I wrote my dissertation on how much I hate Jacqueline Wilson
Okay okay, I’ll admit the title is a little dramatic. But certainly, her late 90’s and early 2000’s books do bring to light some rather concerning statements about how young girls should think, which created a lot of distaste towards Ms Wilson. My primary focus was her quartet of books; Girls in love, Girls under pressure, Girls out late and Girls in tears. I felt like a new person reading them at 21 as opposed to 13, uncovering the severe presence of patriarchal values that screamed oppression of young readers. So I got writing; 8000 words on why Jacqueline Wilson is corrupting young minds.
Spoiler warning for these books (you’ve been warned)
Wilson series tackles typical pre-teen problems like personal identity crises, how puberty separates you from your friends in terms of looks and maturity but also deeper themes such a parental fallout, infidelity and even anorexia. With themes as delicate as these you’d think Wilson would leave a reader with positive affirmations surrounding family and body confidence.
You’d be wrong.
Let’s start with the parents. The protagonist Ellie has a wonderful step-mother Anna, who throughout all four books desperately wants a deeper relationship with Ellie. She takes her shopping, gently tries to reason with her about her weight, even gives rational reasoning into why she develops a disorder (more about that late) but Ellie never lets her get close. She spends most of the novels referencing how she’ll never be her real mum. It’s never quite clear whether it’s jealously, protection from getting hurt or simple teenage rebellion Ellie is displaying, but for impressionable readers, the toxic dynamic resonates. By reinforcing the stigma around step-parents not being as good as biological ones, Wilson seems to create harmful family dynamics for young readers. Furthermore, the whole family dynamic that Wilson creates is strongly patriarchal. Ellie’s Dad comments that his wife should be happy enough looking after the children in response to her wishing to start her own business. This causes a severe rupture in Ellie’s family unit until Anna crumbles under her husband's pressure. Ellie’s best friend’s mother is often mentioned as always looking presentable and made up, armed with cleaning utensils, which has various concerning connations surrounding the image of women within the home. If we tie both sentiments together, is Wilson saying if we don’t follow the patriarchal assumption that women should stay home whilst men work, our families will fall to pieces?
I want to move onto Wilson’s depiction of anorexia now. “Anorexia nervosa [which] usually strikes in early to late adolescence…[and] is characterised by deprivation of food and body weight of at least 15% below the normal weight for a person’s height and age….”[1] It’s an illness that strikes primarily in the age range of Wilson’s target audience so goes without saying it needs to be delicately approached. Girls under pressure tackles the impact of media and other’s opinions on body image, through Ellie showing alarming bulimic and anorexic tendencies. The problem that I have is how Wilson never provides an outlet for Ellie to recover, through both negative words from her surrounding peers and the environments she is placed in. Nadine’s audition to be a model contains crucial dialogue that encourages self-depravation. Ellie is shunned to the back and forced to stare at hyper-unrealistic bodies, which makes her want to tear off her own skin. Wilson’s aggressive imagery focuses on the girl's looks, hardly ever naming them or giving the other model contestants personalities. Wilson never provides any comfort or body confidence for Ellie, and any readers experiencing similar feelings.
What seems almost worse is how Ellie does a sharp 180 towards her body perception towards the end of the book and it’s then hardly referenced again in the following two books. What snaps Ellie out of her warped perception is not her realising her disorder or incorrect thought processes, but disgust. Upon visiting Zoe (a fellow classmate) in an anorexic ward, Wilson uses graphic descriptions which include adjectives like ‘spikey’, ‘sad’ and ‘ugly’, which mock the serious nature of the illness, especially the word “ugly”, which lacks compassion. Not wanting to be like those people, Ellie’s personality seems to completely flip, with her body confidence soaring and immediately starting to eat cookies and cake without care. This portrayal seems unrealistic, dangerously portraying the disease as something one can easily recover from.
My final quarrel with Wilson is her acceptance of inappropriate sexual actions that happen towards the girls. Despite the characters being below the legal age for sex, it is a topic that is regularly discussed by the trio of girls. Mostly in juvenile language, referring to a man’s penis as a ‘fishing rod’ I believe. This inability to say the correct biological words reflects immaturity and a lack of understanding toward sexual intercourse. Yet, with statics and reports of sexual assault and coercion on the rise, I can understand why Wilson features it. Nadine gets constantly guilt-tripped and coerced into performing sexual acts with her boyfriend Liam who is 5 years older than her (thus illegal as she is below 16) whilst Magda gets forced up against a tree and nearly assaulted by a boy called Mike. These two accounts of serious illegal activity create a very dangerous narrative that one would assume results in consequences for both characters.
Have you guessed it? They don’t.
This is the most concerning element I gathered from Wilson’s works. Neither boy gets any punishment for their actions, Liam even moving onto a newer, even younger girl in a latter novel whilst Mike just disappears from the narrative; not without causing Magda to change her appearance to be less attractive. Wilson is teaching her readers that these actions from the boys are normal and will happen. By furthering causing Magda to suffer from her personal appearance anxiety but offers no outlet for closure, it’s almost as if, ‘boys will be boys’ and girls better just deal with it.
I want to conclude by saying Wilson isn’t a bad writer. Her more recent works, particularly Love Frankie which was published last year shows a very progressive and positive outlook on sexuality, gender and body confidence. My main concern is that these books in particular, which are over a decade old now, are still so easy to get your hands on. My concern is that her pre-teen audience will pick up on the views that Wilson is expressing and it will seep into their psyche.
But don’t just take my word for it. Give them a read, give me your opinion. Am I being too harsh? Or have I uncovered something people are too scared to mention?
Books Mentioned
Wilson, Jacqueline, Girls in love (London: Doubleday, 2003)
Wilson, Jacqueline, Girls under pressure (London: Corgi, 2007)
Wilson, Jacqueline, Girls out late (London: Doubleday, 1999)
Wilson, Jacqueline, Girls in tears (London: Corgi, 2005)
Wilson, Jacqueline, Love Frankie (London: Doubleday, 2020)
[1] Linda Lewis Alexander and others, New Dimensions In Women’s Health, 8th edn (Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC, 2020), p. 359.
