Femininity In The Outsiders

I did not know that the writer of the outsiders was a woman until I arrived at the ”speaking with S.E. Hinton …” page at the end of the book. On the page, she talked about the reasons that she disguised her name and her real life experience socializing with boys that led her to write The Outsiders. The novel tells a story of rivalry between two boys’ gangs, the greasers and the socs, from the perspective of a 14 year old boy. Abate (169) acknowledged that, compared to other novels of similar theme, The Outsiders was “lack of true profanity, drug use, and sex acts.” Is it characteristically a touch of femininity that women writer produce when writing about violence?

There were two female characters present in the story of the outsiders: Cherry Valance and Marcia who reveal certain stereotypes about femininity. First, Cherry embodies the woman as emphatic and anti-violent peace maker. She enjoyed long conversation she had with Ponyboy, a greaser, listened to him and showed empathy toward Ponyboy’s problematic life ( Hinton 30-34). Cherry is also portrayed as a smart girl of the upper class who is soft, educated, and is sick of fights. In order to create peace, Cherry was even willing to testify for Johnny at the trial (Hinton 86). Abate (167-168) mentioned that “The Outsiders is a

A book editor for mass-market books and a female magazine writer, Danuta Kean (2012) found a startling trend of women writers producing more horrific violence novels that some men authors have. Confronted with the question about the trend, some women writers argued that they simply wrote about the fear that only women feel, like the fear of being raped that men do not understand. Unlike the current trend and the freedom that many women writer enjoy, Cherry character in the The Outsiders novel represents the transition of a woman’s writer views on their own roles and expectations in the