“Of course you’ve been taught to feel guilty about reading romance novels… They’re practically the only books in which women get exactly what they want, all of the time, and aren’t asked to feel bad about it.”
“Romance can provide happy endings for communities that don’t always get them.”
NOTE: the term women is used to refer to any who identify as such, and romance novels are defined broadly to include heteronormative and non-heteronormative relationships. While some romance novels are problematic, “relying on tropes of ‘slut-shaming, learned helplessness, and heroines who are too stupid to live or who don’t take responsibility for their own reproductive welfare,’” my focus here is on the vast majority of modern publications.
A couple of weeks ago, once the spring sunshine had melted the snow and freed us, finally, from our indoor prisons, a colleague and I met for coffee (hot chocolate for me!) and, eventually, got talking about the novels and short stories I have been writing to help manage my stress and anxiety at the end of times (see previous blog post!). “But,” she gasped in response, utterly gob-smacked. “You’re a feminist. How can you possibly write romance?!”
An avid reader, she claimed to prefer murder mysteries, literary fiction, magical realism, science fiction, and even occasionally fantasy—basically, every other category of books—her assumptions rooted in long-standing misconceptions, even lies, about a genre that is almost entirely dominated by women (and other marginalized folks). We quickly established that modern “bodice-rippers” almost never involve rape or incest (in fact, many publishers explicitly refuse to accept such submissions), and our debates over the Happily Ever After (HEA) or Happily For Now (HFN) endings characteristic of the genre will be considered in greater detail in a future blog post (stay tuned!).
Spoiler: while we need more stories about non-monogamous and non-traditional relationships, engagements and weddings may stand in as simple shorthand for long-term commitments to love and companionship and are not necessarily reinforcing of heteronormative and heteropatriarchal structures.
Anyway, by the end of the conversation, I was even more convinced that romance novels, not only provide a valuable escape for many people struggling in their daily lives, but also, in significant ways, contribute to the ongoing feminist political project.
For the record, my definition of feminism is not focused simply on equal rights for men and women; inspired by bell hooks, it is understood as collective movement against sexist oppression and exploitation and interrelated and indivisible inequalities rooted in race, class, sexuality, imperialism, and more. It requires, in other words, a complete transformation of the patriarchal and misogynist systems of power that control our society.
One central component of this feminism is love.
“Everywhere,” hooks argues, “we learn that love is important, and yet we are bombarded by its failure. In the realm of the political, among the religious, in our families, and in our romantic lives, we see little indication that love informs decisions, strengthens our understanding of community, or keeps us together. This bleak picture in no way alters the nature of our longing. We still hope that love will prevail. We still believe in love’s promise” (p.xxvii).
If nothing else, romance novels provide an alternative to this “bleak picture.”
But, more than that, I want to argue that these stories are feminist, that, by focusing the spotlight on women’s lives, by challenging traditional gender norms, and by embracing female sexuality and sexual desire, they expose problems with the status quo and help promote alternative modes of living and being.
Alone, romance novels won’t tear down the patriarchy. Obviously.
But, unlike other genres, they offer an interesting, often subtle, opportunity to create a community among women who, together, can help significantly advance the cause.
Feminism 101: Centring Women’s Stories
According to Pamela Regis, an English professor and expert on the romance novel, these stories must contain eight essential elements: a flawed and/or oppressive society; a meeting between characters; an internal or external barrier to their relationship; a long-lasting attraction; a declaration of love; a “point of ritual death” when a happy ending appears impossible; the emergence of new information; and, finally, a betrothal (or, at minimum, a formal commitment).
In addition, unlike other genres, it “puts the heroine at the center of the book, at least coequal with the hero, or occupying more of the spotlight than he does. Her desires are central.” There is, in other words, “a focus on women’s problems” (p.29).
Besides erotica, argues Helen Taylor, “as the only fictional genre written by women for women, modern romance puts women at the center of the narrative, addresses our deepest desires for love, committed and sustained relationships, and also speaks strongly to us about our dreams and fantasies (two words that crop up repeatedly).”
And, despite outsider assumptions, it is not only about sexual desire; women, suggests Melissa Ragsdale, “get to speak up, lead, and seek both power and pleasure in the bedroom as well as in the boardroom (and, you know, every other room, too).”
“Female comedic protagonists—the heroines of romance novels included,” Regis continues, “must overcome the laws, dangers, and limitations imposed upon them by the state, the church, or society, including the family.” For much of the history of the novel, “these restrictions were placed upon the heroine simply because she was female,” but, while modern stories pit characters against any number of social, psychological, cultural, and structural barriers, they continue to expose the oppression that women (and others) face in society.
In this way, they aid, even unconsciously, the educational work undertaken by decades (even centuries) of feminists.
Besides, what could be more feminist than novels written by women, for women, about women’s paths to power and pleasure?
Feminism 201: Subverting Gender Roles
In By the Book, Jasmine Guillory’s main female lead makes an important realization: “Romance novels made you get too many ideas. Make you think unreasonable, impossible, unlikely, totally implausible things. [Izzy] needed to stop that, right away.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
Romance novels, she implies, are dangerous.
They challenge assumptions about the behaviours and activities that are available to women (and other marginalized people). Female leads get to go on exciting adventures, travelling the world and encountering interesting people. They rule empires and command armies, run businesses and governments. And, after long and circuitous, often hilarious journeys, they ultimately find happiness with a loving and supportive partner.
They offer alternatives to the drudgery and disappointment many experience within existing imperialist, capitalist, and patriarchal systems and help women (and others) imagine that another world, another life, might be possible.
“The genre,” Regis says, “is not silly and empty-headed, as mainstream literary culture would have it. Quite the contrary—the romance novel contains serious ideas. The genre is not about women’s bondage, as the literary critics would have it. The romance novel is, to the contrary, about women’s freedom.”
Freedom, it seems to me, is ultimate goal of feminism.
Romance is popular, explains Regis, “because it conveys the pain, uplift, and joy that freedom brings” (p.xiii).
For Taylor, the romance novel “enables women imaginatively to resist the constraints and excesses of a male-dominated society, and to find a cathartic space in which to explore fear and guilt, as well as revenge fantasies, around fathers and husbands.”
The latter comes in response to specific experiences of physical, mental, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of more powerful men, and, more generally, to patriarchal conceptions of women as breeders and male property.
But these stories encourage women to break free of the limitations imposed upon them. To feel and express love, hope, compassion, sadness—emotions derided by male-dominated society. To prioritize their own dreams and goals and take ownership over their own lives. To embrace, publicly or not, their own sexual desires.
Romance novels present a fantasy, yes, but they also emphasize female self-empowerment, the value of supportive and reciprocal relationships, and the importance of a truly fulfilling life. In response, readers begin, consciously or not, to break free from the confines imposed by the patriarchy and imagine a different—maybe better—world.
“The moment we choose to love,” reminds bell hooks, “we begin to move against domination, against oppression.”
Feminism 301: Consent and Sexual Empowerment
Arguably, the most important, if frequently belittled contribution romance stories make to the feminist struggle is, as academic and author Jenny Cruisie articulates, in “the way they re-vision women’s sexuality, making her a partner in her own satisfaction instead of an object.”
Many writers, she explains, “zero in on the sexual lies women have been told, reversing patriarchal constraints and confirming what women already knew about their sexual identities but that many distrusted because it conflicted with the conventional wisdom that detailed what being a good woman was all about.” They have been taught, in nuanced and subversive ways, that sexual pleasure was reserved for men and, because “the actions these heroines take are realistic…they have an empowering effect on their readers.”
“[C]ontemporary feminist romance,” E. Ce Miller insists, is “where mutual consent, safe sexual exploration, and women’s empowered awareness of what turns us on frequently reign supreme.” Unlike other genres, that prioritize male satisfaction and turn the male gaze on female characters, romance allows women to describe their own preferences and pleasures and validate feelings that have, for centuries, been discouraged and shamed.
In addition, romance novels provide, as smith says, “critical analysis of sexual power structures.” They offer “models of consent and conversations about sex and sexuality rarely seen elsewhere.”
Contrary to popular critiques, female characters in romance novels have the agency to choose their romantic partners, consent to physical and emotional connection, express their sexual desires, and make decisions related to their lives. And, almost always, they achieve orgasm! As Jessica Luther argues, the “policing of women’s desires is the product of the patriarchal system they are trying to criticize.”
As such, romance provide a much-needed correction to a ubiquitous rape culture that normalizes and justifies sexual violence against women, girls, and other marginalized groups.
Moreover, as the genre expands to include more historically excluded voices—racialized groups, LGBTQIA2S+ folks, those with disabilities, etcetera—even more sophisticated conversations are made possible. Readers find stories that resonate with their own experiences, their own lives, and, in doing so, they are empowered to live their truest and most authentic lives.
If, as Brea Baker argues, invoking bell hooks, “true transformation starts internally[,] [w]e must first change ourselves. In order to live in a more loving society, we all must become love. In order to live in a non-patriarchal society, we all must interrogate what causes the desire to dominate others. In order to live in an anti-racist society, we must live in a more human-centered way.”
Romance novels, by centering women’s voices, subverting gender norms, and embracing female sexual empowerment, contribute, though sometimes subtly, to battles against the oppression and exploitation of women (and others). As feminists, we should embrace the existing and potential power inherent in the romance novel and find even more ways to create communities of women (and others) and direct them towards greater structural change.
“It is,” hooks says, “in choosing love and beginning with love as the ethical foundation for politics, that we are best positioned to transform society in ways that enhance the collective good.”
[1] Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, trans. & eds. Quintin Hoare & Geoffrey Nowell Smith (New York: International Publishers, 1971), 12.
[2] Quoted in Michael Denning, Mechanic Accents: Dime Novels and Working-Class Culture in America (London: Verso, 1987): 67.
[3] Denning: 67.
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