One of the great things about educating yourself about intersectionality, systems of oppression,
and the impacts of colonialism, is that you become more adept at observing when and how this
shows up in various aspects of our lives. The only downside is that you can’t unsee it. We can
no longer unsee how sexualized violence and rape culture permeate our everyday lives,
particularly in the media we consume. As part of a new blog series, WAVAW staff will share how
we look at different forms of media differently now, starting with books. Here is what WAVAW
staff have to say about books we’ve read:

“Vampire Academy” by Richelle Mead
Vampire Academy is a young adult novel series that follows Rose, a badass Dhampir who is a
very strong female character. Reading these books back in the day, I was obsessed with Rose
and Dimitri’s relationship, and how “forbidden” it was because he was older than her. Rose is
17, and Dimitri is 24, and he also holds power over her in other ways like being her teacher.
Looking back on this now, I am aware that no matter how mature Rose is for her age, why is
Dimitri chasing after such a young girl? Find someone your own age who can actually give
consent (don’t even get me started on teacher/student relationships ugh!)
-Charlene (she/they), Grants & Major Gifts Coordinator

“Aura” by Carlos Fuentes
As a Latina I grew up with the kind of literature that matches the impacts of colonialism that are
still very palpable in most Latin American countries. One book that I used to love when I read it
the first time at 16 was “Aura” by Carlos Fuentes. The book is about a younger man who is
writing the memoirs for an old woman related to her late husband. While he is writing he is
asked to stay in the house so that he can get acquainted with the sense of the house and stuff.
The story includes elements that are rooted in esoteric matters and witchcraft. There is a young
woman who lives as a servant for the older woman the writer is working for. In the story the man
has sex with the younger women and at some point during it he becomes aware that is not the
young woman, but the old woman he is in bed with. The author makes a full description of the
physical characteristics of both women and glamorizes the appearance of the younger one and
describes the older one in a way which makes comparisons and descriptions with less
appealing (rather off-putting) adjectives.In the end, it turns out that the young and the old
woman are one, and the young writer is none other than the “late” husband of the old woman
who is actually not dead, but was shapeshifting into an illusion of a younger man, just like she
did.As someone who has been a practicing witch since I was 12 years old, the imagery and
supernatural elements of the story were awesome for me, now that I look back at the back story
and how the author is minimizing the power of these goddesses into physical attributes that fall
into ageism and perpetuate absurd standards of beauty, I am less interested in his work.
-Syl (she/her), Operations Manager

“A Little Princess” by Frances Hodgson Burnett
A story which transcends borders, languages and generations. There have been movies based
on the book since the 1930s…For a long time this was one of my favourite childhood stories.
One that I believe was about hope, dreams, and believing in some sort of magic to cope with
harsh realities.In the book, this little girl, Sara, whose mother died years ago, has a very sweet
relationship with her dad. They are British and live in India, where the dad is stationed with the
British Army. Despite the fact that these people are colonizing a country, they are still unhappy
with the weather and that is why they send their children to boarding schools in England. Sara’s
dad pays a lot of money to the headmistress in the school she is sent to, and she is treated like
a princess. One day, Sara is told that her dad died (boom) and that he had invested all his
money into a business with a childhood friend that didn’t work and there’s no more money
(boom), she is now an orphan and poor (boom boom boom). The headmistress puts Sara to
work cleaning after her former classmates and earning her right to live there in an attic or (some
place similar to what we working class can get in Vancouver nowadays, but in the story is a very
bad place.) The story’s happy ending is that the neighbour across the street turns out to be the
childhood friend with whom daddy invested all the money and turns out that he is looking for his
friend’s lost daughter (Sara) to tell her that the business went well and that she is rich and he
now that he found her and she is rich and can go back to being a little princess. This is what is
wrong with that story: 1) It paints colonizers as heroes, and 2) Sara could have continued to
gain skills and become an independent woman and whatnot, but no, the only way that women
can have a happy ending, according to this story, is if they have some rich daddy to solve their
life for them.
-Syl (she/her), Operations Manager

“The Babysitters Club” by Ann M. Martin
Like many millenials, I grew up reading the babysitters club. Looking back, I see that I was
drawn to the queer coding of one of the main characters Kristy, but I can also see the misogyny
in the treatment of another character, Dawn. Dawn is a California girl, and is very feminine and
into fashion, but because of that she’s portrayed as being flaky, shallow, and unreliable.
Especially compared to how Kristy is seen as a natural leader because she’s a tomboy, we can
see how femininity is treated as less valuable, and if I read both characters as queer I can see
how this narrative shows up in queer spaces as femmephobia.
-Felix (they/them), member of the Social Change team

“Harry Potter” Series by J. K. Rowling
Younger Me: Whoa, this is a cool series. The strongest character is a woman, the
good-triumphs-over-evil message is nice, this is a great series for youth.
Me Now: That is a hot garbage fire of horrible and JK Rowling is The Ultimate TERF.
The goblins are clearly portrayed in an anti-Semitic way (greedy, shady bankers). The fatphobia
is RAMPANT – anyone bad/evil/slightly less than good is Fat In A Bad Way, except Aunt Petunia
(Uncle Vernon, Aunt Marge, Prof. Slughorn, etc are all described in great detail as being
overweight and a villain in Harry’s world). In Rowling’s world, fat=bad.
How did no one look at the House Elves and not say “hey JK maybe having a plot about a race
of people enslaved and enjoying it isn’t a great thing to put out into the world?”
I also can’t believe that someone didn’t question some of her names and personality traits:
Kingsley SHACKLEBOLT – a black wizard. How did that get ok’d through so many levels before
publishing? Cho Chang – one of the only Asian-identified characters is Chinese but Rowling
gave her 2 Korean names. I don’t even need to get into how problematic that is. Seamus
Finnegan – an Irish kid with an affinity for blowing things up. I guess we now know what she
thinks of The Irish and The Troubles? Remus Lupin – may as well have called him Aids
McWerewolf but as bad as that is, Fenrir Greyback is the most egregious. The werewolves
symbolize HIV/Aids and Fenrir is on a mission to turn (i.e. infect) as many people as he can.
Seems like something a homophobe would think. She retconned (meaning she made this
statement after the series was complete) Dumbledore as gay, but based on how she
names/associates things I’m quite surprised he wasn’t named something like Professor
Ballerina Hairdresser.

Ginny Weasley could’ve been a GREAT character (she’s a talented witch, a strong-willed girl
and an excellent Quidditch player) but what purpose does she truly serve in the series? To be a
love interest. Barf.

What REALLY stands out now is the transphobia. Hermione is thought to be a self-insert of JK,
and in book 4, Hermione traps and keeps(!! WHICH IS BONKERS?!) Rita Skeeter. Rita is a
journalist who is repeatedly described as having “mannish hands” and a strong jawline and
other things that TERFs and ‘transvestigators’ use as so-called evidence to point out trans
women. In hindsight, the call is coming from inside the house.
-Sara (they/them), member of Social Change Team

“The Twilight Saga” by Stephenie Meyer
Who hasn’t heard the plot of this series? How Edward and Bella overcome life-threatening
differences to spend eternity together, painting a picture of a love so intense it could only be
fate, right? Edward, the 109 year old vampire, can’t deny his attraction (or, ahem, hunger) for
Bella, the plain 17 year old whose only distinguishing trait is her immunity against Edward’s
mind-reading abilities. He becomes so infatuated with Bella that he’s possessive and protective,
so much so that she stops talking to her friends…but it’s romantic. And when he leaves, to
“protect” Bella from his vampiric ways, her isolation, and loss of self, is palpable. Just when she
finds her footing over the course of a year, Edward chooses martyrdom, and she jumps at the
opportunity to save him. This reconnection begins the process again, and Bella continues to
shape her life around him (and his very wealthy family). Eventually, Edward agrees to grant her
eternal life – but only in exchange for her hand in marriage. At 18, Bella is a married woman, to a
now 110 year old vampire. Bella carries his halfling child, almost dying in the process, and is
only saved by Edward holding up his end of the marriage-for-vampiric-conversion bargain. They
go on to put each other’s lives at risk about 3 more times before the series ends.
Even if we overlook the fact that the entire story has built its foundation on toxic levels of
co-dependency, we’re still left with a coercive, possessive, socially and emotionally manipulative
relationship. I read this series from about 12 to 15, repeating the entire series eight times, back
to back. My obsession was #twihard levels of intensity, but it wasn’t abnormal. Many of my
friends and online social circles reflected the same excitement, and at one point even my mum
was captivated! It’s safe to say that it had the power to impact us greatly. Unfortunately because
of this impact, it planted the seed in my mind that love was all-consuming; that love was a series
of compromises, including ones where you use marriage as a bargaining chip. Intimate partner
violence is alarmingly normalized in YA novels, and popularized ones like the Twilight Saga
somehow avoid scrutiny enough that I hadn’t even considered the relationship between Edward
and Bella to be toxic until I was 17, leaving my first relationship with no sense of self, wondering
how I’d gotten that far. While this series is in no way entirely to blame, I do question how much I
had internalized, and how much others may have as well.
-Alysha (she/they), Communications and Engagement Coordinator