Chick Lit and Gender Politics in the Workplace: The Case of Sophie Kinsella

I’ve just finished Sophie Kinsella’s Remember Me, and I’m starting to see a pattern to the workplace gender politics in her novels. Although her novels tend to focus sympathetically on single women struggling with their personal and professional life, she also repeatedly creates fiendishly ambitious working women who torment the protagonist. For this recurring character, ambition has taken a destructive turn.

Here’s what I’ve noticed:

1) In Twenties Girl, Lara Lington’s business partner, Natalie, is set up as an explicit contrast: she is so ambitious that she will do anything to succeed. Natalie is widely condemned by other characters, but it takes a while for Lara to realize that Natalie is toxic and reject her tactics.

2) Remember Me’s plot revolved around discovering why Lexi Smart’s character has become a “bitch boss from hell.” The second half of the book focuses on rehabilitating her bitch boss persona so that she can get back to being her original, less polished, less driven self.

3) In the first two Shopaholic books, Becky Bloomwood is terrorized by Alicia Bitch Longlegs, a relentlessly ambitious character. It’s not that Becky is a more ethical character than Alicia--Becky will happily lie her way out of any uncomfortable situation--but Alicia is vilified for trying to cheat her way to professional success.

4) Emma Corrigan in Can You Keep a Secret? is tormented by her ambitious and successful cousin, Kerry, who takes every opportunity to show her up and belittle her.

5) And, in the most unsettling of all of Kinsella’s books, The Undomestic Goddess, Samantha is so burned out by her high-powered career that she flees, takes a job as a housekeeper, and falls so in love with that job (and the position of subservient employee) that she is determined to keep it even when it no longer makes any sense plot-wise. This is, in my opinion, the most unsatisfying of all of Kinsella’s books because the resolution is so strange.

Sure, there are plenty of examples of nasty careerist men in Kinsella’s novels, so maybe it’s less about gender politics than about wanting success no matter what. However, it is striking that Kinsella’s female protagonists are consistently rewarded for rejecting careerism (or, at least, its most vicious forms) and that she so frequently paints the ambitious woman in the workplace as a twisted character.