The world of female young adult protagonists has come a long way over the past couple of years. There are now more female-driven and female-written books than ever before. As detailed by [The Atlantic] (https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/08/why-do-female-authors-dominate-young-adult-fiction/260829/), the young adult genre tends to favor female authors and audiences. While increased representation is a good thing, we must be more critical of how women are being represented.

Stubborn. Incredibly intelligent. Uninterested in love, yet always finds it. Beautiful, but she doesn't know it. Too strong to admit she feels pain. Not like the other girls.

We need to ask ourselves why the character traits listed above still apply to almost all “strong” young adult female protagonists in modern literature when they are actually harmful and anti-feminist.

The young adult genre often acts as a transition from children's novels to sophisticated adult books. Many young adult books introduce readers to complex plots filled with drama, romance and comedy. Women-centric stories show girls that it is acceptable to step outside the boxes of traditionally feminine traits such as; conventional beauty, an interest in makeup/fashion, a docile or sweet personality and the pursuit of romance. Such stories also allow them to embrace parts of themselves not typically depicted in other fictional media, where women are often shown as damsels in distress who have no substance beyond being the love interest.

Young adult characters are written as a mirror for young girls to see themselves through. There are tangible benefits to seeing a strong-willed, determined character fight for what they believe in. It promotes confidence and highlights how women should stand up for their beliefs. And of course, what young adult, especially a young woman struggling to find herself in a largely patriarchal world, would not want to project themselves onto a perfect, unique girl who has two perfect boys chasing after her and can wield a sword?

But rather than approaching representation of women in fiction from a place of growth and acceptance, we often end up reading about characters who see themselves as somehow superior to other female characters within the story. This can be for many reasons, one being the authors’ misguided attempts to promote feminism through these characters. Writers might misconstrue feminist messaging as rejecting traditional femininity through this characterization of tough, unique women, but in reality, this can often work to hurt young women. It equates traditionally feminine characteristics with weakness.

While it is true that many of these YA heroines are revolutionaries, queens and warriors, they are written in such a way that they belittle others who display traits that are conventionally, in patriarchal societies, associated with femininity. These characters reflect internalized misogyny, and breed hate, contempt and prejudice against women. This trope pits female characters against one another and alienates the significant chunk of women who like to read and do make up. This arbitrary binary is further problematic in enforcing the notion that women are unable to be complex; they must fit into one of two boxes: weak and girly, or strong and unfeminine. It also sends the message that to be a strong woman is to see traditional femininity as vain and thus, they must abandon it in order to be taken seriously. It tells girls that to be respected members of society, to be equal to a man, to be loved, they must see themselves as not a man, but not as a woman either, rather a separate category titled “not like other girls”.

This leads us on to the next point: these characters are hypocritically written. They often do not believe they are conventionally beautiful, even though everyone around them seems to think otherwise. Throughout the books, they benefit from their beauty by using it to their advantage and to gain favor over their male opponents, even subconsciously. This goes against the whole idea of rejecting conformity to traditional femininity, as these characters ultimately conform to and thereby benefit from traditional, often Western-set, beauty standards. It perpetuates the notion that self-worth is directly correlated to beauty.

Even though the decision to make these female characters conventionally attractive was made in good faith, to make even the most ordinary girl find beauty within herself, it still has the potential to backfire. With YA readers being young girls of ages 12 and above who are still developing their sense of belonging and identity, constantly reading about unrealistically attractive characters can be an isolating experience. It can make girls feel insecure about their bodies, looks and abilities, which goes against what these characters were meant to accomplish.

We have deliberately chosen not to name any books in this article; we are not here to hate on anyone's favourite characters. We are simply saying that we need to demand more than surface level feminism in the books we read and media we consume. The books we read shape who we become. We must learn to hold authors more accountable for creating works that are harmful to the groups they are trying to represent.

Feminism is about giving women choices, we need characters that represent a broader spectrum of women outside of the “strong female character” box. We should demand female characters who lead stories while wearing pink dresses. Characters who defeat villains without a man. Characters who are not afraid to admit their faults and work on them.

We need characters who will be strong in all kinds of ways, just as actual women.