'For women, by women': Is romance writing inherently feminist? II

Kat Mayo from Book Thingo blog answered a call on Twitter to extend the discussion on feminism and romance. She writes:

I'm excited about this series of posts because—yay!—discussions around romance.

In Elizabeth's introduction to Louise Cusack's post, In defence of books written by women for women, she asks: In what sense, if any, can [romance books] be considered “feminist”?

Recently, I have leaned in favour of the ‘written for women, by women’ proof of romance’s feminist sensibilities. I particularly love author Jennifer Crusie’s passionate defence of the genre, where she points out that, among other things, ‘romance fiction says that women are primary not supporting characters, equal to men in power, intelligence, and ability.’

But Keziah Hills's tweets (quoted by Elizabeth in the post above) have me re-examining my position that the genre is inherently feminist.

I'm looking forward to more posts—and your comments—on the subject to help me clarify my thinking.

At the moment, I think what I want to say is that the genre, as a whole, tends to be reflective rather than progressive. This is a factor of many things, not the least of which is a publishing model that requires books to have broad appeal.

At the same time, I believe that most romance books have a subversive element that speaks to feminism—usually but not always to do with women’s sexuality or the way in which the heroine negotiates power with the hero—but that genre conventions (such as page count), traditions (such as category lines) or assumptions about reader expectations don't always allow for a full exploration of feminist values in every single book.

In some ways, this is part of the strength of romance books—that they can present stories familiar to many women and overlay them with questions about what we expect or should expect from our families, our partners and ourselves. A great romance book, for me, is familiar yet unpredictable.

I agree with Louise that there's a problem around the perception of romance as a genre—the assumption that all romance writing has less literary worth than other genres or works. I also believe there is a lack of consideration for the reasons why women read in the genre so extensively.

In response to Louise’s post, Marilyn (Anonymous) commented that ‘romances…play into the narrative of a woman's life is all about having the right man to depend on. They do not challenge this dangerous assumption either for individual women or for society as a whole.’

On the surface, this seems fair enough for those who don’t read romance books or who don’t understand why women read so widely and so passionately in the genre. But I challenge this assertion on two fronts.

Released: April 2012

First, this type of narrative does not define the genre. To me, the narrative described assumes something about the happy ending—that it’s a means by which the heroine’s problem is solved. I’d argue that in a well-crafted romance, a credible happy ending is only possible because the heroine and hero are now on an equal emotional footing. As Australian romantic suspense author Brownyn Parry writes, ‘[romance novels] recognise that a real love connects us with what is deepest within ourselves, and that a lasting relationship needs equal partners’. Getting this balance of power right is at the core of most of my favourite romance books.

The narrative described by the comment also assumes something about the reader—that the heroine represents us. Any feminist who has read and enjoyed Twilight would know this cannot be true, and this assumption leads to a profound misunderstanding of romance fiction (note 1). And besides, romance readers read other books, too.

The assumption also ignores the popularity among female readers of romance featuring two men (note 2)—so much so that m/m romance written for women seems to be evolving into a genre separate from gay romance written for men.

But where I think the comment truly missed the point was addressed by the next commenter, Shellyrae. Our emotional response is intrinsic to how readers of romance enjoy our Mills and Boons, our vampires and werewolves, and our reformed Regency rakes. Yes, the story must be written competently, but how the characters’ emotional turmoil speak to my own life is why I go back for more.

You see, romance books often do challenge assumptions about how women should feel or react or enjoy themselves in relationships—with men as well as with friends and family, who may feature as secondary characters with their own subplots and emotional conflicts. As Australian sff romance author Nicole Murphy writes, romance fiction provides ‘stories that speak to the truth of being a woman in this world and the specific struggles and issues that we deal with that men do not.’

And even if one argues that romance fiction is wholly escapist fiction—which, I should stress, is not a position that many romance readers take—I don’t believe that necessarily devalues the genre. Ye olde bodice rippers, some would argue, can provide an emotionally safe way for women to explore rape fantasy. We don’t assume that readers of crime fiction harbour murderous tendencies, so why would we assume that women who love The Flame and the Flower want to be mistaken for a prostitute and raped on a ship? (Note 3)

Paranormal romance—those cruel, befanged undead or those ferociously aggressive and possessive half-animals—provide a palatable way to present ‘shameful’ fantasies, including rape, BDSM, multiple partners and even double-pronged heroes. (And yes, I have that book.)

Finally, I think it’s also very important to keep in mind that romance books—even those primarily written for a Western audience—are sold and bought across different cultures and generations of women. These subversive elements, mild though they might seem to some of us, may be incredibly empowering to women who have very few other channels by which to receive these ideas. The romance reader's desire for emotional justice at the end of each story resonates, I think, with women who have felt that lack of justice and power through their own life experiences.

The virgin amnesiac mistress bride with a secret baby story can be escapism or an exploration of any number of themes around sexuality, gender politics and reproductive rights. It all depends on a combination of the author and their writing as well as the reader and their personal reflections on what they're reading.

Do I think romance authors and readers need to challenge genre assumptions more? Yes, especially in areas of contraception and abortion. Romance as a genre is still fairly conservative here.

Do I think these issues make the genre inherently not feminist? I’m not sure.

Because I think where I’m up to is this: When we consider what romance fiction brings to feminism, it's not enough to talk about what we as individuals get out of romance fiction or how we interpret this book or that. Knowing the genre's popularity among female readers, we should also be asking: How do women read romance and why do they love these books so much? Only then, I think, will we have a better understanding of the genre's importance and influence in women's lives.

Kat Mayo has been reading romance books since she was ten, when she discovered an abandoned Mills & Boon book in her grandmother’s garage. She runs Book Thingo, an Australian blog for readers of (mostly) romance fiction, and tweets as @BookThingo.

Additional notes

(A more comprehensive discussion of each of these references will appear here: Feminism in romance – annotated notes at Book Thingo.)

1. Reader point of view in romance

The Androgynous Reader: Point of View in the Romance (in Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women: Romance Writer on the Appeal of Romance, edited by Jayne Ann Krentz), Laura Kinsale argues that passive heroines are placeholders and that romance readers identify with the hero as much as—or sometimes more than—with the heroine.

2. Popularity of m/m romance with female readers

Why do women read M/M romance/erotica? by J. Leigh Bailey

All m/m fiction is not created equal by Sunita

An angle on slash and the appropriation debate by Kivitasku

Yaoi: What makes the yaoi genre appealing to women? (Response by Erica Friedman)

3. Rape fantasy in romance fiction – This issue is much discussed in the romance reading community. Here are some excellent discussions, and in most cases the comments are just as thought-provoking as the original posts:

Sexual Force and Reader Consent in Romance by Robin Reader argues that consent to the rape fantasy is in the hands of the reader.

Rape and Romance Reader by Laura Vivanco, who was a guest poster here at Australian Women Writer’s Challenge in February

Talking about the R Word by Candy Tan

When is rape fantasy acceptable or at least tolerable? by Mrs Giggles: ‘the rape fantasy is popular in fiction because it allows the heroine to have sex and experience pleasure without having to take any accountability for it’.

Women’s Rape Fantasies: How Common? What Do They Mean? by Michael Castleman: ‘[rape fantasies] imply nothing about one’s mental health or real-life sexual inclinations.’

Romance novels in The Journal of Sex Research by Jessica Tripler

"In defence of books written by women for women"

This week a Twitter discussion broke out as to whether romance, as a genre, is inherently feminist. The discussion was prompted by a review in which avid romance reader and blogger Kate Cuthbert took a respected romance author to task for not even considering her options when faced with an unplanned pregnancy.

On Twitter, Kate asked, "[W]hat obligations, if any, do romance novelists have to women's rights & feminism?" Aussie romance and erotica author, Keziah Hill, answered, "None, in the same way no novelist has an obligation to any social movement. However, novelists have to be prepared for readers to vote with their feet if idiots re social concerns." Hill followed this up with the statement that there is "nothing inherently feminist about romance".

The view that romance is inherently feminist is propounded by supporters of the genre; they regard the fact that romance is the one genre overwhelmingly written "for women, by women" as "proof" of its feminism. Yet, as Hill and others point out, the genre consistently fails to engage with issues of vital importance to many women, including, according to Hill, such issues as "Reproductive rights, the consequences of heterosexual hegemony" and the "power struggle with men over childcare and housework". Tweeter and blogger Kat (aka @BookThingo) remarked that the latter problem is often overcome in romance narrratives by having a hero rich enough to afford a housekeeper. Kat's comment was no doubt intended to be facetious, but what she says is right: wealth does equate with freedom from drudgery for many romance heroines, and love "earns" this freedom. That's the thing about romance: it's fantasy; it's aspirational, rather than realistic.  If it's going to be taken seriously, it has to be on other terms. But what other terms?

In what sense, if any, can it be considered "feminist"?

This question needs to be asked of romance precisely because the genre is so popular and written largely for woman and by women. It needs to be asked because the diversity of women's writing is often elided by its detractors, with few distinctions being made among different genres such as "romance", "chick lit" and "women's fiction", let alone more serious or ambitious writing by women. Writing by women is regarded (and often dismissed) as lightweight, domestic, focused on relationships, courtship, marriage and children. In addition, romance is particularly derided for supporting outdated and stereotypical gender roles. But as Sarah Wendell of Smart Bitches Trashy Books blog was quick to point out in the Twitter conversation with Keziah Hill, examples can be found of romance writing which both support and subvert the hegemony [of patriarchy]. Romance now has many subgenres and reflects many different values. So why is it still so easily dismissed?

Caught up in this debate is the question of "popularity" versus "literary merit". One persistent assumption has been that romance is cheap and nasty, mass-produced and lacking in literary merit, as well as likely to propound pernicious reactionary values. Its popularity among women readers and writers is not deemed sufficient for it to merit serious attention. As Helen of AlltheNewsthatMatters blog asked rhetorically recently of pornography, "How do we judge the worthiness of a particular form of popular culture? Is the entertainment legitimate just because consumers are buying?" 

Fans of the genre are likely to counter this view with the claim that there are many examples of fine writing within the bounds of the genre, merit reflected in the awards regularly given out by associations such as Romance Writers of Australia and the Australian Romance Readers Association. So is there something else about romance that irks people?

Recently on the AWW blog, feminist publisher Susan Hawthorne discussed books "that make you think" and asked, "What else is writing about?" For many champions of romance, this question is key. For these readers and writers, romance is about the body, about emotions, about the visceral response of women's lived experience of love, lust and longing for connection. This is the aspect of romance which is dismissed.

But, if they're right, why? In what way are visceral depictions of women's bodies and emotions anathema to literary merit?

Today's guest blogger, award-winning fantasy author Louise Cusack, doesn't offer answers, but her post does draw our attention to the questions.

Louise Cusack writes: "In defence of books written by women for women"

The first time I heard Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe) described as a ‘romance genre writer’ I couldn’t help a quiver of “Damn right he is!”  I’d been sick of hearing about male authors writing love stories while female authors were said to have written romances, the inference being clear: love stories were important and life altering and powerful, while romances were more often described as frivolous and clichéd. 

Maybe this isn’t my argument to weigh into.  I am a published fantasy author after all – different genre – but I started my career trying to write romance and have stayed a member of Romance Writers of Australia for two decades.  I have a lot of friends there, some of whom are Harlequin Mills & Boon authors.  Thankfully the days of being slighted for writing “those silly little books” seems to be passing, which is just as well.  Romance Writers of America say on their website “More than a quarter of all books sold are romance. $1.36 billion in sales each year,” so I imagine those authors are laughing all the way to the bank, and caring less what their novels are categorised as by reviewers and critics.  Especially as the huge number of eReaders being purchased has created even more sales for romance publishers, with fans happily downloading novels so they don’t have to feel embarrassed about reading them on the train.

And there’s another problem.  I take issue with the fact that a woman should feel embarrassed to be seen reading a romance novel when no one blinks at a man reading a western or a crime thriller. What is it about women’s fiction that makes it less in the eyes of the literati, when as a genre it sells so much more?

Let me take you back a few years.  When I first started writing in the nineties I attended a “meet the authors” evening in Brisbane, hosted by the Queensland Writers Centre.  One of the speakers was an International best selling Mills & Boon author from the Gold Coast who’d written over thirty novels and had print runs in the hundreds of thousands, translated into several languages.  The other was a well respected Brisbane author of literary fiction whom I later found out had been given a print run of 500, many of which were still sitting in her garage.  That evening had a profound impact on me.  I’d grown up wanting to be a novelist, but I hadn’t given genre a thought.  That night I did think.  I realised I could either try for the approval of a marginal elite, which might get me into ‘the club’ and make awards and literary grants more likely.  Or I could write what I was convinced a great number of readers would love, and earn a living that way.  Of course there was no guarantee that I’d be good enough to get published in any form, but “commercial fiction” as my agent was later to call it, became my holy grail. 

To me, all books fit some genre, and Literary Fiction is just another genre beside Romance, Crime, Fantasy, Erotica and Young Adult.  Further, genre doesn’t dictate quality.  I’ve read some superlative fantasy (Kim Wilkins’ Giants of the Frost and The Autumn Castle are so achingly evocative they deserve to be Lit Fic) and I’ve also read some extremely boring literary fiction that wouldn’t have made it past the slush pile of a decent women’s fiction publishing house.

 

So why is there a literary cringe when women write and read stories that resonate with them emotionally?  Why should the intellectual experience of a story be considered more worthy?  These are all questions that deserve more considered answers than I have space for here, but as I see my fantasy romance trilogy, Shadow Through Time, digitally released this month by Pan Macmillan’s digital imprint Momentum Books, I don’t hope for the approval of critics or reviewers or government arts departments.  I care about readers.  I care about the women who are going to buy my story, who will hopefully thrill to the fantasy world I’ve created, who will be frightened, and saddened, and excited and delighted, and will ultimately fall head over heels for the champion who saves the princess’s life.  Because that’s what I dreamt of when I was reading Alice in Wonderland and Beauty and the Beast as a child, and I’ve never stopped wanting that emotional ride.

To those who would try and stifle or marginalise any form of women’s fiction, your days are numbered.  The eRevolution is making you redundant.  My readers don’t need your approval or your direction.  They’re getting their reviews from other readers on Goodreads and Amazon and Shelfari.  They’re deciding for themselves what’s ‘worthy’ and what’s not, and in this brave new world it’s not only publishers and agents who are wondering where they fit between reader and writer.

So while I started this blog with a dig at patronising attitudes, I’ll end it by proposing that those attitudes are far less relevant in a digital age.  Storytelling appears to have come full circle, and though our campfire is now called the Internet, its effect is the same.  Has the history of publishing reached a point where we simply let readers decide?  Perhaps their opinions and their economic power are ultimately all that counts.  What do you think?

Louise Cusack is an International award winning fantasy author whose best-selling Shadow through Time trilogy with Simon & Schuster Australia was selected by the Doubleday Book Club as their ‘Editors Choice’.  These novels have now been released as eBooks by Momentum Books.