Romance is not a feminist genre – and that’s okay
As a genre celebrating love and largely written by and for women, I think it’s easy to view Romance as an inherently feminist genre. I have felt this way myself at times, and I’ve seen many other readers and authors make similar assertions. But what I’m going to propose today is that Romance is not a feminist genre – and that it doesn’t have to be for us to enjoy, celebrate, appreciate, and feel empowered and liberated by it.
First let me back up for a minute and talk about the word “feminist.” As we all know, this word has gotten quite a workout this year, with women in the public eye both defending and distancing themselves from it, and with Gamergaters and others twisting it through some perverse, hateful logic. I happen to love the word feminist, because to me it encompasses advocating and supporting personal agency for women and the dissolution of systemic oppression, and I cringe every time I hear one of those sentences that starts with “I’m not a feminist, but…” or any of its variants.
At the same time, though, feminism is many things to many people, and purely for definitional reasons, I think it’s difficult to manage a single definition that will apply to a genre are large as Romance. It’s even more difficult when you consider that feminism as social activism is not the same thing as feminist theory, even if one is inspired by the other. Feminist theory is incredibly diverse, as well, and its history long and varied. (There’s another older site here that has some good older resources, but it hasn’t been updated in what looks like more than 15 years).
There are theorists like Judith Butler, who believe that gender is “performative;” that is, we enact gender roles differently within different social contexts (i.e. they are not “natural”), and there feminists like bell hooks who focus on society as an oppressive force and on women as differentially empowered depending on factors like race and socioeconomic status, and others like Catharine MacKinnon, who insists that pornography oppresses and dehumanizes women. Some feminists believe that men should be included in feminist activism, while others endorse separatist activism. Although much feminist theory is complementary, there are plenty of different and even conflicting presumptions and concepts within its schools of thought.
To make Romance fit under any umbrella definition would be to dilute that definition down to something pretty vague and weakly articulated, something like “Romance celebrates women.” Which it does. But so do chick lit and women’s fiction. So what if we try “Romance empowers women.” Empowers them in what way, though? Sexually, socially, emotionally, physically, economically, racially, religiously, politically? And what does that empowerment mean and entail? Does it mean that women can have as many sexual partners as they want without shame? Does it mean that women can control their reproductive choices in any way they want without shame or social censure? Does it mean that women are portrayed as equal across racial, economic, geographical, and religious lines? And where do men fit in –as authors, characters, and readers? What about same sex Romance, which often utilizes many of the same tropes as m/f Romance, but is sometimes classified as a separate genre (or genres, if we accept the findings of Jessica Freely, whose Goodreads survey suggests that m/m Romance largely has a market of straight women, while f/f Romance has a smaller and perhaps different market.)
So let’s entertain for a moment the idea that Romance is not a feminist genre. What is it, then, beyond a genre that celebrates love and is largely written by, for, and/or about women.
First, I think Romance does something very similar to its literary forebear, sentimental fiction, namely providing a shared space for women to contemplate and discuss the important issues that affect our lives, both on a general, societal level, and in terms of day-to-day reality. Just check out Americanist scholar Cathy Davidson’s description of post-revolutionary American women’s relationship with sentimental fiction:
But by portraying dashing roues, sentimental novelists still allowed women to vicariously participate in a range of relationships with diverse suitors and to imagine what the aftermath of marriage to different men might be like. . . .
Important social matters are reflected in sentimental plots, including the preoccupation with extramarital sex and the social and biological consequences of sexual transgressions. . . .
The concomitant unstated premise of sentimental fiction is that the woman must take greater control of her life and must make shrewd judgments of the men who come into her life. Implicitly and explicitly, the novels acknowledge that married life can be bitterly unhappy and encourage women to circumvent disaster by weighing any prospective suitors in the balance of good sense-society’s and her own. . . .
During their premarital years young women even of the middle classes often worked outside the home, especially as teachers, while those lower on the social scale could seek work as domestics or, increasingly, in the new factories or mills. . . .
Women often met together to engage jointly in such tasks as sewing or quilting; while the others worked, one member of the group would read aloud-typically from a sentimental novel. Such group reading was often followed by discussions on topics ranging from national politics to local gossip. Not only was the novel thus made a part of the daily life of republican women, but the discourse of fiction was itself made contiguous with or incorporated into their discourse. Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America, 2004 edition
I’ve quoted an extensive amount of text to demonstrate how the roles that sentimental fiction played in the lives of late 18th C American women are not so different from the roles genre Romance fiction plays in the lives of contemporary women. The social context has changed some, and pre-marital sex is no longer taboo (although the presumption of marriage and family in the genre is still very strong), but the way in which both sentimental fiction and Romance contemplate issues in relationships that women can, do, and might face is important in thinking about what Romance offers women, if not a feminist manifesto.
For example, Romance elevates the domestic, both in terms of “taming” the rake/rogue hero and in terms of valuing marriage and family. Because domesticity has also been a source of social and personal oppression for women, I think readers who are interested in a more progressive agenda for the genre can look at this element with suspicion (I have often done this). However, for many women, a life of marriage and child-raising is something they desire, and because of the economic stressors on couples these days, it may not be realistic. Moreover, the domestic sphere does not need to be a place of limitation for women or freedom for men at the expense of women. It can be a space of transformation, perhaps through a sharing of household and child-raising duties. Or in the way we Eve Dallas and Roarke have refigured it in JD Robb’s In Death series, where Roarke is often more the “wife” and nurturer than Eve, whose career is first for both of them. In any case, though, domesticity is not the necessary equivalent of oppression, either externalized or internal, and to dismiss it as such is to undermine a valid aspiration or life choice for women.
And the domestic is clearly a very strong draw in the genre. Look at Shay Savage’s Transcendence, a book that has gotten very strong feedback and appreciation in the Romance community. Savage’s novel is very much focused on domesticity. In fact, one of Ehd’s very first thoughts about Beh is this:
She is so beautiful— her smooth hair and her deep eyes and her creamy, pale skin. I don’t like the noises she makes, but she looks to be able enough, even if she is small. I briefly wonder if she is fertile and if she would bear a child who looks like me.
I like this idea.
A lot.
Finally, after all this time alone, I have a mate.
And in this focus on the family, Transcendence is true to its literary inspiration, Twilight, which includes different family models (none of which are wholly conventional) with some contemplation about which are good and sound and worthy of replication. Indeed, the trajectory of the series is soundly toward Bella and Edward’s marriage and the culmination of their sexual desire in the form of a child.
I think Davidson’s point about how sentimental fiction allowed women to vicariously experience different types of relationships is still relevant, too, although we might refer to it as part of the fantasy element of the genre (more on this next week). Within Romance, like real life, social structures often dictate the type of relationship the female protagonist will have. For example, she may start out compelled to marry, without choice, and then travel to a place where she chooses to love of her own free will. Then there are those relationships that begin with extreme power imbalances that some readers adore and others abhor. The forced seduction remains extremely popular within the genre, even as some readers see it as very unromantic.
Of course we also see Romance challenging gender and sexual norms, often through erotic narratives that allow for sexual engagement outside monogamy, heterosexuality, and other restrictive social norms. Emma Holly, Joey Hill, Kit Rocha, Alisha Rai, Victoria Dahl – and many more. Although with the Romance mainframe, there is often also a core of preservation when it comes to the love relationship and the possibility of long-term commitment. Megan Hart’s Dirty, for example, which seemed so groundbreaking in terms of Ella’s expressed sexuality, moves into a sequel of pretty mainstream, monogamous, domestic bliss for the couple. Then there are heroines like Shelly Laurenston’s Cella Malone, a hockey player nicknamed “Bare Knuckles Malone” who is also the single mother of a very lovely and much more conservative 18-year old daughter and, in her spare time, a paid assassin. She ends up with an incredibly straight-laced and much more domesticated cop, a relationship that challenges many gender role norms, while still maintaining a pro-marriage, pro-monogamy pattern.
Romance offers other things, as well: sexual fantasy without shame; romantic fantasy focused on different types of potential partners; a safe space to read and think about issues women are dealing with day to day, where they can be discussed and contemplated from a different perspective; commentary on the ways in which women and men are still expected to meet certain social norms, and the places we’ve made progress in challenging or transforming those norms; a working out of any number of conflicts or questions in an aspirational way, etc.
But we also still see those books where a heroine’s virtue is associated with her virginity, or where the hero seems much better developed than the heroine, or where the heroine gives up her own life goals to be with the more successful hero, or any other number of scenarios and circumstances that reflect common patterns of institutional patriarchy. And in large part the genre still reinforces white heteronormative values and social norms, which makes a full paradigm shift away from patriarchy and intersecting patterns of racial and socio-economic disenfranchisement more difficult to imagine or achieve.
So yes, there are many things Romance can do better in terms of inclusivity and conscientious representations that do not mindlessly repeat problematic tropes, themes, And the extent to which the genre is challenging institutional disempowerment will inevitably be re-assessed from book to book. I can think of many books that contain powerfully subversive elements, even if they don’t completely thwart the dominant social paradigm. And I know that every book one reader finds incredibly oppressive, another reader will find wildly liberating. So does that mean the genre is either wholly feminist or wholly oppressed in the vice of patriarchy?
I would argue it’s neither, and that it’s still okay, because in the end it’s the quality of our experience and engagement with the genre that matters, even more than the books themselves.
Love this post! I wrote a long version of this on my blog, but essentially, I’d locate the feminist potential in romance not in the texts themselves–and incidentally, I love the phrase “core of preservation”–but in the reading of them. I’m not particularly interested in figuring out if any given novel (or genre) is feminist or not but rather in describing how a given novel (or genre) does gender. What does it say about masculinity? Femininity? How does the novel propose relationships should or do work? Etc. And I think that discussion is feminist.
So beyond its interest in women’s lives and choices, I think **reading** genre romance and considering critically its cultural work on questions of gender and sexuality is feminist praxis. And I think reading genre romance can make one a more resistant reader of the gender politics of the literary canon.
You explained this so well, Robin. I’ve been thinking a lot about romance as a genre and how it can or cannot be perceived as feminist – I often explain it as having some base effects that can be viewed as feminist, because I do think it has done a lot for women even if it has also supported traditional cultural frameworks. However, I think you get at exactly why the genre as a whole doesn’t take on that label for a variety of reasons.
Discussing individual books and qualities that may or may not make them feminist can be really rewarding; I agree with Emma in that. Feminist readings can put a great lens on the genre as a whole and our reading habits within it.
This also a reason why I’ve been thinking a lot about M/M. Between the primary audience and the way that genre romance is extremely heteronormative, it’s difficult to say that M/M is doing anything for queerness. I think a lot of the discourse comes down to cultural assimilation. Romance can defy convention but operates within a perceived cultural framework – defying conventions in one way is made acceptable by conforming to other aspects of the framework. Again, also seen in M/M and other aspects of mainstream queer depictions with marriage and specific types of family units being a goal.
Ultimately, embracing our love for these genres is a good thing because to love something and simultaneously be critical about it is empowering and leads to growth. I’m really glad you’ve talked about this here. Talking about individual books and how they can be both liberating and constricting is something that would really benefit the community and its understanding of the genre.
I think romance also provides a mirror into society’s attitudes and readers’ perceived relationship with that society. It is fascinating to look back on how the “forced seduction” trope (in soap operas as well as romance novels) has evolved and become far less prevalent since the Old School days, as we have all become much more aware of rape culture and the lasting harm it does. I also find it interesting that BDSM romances (nearly always with the man as the dominant) are becoming much more popular at a time when women are achieving much greater equality in politics, the military and the civilian workplace. I have noticed that wounded war veterans have become far more common in Regency romances as well as contemporary ones over the past decade, undoubtedly due to the USA’s (and UK’s) current involvement in lengthy overseas wars. Having grown up in and around Madison, Wis., my feminist credentials are rock-solid. I feel no need to apologize or make excuses for my love of romance novels. They entertain me and also make me think about human relationships and gender roles.
@Emma Barry: Thanks, Emma; I love your focus on the act of reading and interpretation as feminist praxis. I agree that the feminist work is more on the interpretation end, although I’ve definitely read individual books that I’d argue are making a feminist argument. It’s just that you can’t even generalize that, because readers so often disagree on those books. Like how I often see forced seduction as a function of reader consent and empowerment, while others find those books very anti-feminist, including the reading and enjoyment of them. And I really dislike Dain in Lord of Scoundrels, so that book is a tough one for me to read in the same way you do.
At the same time, though, when Romance is so often interested in maintaining the social tradition and stability of marriage and the nuclear family, there’s already a certain acceptance of existing social norms (and I would not argue, either, that just because a book doesn’t end in marriage or features a polyamorous relationship, for example, it throws off social norms). So it’s our engagement with these texts that offers a variety of liberating, subversive options. And I agree with you that Davidson tends to overemphasize the feminism of sentimental fiction, but I think her insights around how women engaged with those books are critical in understanding that women have long engaged with texts as a way to negotiation their way through patriarchy and exacting societal expectations. Although there again we need to note the white middle class advantage.
One of the reasons I wanted to write this is because I think it’s tempting to see Romance as failing women when it’s not feminist. But if we remove that expectation entirely, I think we can see more clearly some of the things Romance does offer its readers that are also important and potentially liberating. I would also love to see more contemplation of masculinity as a construct in Romance, although with that there’s always a risk of hero-centrism, as well.
@Elinor Aspen:
It didn’t go away. It morphed into paranormal, vampires, werebeasts, and fated mates.
Excellent post and comments.
I’ve never truly hopped on the “Romance novels are feminist” meme because the statement always comes across as the final word–that’s the only heavy lifting romance readers and writers have to do to describe the genre and its reason for being. Or worse, raising the cudgel of romance and feminism completely absolves the romance community from its own internal (woman to woman) issues. The feminism espoused by the romance genre is also of the white female middle class variety, and those voices have historically silenced or oppressed marginalized women and their writing/reading.
The meme has also rewritten the history of the modern romance genre (often to combat thirty year old stereotypes). I want to shake my fist every time I see romance writers and readers blithely claiming romances in the 70s and 80s were all rapetastic and that the genre is so much more progressive and feminist today. I actually find it a little anti-feminist–and ironic–to erase our foremothers from the canon and discussion when traditionally male-dominated genres don’t erase their forefathers.
Emma’s point (which I’m sure I’m simplifying) about the act of reading romance as feminist is one with which I do agree. The genre is marvelous with placing women’s sexual desires and the complexity of their inner emotional lives at the forefront of the text. It may be wrapped up in a more traditional, hidebound box than women’s fiction, but that’s the beauty of genre fiction–we can have interesting conversations or responses to the text entwined with a recognizable (and comforting) “formula.”
Okay, I’m on really awful wifi right now, so let’s see how much I can comment before it goes out.
@John: @John: Talking about individual books and how they can be both liberating and constricting is something that would really benefit the community and its understanding of the genre.
I agree. Not that talking in general can’t be valuable, but I definitely think we need to focus on specific books and specific readings to show both how each of us is reading and to open discussion up around individual books and different readings of them.
Between the primary audience and the way that genre romance is extremely heteronormative, it’s difficult to say that M/M is doing anything for queerness.
I’ve been very wary of the references to m/m as “queer Romance” for just this reason.
@Elinor Aspen: I think romance also provides a mirror into society’s attitudes and readers’ perceived relationship with that society.
One thing I almost included in my post was Davidson’s observation that some critics of sentimental fiction argued that it was representing and therefore promoting unfettered (aka “immoral”) sexual activity, in part because the Revolutionary period in America saw a pretty high rate of babies whose conception pre-dated a wedding (30%), and they wanted to promote the correlation to causation. When you think about how critics of contemporary Romance often represents and therefore promotes unfettered sexual activity, it’s obvious that not much has changed in terms of how women are viewed as incapable of exercising critical thinking and “sullied” in some way by openly embracing sex and sexual fantasies.
@Moriah Jovan: I’d also argue that the trope is alive and well in mainstream contemporary and historical Romance, and that its persistence is not a bad thing, in the same way that women’s sexual fantasies, including submission fantasies are not bad and should not be shamed or discouraged.
@Evangeline Holland: I actually find it a little anti-feminist–and ironic–to erase our foremothers from the canon and discussion when traditionally male-dominated genres don’t erase their forefathers.
One of the reasons I was heartened by the popularity of 50 Shades is that it seemed to signal a new openness to publicly accepting and talking about women’s sexual fantasies. As if Nancy Friday and others didn’t exist and hadn’t been working on these issues for 40+ years. Or the erroneous perception that erotic Romance is a new subgenre. It’s a telling but unfortunate paradox that for all the massive popularity of erotic romantic fiction, there still seems to be a resistance to accepting female desire and sexuality as robust and varied.
@Robin/Janet:
See: Bertrice Small (~1978) and Susan Johnson (1991) for starters, and they were sold as regular ol’ historical romance.
Generally, I find the crop of romance I’ve read in the past 10-15 years to be much more restrictive and puritanical than anything I read as a teenager in the 70s and 80s.
Terrific post. I think there’s a tendency to conflate how liberating reading romance can sometimes feel with the politics of the texts themselves, which are often more conservative than they may seem at first glance.
I sometimes still think about an op ed Jennie wrote a long time ago in which she contrasted the way the heroine of Howard’s Death Angel almost went to hell and then reformed, all for having been a gangster’s kept woman, while the hero, an assassin, never had to atone for his own actions to the same degree. There’s a conservative subtext to that book, and to plenty of other books in the genre as well. It’s not uncommon for there to be slut shaming, for example.
@Moriah Jovan: Having made it a point to keep reading titles across the timeline of romance, I have to agree that there is a level of rebelliousness that’s been lost. I don’t think today’s genre romance is better or worse, but it often feels a lot “safer” – which I think goes back to those societal conventions like marriage, kids, monogamy, gender roles. While the romances back in the 70’s and 80’s did not lack for those things, it felt like they were directly challenging something, whereas I don’t necessarily feel that way with romance today.
Romance doesn’t have to challenge with every book. I think it’s good that there’s a mix, that there are books that stay towards that place of safety. It gives a lot of readers a sense of comfort. But, to be without that push to challenge and rebel in-genre the way we are today can feel detrimental. I think that the rise of the small town contemporary is one example. When we read those books, we have to ask if they are challenging how we live with small town communities and ideals (good and bad) and why they work for us, or if they seem to fantasize small town life as something free of societal problems despite their potential to reinforce gender roles and to be less diverse racially, sexually, etc.
@Janine: Oh gosh, I feel like I read that all of the time. I wish we had more discussions when readers dislike heroines, or other women in romance novels. I think we often forget that the cultural problems of slut-shaming and stereotypes like the Evil Ex or the Other Woman also feed off of sexism. I see it in YA a lot, too, and breaking down those themes in individual books is so important, especially when dealing with a genre that has a large audience of women that are interpreting those character behaviors and societal attitudes. Have you read any books that seem to reverse that conservative subtext that you’d rec?
Unfortunately romance is a genre in which feminism is largely absent. Nothing says it should be so. Finding intelligently written romance novels, with a fully balanced relationship, no abuse, sexual and emotional equality and modern relationship models is almost impossible.
One reason why so many romance novels are barely palatable is that they nearly always are reactionary in their message and the method of its delivery. Women who want a HEA have to marry, they have to have kids, yes, very rarely they get to keep working, but that’s mainly to service blatant consumerism. And heroes almost as a rule are overbearing, built muscle-mountains against whom even a Schwarzenegger pales, if they are not already downright abusive. That’s more pronounced rather than less the moment you head towards YA and NA romances and erotic romances. There you get abusive stalkers on top of the usual crop. The whole picture hence is a very sorry one and nothing to write home about. Congratulating oneself about this isn’t something I’d do.
As to the origins of romance, sorry, your definition is a bit too US-centric for my taste. And a bit too narrow and cheap. I’d give that a longer thought.
@John: “it’s difficult to say that M/M is doing anything for queerness.”
Don’t worry. Now gay men, the rightful owners of the genre,- are taking charge and policing the straight women out of it, I’m sure m/m will become a progressive paradise where the LBT end of the rainbow will be fully integrated, bigoted thought will be expunged, and intellectual rigour will be restored. BDSM sex clubs owned by polite Nazis for everyone!
Robin, great post. I don’t think any genre can be ‘feminist’. It can contain feminist themes in individual books, be written by feminist authors, and read by feminist women. But being a largely female authored genre does certainly not equate with it being feminist in toto – because women are not themselves all feminists, sadly.
For me, the HEA requirement and the limitations on what is acceptable behaviour for hero and heroine mean the reality of actual women’s existence cannot be encompassed under the Romance umbrella (although they can in stories with romantic elements, which I prefer anyway.) A widowed or divorced woman is not allowed to have multiple partners and still end the book content and single. Married women can’t have abortions within the context of a marriage – as most abortions actually occur – for practical reasons, not just to save their lives. Affairs are frowned on in plots, even apparently 60% of men and 40% of women say they have cheated on their spouses at some point.
And that’s before you get into the multiplicity of experiences and feelings arising from not being white, not being straight, not being cis (are there romances with trans women leads?), not being able-bodied or mentally well, etc. To that extent the vast majority of romances are enforcing a patriarchal ideal, even if the women portrayed are feminist and feminist readers don’t object to the storyline.
Any genre can be feminist. Science fiction and fantasy, which I’ve seen dismissed by one alleged feminist as too rapey, despite the increasing and important representation in its ranks of non cis white het male authors, is unconstrained by HEAs or the need to obey society norms within a real world context. (Unfortunately in the past it’s been too often used to reinforce patriarchal views and gender roles, but there’s nothing essential about this, and that kind of writing is being vigorously challenged and rejected now.)
I would welcome more feminist reading and critique, although it’s a depressing experience to actually do that in a romance community at times because so many women think that being feminist means being some horrible left wing harpie with a man hating agenda, and want not to be so labelled. More critique, more thoughtful reading is always good. :)
@Drano: I actually never claimed sentimental fiction to be the “origin” or “definition” of Romance, but it’s super sweet of you to concern yourself with my thought processes. In actual fact, the literary history of sentimental fiction (both British and American) as well as its relationship to genre Romance, has been well-established by myriad literary scholars and historians, and their work is easily accessible via Google. WSU has a pretty good site here: http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/domestic.htm, and there’s a decent Oxford Bibliography here: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199827251/obo-9780199827251-0015.xml. Nancy Armstrong, Jennifer DeVere Brody, Lori Merish and others have written excellent studies, as well, and Pamela Regis’s A Natural History of the Romance Novel provides a sound formalist approach to the subject.
@John:
Off the top of my head, Cecilia Grant and Courtney Milan’s historical romances do. Grant also has a great post on the topic of romance and feminism. I also think Miranda Neville’s latest book, The Duke of Dark Desires reverses a slut-shaming subtext in a wonderful way. And since you mentioned YA, The Girls at the Kingfisher Club by Genevieve Valentine also struck me as feminist in its subtext.
@Drano: WORD.