Amelia’s answer to “Am I the only one who was furious about the pink chick-lit, rom-com cover on this book? It belittle…” > Likes and Comments
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She was offended by the pink box of the "girls'" chemistry set. Mine had a red box, ad I made hydrogen sulfide in the living room when I was eigt years old. My father was not pleased.
Chick-lit has the connotation of women focused on men, not serious thinking for women. Amazon recommended this book for months and I wouldn't touch it, until a couple women in my book club I greatly respect said it wasn't what it looked like on the cover. The cover was a mistake, the very kind that Elizabeth Zott fought time after time.
Thank you Amelia for this comment - it seems bizarre to me that putting down historically "girlish" things (the color pink and chick-lit for example) is the right way to gain respect for womanhood.
Really good point. This is touched on in the book For the Love of Men by Liz Plank also.
Here, there are two problems. One is as Patricia said above: "Chick lit" (a term I find belittling and don't use) has a reputation for reducing female characters to pining for men, petty fighting with other women, or superficial, sometimes materialistic, matters. There's rarely any probing or deeper commentary; the goal is merely to entertain, and it does so by degrading women in these ways.
Two: When publishers then use the color pink (or author colors coded feminine such as lavender) on covers of such books, they reinforce the notion that this color is feminine. That shouldn't be a problem, except it is because women and men have been socialized to regard femininity as less-than.
With that socialization in mind, choosing colors not coded as feminine would be a step toward legitimizing this genre of book in the eyes of society–although, the color is maybe less of a problem for this book than the illustration. (How would readers’ expectations be subverted if the cover design were simply, say, the title in white letters against a black background?) Color and design is a small step, though. What needs to happen first is for authors of this genre to be more thoughtful about the messages their stories send about women.
I dont think the pink was the problem, I think that the reaction was to making Elizabeth look like a glam doll
I agree with Elle. It's not the cover, it's the glam doll look.
Elizabeth was explicitly offended by the color pink.
Perhaps the cover will lure some chick lit readers who will then go on to consider changing their lives, as did Elizabeth''s TV viewers.
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Margaret
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Oct 07, 2022 03:06PM
She was offended by the pink box of the "girls'" chemistry set. Mine had a red box, ad I made hydrogen sulfide in the living room when I was eigt years old. My father was not pleased.
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Chick-lit has the connotation of women focused on men, not serious thinking for women. Amazon recommended this book for months and I wouldn't touch it, until a couple women in my book club I greatly respect said it wasn't what it looked like on the cover. The cover was a mistake, the very kind that Elizabeth Zott fought time after time.
Thank you Amelia for this comment - it seems bizarre to me that putting down historically "girlish" things (the color pink and chick-lit for example) is the right way to gain respect for womanhood.
Really good point. This is touched on in the book For the Love of Men by Liz Plank also.Here, there are two problems. One is as Patricia said above: "Chick lit" (a term I find belittling and don't use) has a reputation for reducing female characters to pining for men, petty fighting with other women, or superficial, sometimes materialistic, matters. There's rarely any probing or deeper commentary; the goal is merely to entertain, and it does so by degrading women in these ways.
Two: When publishers then use the color pink (or author colors coded feminine such as lavender) on covers of such books, they reinforce the notion that this color is feminine. That shouldn't be a problem, except it is because women and men have been socialized to regard femininity as less-than.
With that socialization in mind, choosing colors not coded as feminine would be a step toward legitimizing this genre of book in the eyes of society–although, the color is maybe less of a problem for this book than the illustration. (How would readers’ expectations be subverted if the cover design were simply, say, the title in white letters against a black background?) Color and design is a small step, though. What needs to happen first is for authors of this genre to be more thoughtful about the messages their stories send about women.
I dont think the pink was the problem, I think that the reaction was to making Elizabeth look like a glam doll
I agree with Elle. It's not the cover, it's the glam doll look.
Elizabeth was explicitly offended by the color pink.
Perhaps the cover will lure some chick lit readers who will then go on to consider changing their lives, as did Elizabeth''s TV viewers.
