Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief written by Rick Riordan is about a 12 year old boy who figures out that the gods from Greek myth are real. He is the son of one of the big three, Poseidon, and he now has to go to a camp to train to keep himself alive from the monsters that attack demigods. As many topics are touched upon in this novel, hyperfemininity is seen as a bad trait instead as a way to express oneself, no matter the gender. Through the hero’s point of view, Percy, Riordan writes his biases towards hyperfemininity from the description of the Aphrodite cabin as self-absorbed, gossipy, materialistic, and weak in comparison to other characters. These biases are being written from the point of view of a straight male. Riordan presents femininity, both in men and women, through a negative binary lens. This essay will discuss the cycle of shaming that Riordan is perpetuating through causing young readers to have negative views towards themselves and others that have hyperfeminine characteristics. Additionally adding the biases that will continue to develop in these young readers as they grow older and see other people expressing themselves in this way in a negative light, in the same way they saw in the novels they grew up with such as Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief.
