Feminism And Gender Roles In Stephanie Meyer's Twilight

It is important to understand and examine popular texts because they can be used to impose social values and culture on others. Popular female-targeted novels -such as Twilight and most romance novels- are important to understand because they are critiqued most often on the basis of gender roles and feminism. Feminism often leads to the examination of the patriarchal structure of a society as it relates to women's power and what is expected of them. Twilight is a popular young adult novel written by Stephanie Meyer that unexpectedly accompanied an uproar of negative responses from both the public and professional critics. The response by the public and critics of Twilight is justified because even though Stephanie Meyer attempts to break the ideology of a patriarchal society, she in fact fails because the characters conform to the stereotypic expectations society has of gender
Many young adults, even teenage girls, are ashamed to be seen reading the novel because of the negative connotations that society has placed on the book. Women enjoy the strong male lead character whereas men see the book as another love story that sets females standards of men even higher than it was before. The readers are largely critical of Bella because she fails to overcome the patriarchal constraints that Stephanie Meyer created in Twilight. Many critics say the book is unfit for young women because it presents domestic violence in a way that makes it acceptable. Feminism critics want writers to create novels with strong lead characters that will inspire young women to be independent and break free from societies idea of their expected role. This novel further reinforces the oppressive ideology of patriarchy that exists in our real-world. Twilight has and will be, neglected and ignored because of the negative connotation it is gained from the public and professional