This week’s New York Times YA Bestsellers list features one woman.

It’s Jane Fonda.

Earlier this week, a piece on The Atlantic asks why it is all girls in the major YA franchises are petite. This isn’t the real story though. The real story is what plays out in the comments. Go, read them. Girls having bodies of any type are wrong (they are thin and thus sexual beings or they’re fat and useless oafs).

One comment asks where the boys are.

Hank Green made a video about consent last week in light of resent allegations of sexual misconduct within DFTBA and some of their recording artists. The video is problematic, but more problematic are the comments begging him not to get the feminists involved with any sort of project speared by him or his brother because the feminists ruin everything.

Stay away from working with feminist or other overly gender specific interest groups. They tend to screw up your well intention efforts.



I did a quick search on Google a few weeks ago, the same search but swapping the gender. What’s not showing up is as powerful as what does show up (read the reblogged comments — this isn’t simply algorithm).

We live in a world where we ask where the boys are, where even in a two-week series devoted entirely to discussing girls, girls reading, and girls in YA fiction, I saw comments and posts that asked about boys or which brought up boys in context of these conversations. Whenever there is a moment for girls to have a space, to have their time in the spotlight, it’s rarely celebratory. It’s rarely a point of attention for them or their needs or their achievements. It’s about what they’re taking away from something else.

But talking about girls and girl reading is so, so important.

Just the girls.

The two weeks of posts for our “About the Girls” series have been some of the most thought-provoking and enlightening posts I’ve read. With no prompting, the posts were in brilliant conversation with one another, and that conversation comes back to one question: why?

There is much to be said and debated about fiction, especially YA fiction, being “for” any audience, whether “for girls” or “for boys” or “for teens” or not “for teens.” But that’s not what I want to wrap up this series with. What I want to wrap up the series with is one comment that came up this week that has resonated with me so powerfully. That I think sums up the entire reason we need to keep talking about girls and girls reading and why we not only need to keep talking about this among ourselves as adults, but why we need to actively engage teen readers — girls and boys and those who may or may not identify as either — in these discussions, too.

Let me bold the part that stands out to me. The part that is why we must keep talking about why the girls matter.

[P]lease, can we stop comparing every girl to Bella?


Girls are complex, dynamic, and important. They are more than one type and more than being a “not” that type. Why do we limit them?

I think as has become abundantly clear, the reason this needs to keep being brought up is because we knee-jerk any discussion about girls or places where girls have a voice with a “but what about the boys.” Yes, care about the boys. Think about them. Help them become their greatest selves. Help them achieve their dreams and goals and push them to be their absolute best, offering everything you can to do it.

Just don’t do it at the expense of girls.

Help girls achieve their same dreams, goals, and futures for themselves, and do it without questioning intent, worthiness, or value.

Without asking why.


Boys do not lose anything when girls do well, and girls do not lose anything when they’re afforded the same opportunities, respect, and attention their male counterparts are. The contributions of boys and girls, men and women, and those who choose to identify elsewhere on the gender spectrum all matter. This is about what we can achieve when we’re open to listening to all voices and when we’re open to thinking about the difficulties, the layers, and the nuances that exist in them all.

A huge thank you to everyone who shared a post, either here at Stacked or on your own forum, and a huge thank you to everyone who read, shared, commented, or even thought about this series. I hope you took as much away from it as we have here.