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particularly derided for supporting outdated and stereotypical gender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.
