Jajira John-Baptiste4/15/14Research PaperMs. ProctorPer.6Twilight: Defeminizing WomenThe sensational "The Twilight Saga" is praised by many fans for its beautiful love story between two star-crossed lovers. However, this series to this day defeminizes women in every aspect of literature. It is filled with sexist, degrading, and absurd views about women that erase everything a woman stands for. Stephanie Meyer, the author of the popular series, didn't give much thought to the women in her series. The main character Bella didn't have the strong charm that book girls usually get, instead she got the left foot that brought femininity back to the point where they had to fight for their equal position in the male-dominated world. Critics who claimed that Stephanie Meyer can't write weren't just criticizing her writing skills, but also her anti-feminist view of women. One of them stated darkly: “Simone De Beauvoir's groundbreaking theory, The Second Sex, carefully analyzed the fundamental life positions of women in Western society…. De Beauvoir consistently challenged traditional and unequal gender roles in The Second Sex - the same harmful gender roles that Stephanie Meyer gleefully resurrects in the Twilight saga... ignores the advances in feminism made over the past sixty years, and is instead framed in an almost archaic narrative. .” Only through the eyes of Bella's tragic “love story” are women degraded. (Reni Eddo Lodge) (Brown) Women should be depicted as strong, graceful, beautiful beings that every man needs and respects, although Meyers' depiction of this departs from other vampire-based novels such as Bram Stokers' Dracula. Stoker's women are independent and depict the perfect image of a heroine who is defined as “'a woman who stands out... in the center of the paper... the story's intended audience is teenage girls who they admire everything about this book. (Good friend) (Laughter) Despite all the focus on the main character, Stephanie Meyer makes all the women in her series inferior and helpless. All males; Jasper, Emmett and Carlisle have greater power over their female counterparts. Carlisle is the leader of the coven who brings money and power while Esme is the peacemaker at home. Rosalie is the beauty and Emmett is the strength, Jasper is the informative one while Alice is his mirror. Bella isn't the only one we see with feminist issues. All the women in the series are seemingly degrading, the only thing they have in common with the males is that they are vampires who have the same potential as their husbands. The puzzling part here is why Meyer didn't leave them at the same level as what the dominant men have