Thread by @LianaBrooks

You know what I'd like to see?
Middle-grade and YA that doesn't denigrate and insult traditionally feminine endeavors and practices. Things like sewing, embroidery, cooking... those are essential survival skills and beautiful art.
Why are we teaching people they are worthless?

Thinking back on the books I read, almost every teenage heroine was sick of sewing and embroidery, she wanted battle and violence.
This was universally praised as the right decision.

Even with #GameOfThrones we watched people dismiss Sansa as weak for the entire duration because she wasn't "strong"... and by Strong they always meant Violent.
Her skills and artistry were dismissed as silly, girly things.

Do you know how hard it is to sew clothes? Have you ever even tried embroidery?
It's not impossibly hard, but doing it well and making it beautiful is an artistic skill the same as painting or sculpting.

Painting and sculpting though, those were arts reserved for the wealthy to enjoy.
Embroidery and sewing... everyone needed to be able to do that. It's the only reason people had clothes. It was art accessible to everyone.
And so reviled and dismissed as Girly.

I understand the misogynistic and classist origins of these attitudes.
I don't understand why we continue to push these views and only promote YA heroines who are violent.
Why is being violent better than being artistic?

I grew up thinking embroidery was some form of torture, largely because every book or show I saw it in showed how the people doing embroidery were weak, subservient, and needed to pick up a sword to become a Real Person.

I picked up embroidery a few weeks ago because the kids needed shorts hemmed.
And I found this whole world of beauty and artistry that no one is talking about because generations have been raised to hate it.

Half the good tutorials I've found for embroidery are coming from little old ladies in the Ukraine and Turkey.
I don't understand one word out of a hundred, but you don't need language to understand the techniques.
I'm sad that they are the only ones keeping this art alive.

The year is 2019.
By 2020 can we agree to stop vilifying the traditionally feminine enterprises and arts?
Can we agree to stop treating art accessible to everyone as low brow?
Can we stop praising violence for the sake of violence?

Can we stop pretending you are going to survive the apocalypse because you have anger management issues when what you really need to survive is good foraging skills and the ability to thread a needle?

Can we stop telling young girls that everything they love is evil, weak, stupid, and childish while simultaneously pushing our young boys to get permanent brain trauma chasing a ball?

Can we please - pretty please - stop pushing misogyny and violence as Mature and Literary when the truth is misogyny and violence are the most immature traits a person can have?

We can do so much better.
And, as a literary community, we owe the world so much more than to reinforce ideals of prejudiced and cruel eras that have gone on before.

We need to do better than the generations that went before us.
We need to be kinder, more inclusive, more forgiving, and more open-minded.
We owe that to ourselves and our future selves.