges postfeminist and neoliberal discourses that promote choice feminism as a way of performing femininity as a personal choice, rather than questioning greater social structures that enforce gender binaries and patriarchal powers. The Hunger Games and Divergent series, and the narration of their protagonists Katniss Everdeen and Tris Prior, reveal the mechanisms through which gender is performed and valued. This performance of femininity is also tied up in their sense of self and identity. 4 Irigaray’s theories of masquerade and mimicry are invoked to examine how these characters understand themselves and their relationship to femininity. The thesis then questions the nature of identity and how identity and gender can be created in a dystopic society. In order not to replicate these dystopic worlds and the limited identities they allow, the protagonists intervene to force a new future. It is in this future that we can imagine gender and identity outside of a hierarchical gender binary. The primary objective of this thesis is to examine how the Hunger Games and Divergent series represent and value femininity, to understand what that says about contemporary feminist theory, and then imagine how femininity can exist beyond hierarchical gender binary and what that imagining might look like or what might be required to achieve it. 5 Acknowledgements Completing a PhD thesis is not a solitary project. It is one that takes a village of support and I would like to acknowledge and thank all of those who comprise my village. Firstly I would like to thank Jan Shaw for her role as my supervisor. Without her support, advice, feedback, and encouragement none of this would have been possible. Her endless capacity for caring and thoughtful guidance help shape me and this thesis. Thanks must also go to the Department of English and all of the staff who have helped make countless opportunities possible to me during my candidature. I especially would like to thank Rebecca Johinke for her position as auxiliary supervisor who helped and guided me through a rough middle patch and Mark Byron who without meeting me still went above and beyond to help me get my application through and started me on this thesis journey. The support offered to me by the University of Sydney has been essential and there are many more faculty and department members who I have not named who have been there for me, provided references, offered guidance, and I am truly thankful for all them. As part of my thesis village I must thank my USYD cohort, and all of the other research students who I shared desk space within the Fisher dungeon and Woolley attic. Our kitchen conversations made each day more enjoyable and the research process less isolating. Notably I would like to thank Ella Collins-White, Oliver Moore, and Jennifer Nicholson for all of the support, fun group chat memes, trivia nights, and above all for the friendships I found with them. Thanks to all of my new friends and colleagues that I met through the university and at conferences. Hearing about everyone’s projects and engaging in the academic community with you continually reinvigorated my love for research and I look forward to all the projects and hot takes yet to come. Thanks must also be extended to the friends who knew me before I started my candidature, and have stood by me as I went through this experience, offered their love and support, and most importantly let me rant about my thesis over many brunches; thanks to Anton, George, Barbara, Lauren, Yun Yin, Eunice, Maddie, my D&D party James, Alysha, Aidan, Jex, and Maddy, and to those I have undoubtedly and regretfully forgotten to name at this time. The largest thanks and acknowledgement must go to my parents Peter and Alexandra Poulos without whom none of this would have been possible. Their continued support through all of my education has been exemplary in every respect. Without their love and guidance, as well as continually reading to me as a child, I would not be here. Finally I would like to acknowledge and thank Starbucks for their vanilla sweet cream cold brew which made the research days more bearable, the Courtyard café who fed and caffeinated me nearly three times a day, and the ocean, who has been a comfort and a confidant. 6 7 Introduction “Can’t I be strong and go to prom?”1 In 2012, the character Alison Argent, a teenage girl and a werewolf hunter from a family of werewolf hunters, argues with her mother on MTV’s popular show Teen Wolf (aired 2011- 2017). In this episode Alison’s mother is commenting that her daughter is unlike other girls, who care about boys and dating and going to the prom, seemingly trivial ‘girly’ things. Instead, she argues that Alison is a “strong” hunter. Alison’s retort, of “Can’t I be strong and go to prom?” cliché as it may appear, summarises a particular moment in contemporary popular, and third-wave, feminist critique, which is to question this apparent dichotomy between ideas of strength and a ‘girly’ desire for prom. Why can’t a woman be strong, whether that means physically strong or simply empowered and agentic, as well as typically feminine? Teen Wolf is just one of many examples of teen media that prompts questions about how we consider concepts of gender and femininity in popular and contemporary culture. What is this supposed binary between being strong and feminine? The question Alison poses also points to greater questions as well such as what structures are at play that create a binary hierarchy between masculinity and femininity that positions femininity as weak and unfavourable? How then can feminine/femininity be revalued and how can our conception of gender structures change in order to allow for a new construction of femininity? It is these questions that this thesis will seek to explore particularly through close readings of the popular young adult (YA) books the Hunger Games series (2008 - 2010) by Suzanne Collins and the Divergent series (2011 - 2013) by Veronica Roth. 1 Teen Wolf, season 2, episode 6, “Fremeny,” directed by Russell Mulcahy, aired July 2, 2012, on MTV. 8 Much feminist theory has been dedicated to the examination of the feminine and femininity, specifically the social requirement that women perform a certain level of femininity in a patriarchal society. As this thesis will explore in detail (by conducting an in-depth chronology of feminist and queer theoretical critiques of gender performativity), there has been a move towards a reclamation of the feminine as an agentic position, and a challenge to the hierarchy of gender binary, in contemporary forms of feminism. While the wave terminology is problematic as will be discussed later, this thesis addresses the third-wave feminist position that femininity and the feminine can be a site of reclamation and of personal bodily expression.2 Performing acts of femininity and engaging in beauty practices can be read as feminist acts of defiance against patriarchal standards that previously constructed femininity as weak, or lesser than, and Other. This language of autonomy and personal choice, however, is also a key feature of postfeminist theory and neoliberal discourse, which positions femininity and the feminine within a re-articulation of patriarchal values.