Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Is it just me, or does Bindel contradict herself in this paragraph?

My horror at the genre is not directed towards either the women who write or, indeed, read them. I do not believe in blaming women for our own oppression. Women are the only oppressed group required not only to submit to our oppressors, but to love and sexually desire them at the same time. This is what heterosexual romantic fiction promotes - the sexual submission of women to men.

She’s not “blaming” women yet they are “the only oppressed group” etc.

Required by whom? Other women?

I don’t feel really oppressed by my husband, thanks.  And none of my sexual interactions or desires have anything to do with being oppressed--rather the opposite, thanks.

AND I can thank romances for a lot of my sexual dominance and self-confidence, because, in complete opposition to Bindel, I happen to think romances are all about teaching patriarchy to treat women as equal. But that’s just me.  What do I know--I’m mindlessly illiterate.

And Andrea Dworkin--don’t get me started.  As Naomi Wolf once said at a speech I went to, in response to Dworkin-esque condemnations of ALL heterosexual sex as patriarchal oppression, “Most women go home each evening and think the penis is their friend!” Indeed.

While I was reading Bindel’s example paragraphs, I kept thinking, “I’d like to read that!” (Is that sad?)

I just read a Jane Feather book in which the heroine had been engaging in affairs for some time (while still unmarried!) and chooses quite consciously to have an affair with the hero. 

Maybe Bindel needs to widen her study selection past the 20 M&B she read 15 years ago.  I think there are so many exciting and interesting things going on in the romance novel world.  She might find it drastically different…

Yes, aurianrose, absolutely!  And we also know how well the back-copy reflects the feeling and tone of the actual book--Not!

Help!  Help!

I’m being oppressed!

Although, apparently, as an M & B novelist, I’m not (technically) the oppressor of others.

What a relief.

Wow, what great journalistic commitment, to write an article about a genre you haven’t read for 15 years.  I expect on other pages of the Guardian there were articles despairing that there were no shiny sitcoms about New York twentysomethings, or perhaps praising the marriage of Paul and Linda McCartney.  Or...hell, I can’t remember anything else that happened since 1992.  My brain must be fried by too many romance novels.

(spamfilter: probably21...years since she read a M&B).

>>Help!  Help!

I’m being oppressed! <<

Ow- I just snorted chili.

I don’t buy it. People who quote Andrea Dworkin probably are mega pissed you are reading heterosexual romance.

So I say in the spirit of Christmas we compromise.
Everyone read a Gay Romance with a nasty Alpha Hero subjugating a man who deserves it so.

Let’s give the gift of buttsecks!

I read that article yesterday, and was actually kind of frustrated with both pieces.  But, in response to this discussion, a couple of things come to mind:

1.  I don’t think everything in the genre reduces to fantasy—there are, IMO, social, cultural, and ideological issues that merit discussion.  Or to refine that more carefully, not everything in the genre reduces to fantasy, and even some of those things we might refer to as fantasy (e.g. the savage “Indian” or the lack of Black heroes in mainstream Romance) also have ideological and socio-cultural implications that merit consideration.

2.  Sweeping generalizations about Romance—good or bad—make me itch.

3.  Andrea Dworkin has been demonized far, far beyond her own work both by those who claim to love her and by those who claim to hate her.  That makes me itch, too.  Not that her work isn’t problematic at many levels, but there’s also some important stuff in there (not the least of which was her actual physical protest work, some of which, for example, led to changes in how women prisoners were treated during searches). 

4.  Once again I’m underwhelmed by the defense of the genre in the following terms:  well, no one said it was literature.  Yawn and more itching.

So I say in the spirit of Christmas we compromise.
Everyone read a Gay Romance with a nasty Alpha Hero subjugating a man who deserves it so.

Name the title, Teddy!  That is right up my alley!

and more itching.

I’ve got a tube of cortizone cream here, Robin.  Want it? *g*

I dunno. Certainly I’m not in Bindel’s camp, but I have a very different view of romance novels than people who really enjoy them.

I’ve read maybe a dozen romance novels just for the sake of reading them, and skim-read perhaps a thousand more (yes, really) in my long career as a text designer.

I am not the target audience. (I hang around here because I adore smart bitchery.) I like some romance in my fiction, but I don’t like romance as the raison d’etre of a book.

What I don’t like about Romance novels is that, one way or another, the message is “The best thing a woman can achieve in life is a husband and babies.” Sure, she can be a detective or have wild affairs or run the plantation like no one else, but all of that is secondary to her ultimately finding happiness and fulfillment with her True Wuv and brood of offspring. If the book doesn’t end with that, it’s shelved somewhere else in the bookstore.

(Yes, there may be exceptions. But the overwhelming majority of category romance novels end with the (m/f) couple married, and children either in existence or in the near future.)

I’m not knocking the joy that spouse and children bring. But I can’t help but notice there are few books that say to men, “Hey, you need to find a good woman you can treat like a queen, and you will love taking care of your kids, I swear.”

Heck, where are the books that say, “Lady, thank goodness you never got knocked up, because you never would have found time to colonize Mars if you’d done that”? Or even, “Thank goodness you found a guy who wants to stay home and care for the kids, because the research lab really needs you”?

What I’m saying in that last paragraph is that “women’s fiction” (oh, how I hate that term!) is overwhelmingly about the joys of domesticity, with little balancing factor. Some days I want to kiss Elizabeth Peters, who gave us a heroine who says, “Sure, being a wife and mother is great, but I really want to go dig about in this tomb. Ramses, stay out of the way.” You go, Amelia Peabody.

Those of us who worry about social-structure feedback loops fear this genre as a giant propaganda machine. Maybe it’s so darn popular because so many women are glad to get confirmation that it’s okay for them to enjoy domesticity. Or maybe so many women enjoy domesticity because they’ve been told over and over and over again that it’s great and they should want it.

I think I might feel better about it if Romance weren’t so exclusively marketed to women. Elizabeth Peters’s readership is probably mostly female, but her books are in the mystery section, and no man would feel funny about picking one up. They aren’t ghettoized. Romance, by the nature of its segregation, says “this is what women should be reading. This is what being a woman is.”

But that again is one of the things I like about SBTB. I love that y’all cover much more than the “traditional” romance novels, and point out that smaller publishers and e-publishers are finding a demand for gay romance, group romance, and erotica. I also like that you discuss the romantic aspects of books that aren’t primarily focused on the romance. You range outside of the ghetto, to the place where books is books, and women are readers first and a gender second.

What’s new? Hmmmmmmm…

With Caution by J.L. Langley
From Samhain

or I recently enjoyed

Necessary Temptation by A.D. Christopher
From El Lora’s Cave

Blah, blah, blah...Barf and give me a great big-ass break.  She needs to get laid worse than I do.  Thrown on the floor and good, proper dirty done hard.  If not, then for god’s sake, stop the whining, go read some Plath, and leave the rest of us alone with our Anais Nin kindred souls.

It’s so unfortunate for us poor oppressed women that we can not distinguish fantasy/fiction from the real world!  Oh the pain and suffering we cause ourselves by reading a romance novel.

Yeah right, if my husband or any other man tried to “oppress” me, well, it’s just not going to happen.  I believe that reading my “trashy” romances have actually made me think and act more independently *gasp*.

// You go, Amelia Peabody.//

Hell yeah. 
Something I’ve noticed about Mertz-Peters-Michael’s work is that her heroines usually get the guy - but they get other stuff, too.  They get friends.  They get family.  A lot of the time, they get inspired and excited about a new career - which they get for being smart and tough and funny, as well as having a heart of gold.  (I wrote “loving and sweet”, and then deleted it.  They’re mostly loving, but a lot of them have a healthy dose of sarcastic bitch, and I love them).

What I’m saying in that last paragraph is that “women’s fiction” (oh, how I hate that term!) is overwhelmingly about the joys of domesticity, with little balancing factor.

ITA, although I see the domestication in broad terms.  And I still love the Romance genre and find many ways in which IMO it subverts all sorts of gender stereotypes, patriarchal assumptions, and culturally-determined values (including those of domestication itself).  And I also find many ways in which it conforms to some of those things, as well. 

I’ve got a tube of cortizone cream here, Robin.  Want it? *g*

Let’s see how the day goes, Lorelie, lol.

Right now I’m simply trying to understand why it makes me so frustrated when first wave feminist scholars are demonized, even though I don’t personally identify with much (if not most) of their work.  I think it has something to do with the way in which the distortion of their views seems, sadly and ironically, to kind of bolster some of their more radical paranoia about patriarchy.  And I really, really hate that.

Personally one thing I like about my favorite romance authors is that domestic life isn’t always the end goal, and that one way the Right Guy is identified is that he supports the woman’s career and kicks in his share of the housework.

Nora Roberts’s heroines always seem to have strong, interesting careers that their men totally support, though sure, children are often a part of the picture.  Paranormal romance heroines often don’t end up with babies (and of course, many of them don’t end up married or monogamous, either).

I’ve thought about this one a lot, ever since I had a major Harlequin reading period years ago. Was reading about women of very limited education, worldly power, and even intelligence an insidious way of training me to look for and accept less in my future? The answer was a resounding no. It was frustrating and made me want to do something to improve my own life. Reading about oppressed women (who nevertheless eventually achieved a kind of triumph) did not brainwash me into thinking that being a subservient, victimized person was the road to happiness. I’ve blogged elsewhere about this.

No, I wouldn’t want the Greek Tycoon or the Beastly Billionaire in my life, and I certainly won’t be making any Baby Bargains with anyone. But that’s the point of fiction, isn’t it? To check out something other than one’s real life? I couldn’t be that thin blonde who conquers him in a million years, either.

I, too, have worried that people take fiction for gospel. But books are a reflection of our values; they do not determine them. And when heroines are so obviously not us, how can we think that the heroes are for us, either? The worrying is a waste of time. If the reader wants a fairy tale, there must be a prince. And the Billionaire and the Oil Baron are modern princes, powerful, flawed figures who live their lives on a grand scale. And that’s all.

A stray thought. Romances are a moving target, developing and changing very swiftly. Which is why the criticism seems so often to be about Harlequin, the slow-moving behemoth that makes such an easy target. For cheap shots.

But books are a
reflection of our values; they do not determine them.

THIS! It’s blaming the tail for wagging the dog. Even totally missing the fact the tail is actually attached to an elephant.

Books and Video games and music does not create society. They tend to reflect it’s darker corners though.

If women need to turn to romance to assure them that it’s OK for them to enjoy domesticity, then I say “Go romance.” Because if that is seriously what they want to do, they deserve some affirmation for it. It’s a hard job.

But I don’t think you give women enough credit, if you’re implying that romantic brainwashing is the only reason someone would choose family over career.

I was talking to someone (obviously more domestic than me) who looked at a daddy/baby romance cover and said, “What could be more sexy then a good looking man with a baby?”

And I was thinking, “A good looking man WITHOUT a baby.  Have you ever met a baby?  Do you know what comes out of them?” But I also thought, “Whatever floats your boat, honey.”

Because even though I’ve got the husband/dog/2 kids lifestyle, she has a totally different idea of a happy ending than I do.  And I read and write romance, all the time.  I just don’t usually read the ones that require a husband and kids.  I like heroines who have jobs, other than reproducing. There are plenty of romances out there for me.

I’ll admit to writing heroines who are obsessed with husbands and fertility, but the rules for a happy life were different, several hundred years ago.  My heroines get a HEA appropriate for their time.

But if any of those stories made someone throw over her PhD in astrophysics because I told her she should marry a duke and have some babies?

Well, sorry.  My bad.  But it’s the 21st century.  You should really work on your self esteem a little, if a couple of paperbacks can make you change the course of your entire life and roll back the clock to 1950, when there were fewer options for women.

We need to give all waves of feminism credit for the fact that we have much better life choices available than our grandmothers had.

But I cannot buy the idea that if we read books that we enjoy reading, it is a symbol of our opression by the patriarchy.  How dumb would we have to be as a gender, not to be able to recognize our own personal happiness, when we feel it?  Why do we have to measure it against what other people want us to have?

Of course, all this time, I’ve been reading these books because of the sex, and letting the housework go to hell. Because I like books with sex.

I guess the shut-up-and-clean-the-kitchen message has not been getting through to me.

-E said:

“What I don’t like about Romance novels is that, one way or another, the message is “The best thing a woman can achieve in life is a husband and babies.”

I don’t believe ALL of them say this.  I like my books that have kids and bliss, but I also like the ones where the woman is satisfied with her career. 

I also believe that being a Mom is one of the very most important/fulfilling/damn frustrating things a woman can do.  Face it, when we die and they’re carving a headstone, they aren’t going to put ‘one hell of an editor’, “One Smart Bitch”, “damn fine lawyer” etc.  They will put Beloved Wife/Mother/Daughter (or other connection).  So, if those are the truly important things then, why shouldn’t they be the important things in our books?

Sam

Damn it, I was going to say blah, blah, blah, but someone beat me to it.

So I say: I am oppressed. I am oppressor. I am WOMAN!

And women are not spineless, idiotic emotional pillows who can’t tell reality from fiction.

People who use novels that celebrate love, commitment, good sex as a whipping boy to imply otherwise just make me tired.

Actually, I do think that putting “She was a writer” on my tombstone would be very nice indeed. Because it’s saying something distinctive about me.

As for the beloved mother bit, I’m waiting for my kid to write a tell-all biography excoriating me for my inevitable lacks as same.

“She was a writer” sounds good.

I’m still giggling over Candy’s ‘magic hoo hoo’ comment of a couple of days ago.

Frankly, variety is the spice of life. Hearing that the books I enjoy reading and writing are someow subjugating me… I think not.

Someone brought up the tail wagging the dog syndrome. I agree completely. Doesn’t work for me, either.

My children play violent video games, but you know what? Not one of them have ever beat the crap out of someone afterwards.

I’m divorced and remarried, but not because of a romance novel.

Frankly, I like hetero sex. If only I had a magic hoo hoo!

As for that “primitive desire to be arrogantly bullied” - sure, that might be part of it.  I would argue that some women have it, some don’t; also, that some men have it, some don’t. 

I see no reason why anyone should have to apologise for feeling that desire, nor should they apologise for reading fiction that gratifies it. 

After all, fiction is different from reality, as the romance author points out.  What I want in my fantasy life is frequently totally different from what I want in reality.

//Of course, all this time, I’ve been reading these books because of the sex, and letting the housework go to hell. Because I like books with sex.//

Yes!

I do think the romance genre is intended to be a tool of oppression. The message that happiness (and happily ever after) is found in true love doesn’t do a damn thing to empower women, and seems to me, does quite a lot to distract us from other stuff that could be bringing us a whole lot of happiness and power.

What I enjoy so much about SBTB is that this group is snarky, irreverant, and doesn’t completely buy into the message the books are delivering. We take from them what we want. At least I’d like to think that’s what’s happening.  We’re subverting the powerful by using the tools of oppression to our own ends, as SB Sarah says, “wank[ing] off to whatever fantasy [we] want.”

The detractor was too lazy to read up on CURRENT romance norms.  Lazy writers don’t get to speak to me, thanks.

Do your homework if you want my attention.

aurianrose - I am just the same. Whenever I read excerpts, even from the mostgawdawful sounding books, I always want to read them.

I wonder if I am a total anomaly. I love romances and most of them don’t reflect my actual values in the slightest bit.  My husband is so far from Alpha he proudly proclaims his Epsilon status. I have one kid by choice and many days I wouldn’t mind having fewer. :-\ Politically I am about as left as you can get. Very little in romance reflects me or my life and I don’t care, I just love them. So sue me.

~I do think the romance genre is intended to be a tool of oppression~

I’ve been writing it for a long time and never intended that. I do believe in the power of love, and that it can bring great happiness--and doesn’t have to subvert other avenues of happiness or empowerment for women (or men).

I don’t believe that everyone who reads or writes in the genre--and enjoys it--has to feel exactly as I do. Or write or read Romance for the same reasons I do.

But I can’t agree the message that happiness can be found through love is oppressive--or a distraction.

Which is why the criticism seems so often to be about Harlequin, the slow-moving behemoth that makes such an easy target.

And yet, I’ve read some REALLY provocative Harlequins.  Lately, in fact, I’ve been gravitating toward category books because of the pleasant surprises I’ve found therein.  Just the difference between the latest Jessica Bird category and the J.R. Ward series is almost baffling to me, especially since I found her category so much more progressive.  And I’m STILL trying to figure out what I think about Charlotte Lamb’s vintage Vampire Lover.  Talk about pushing boundaries.

If women need to turn to romance to assure them that it’s OK for them to enjoy domesticity, then I say “Go romance.” Because if that is seriously what they want to do, they deserve some affirmation for it. It’s a hard job.

I think we tend to forget that “domestication” isn’t so narrow as to refer to women being SAHMs, but is rather about “taming” (i.e. domesticated animals) or about cultivation, both natural and social.  And I definitely think that Romance is about envisioning an ideal society, with the family (in whatever form that is created within the story) as the social microcosm.  Which goes back to that broader notion of domestication as the bringing of something natural, and perhaps potentially uncontrollable, into society as manageable and productive.  Like the way the indiscriminate passions of the rake become tamed and focused on the one woman with whom he can experience a “better” passion because it’s circumscribed by romantic love and socially sanctioned commitment (via marriage and children).

Thus you have the stories about the couple who buck what we see as reactionary or regressive social customs, through, say, marrying between classes or races or within genders or marrying for love rather than money.  And you have stories about the woman who longs to have children but can’t and who finally experiences fecundity with her perfect “mate,” as if in blessing of the wisdom of their union and promoting its reproduction (literally and metaphorically) through generations.  And you have the stories about love being a healing force (the traumatized hero or heroine) or a taming force (the reformed rake) or a liberating force (often in terms of the heroine being freed from a dictatorial and/or abusive) family.

None of these scenarios or any other in Romance is *inherently* good or bad, IMO.  Although they do reflect (and IMO sometimes validate) specific cultural values, some of which change over time.  Mostly, I think the genre is trying to work out a whole bunch of stuff on its way to imagining the “perfect” society, and that what binds the books ideologically into a genre is that the foundation of that idealized social structure is Love, even though different books provide various takes on the particulars of what the ideal looks like, whether it’s m/f + or - children, m/m + or - children, f/f + or - children, m/m/f, m/f/f/, etc.

“The message that happiness (and happily ever after) is found in true love doesn’t do a damn thing to empower women, and seems to me, does quite a lot to distract us from other stuff that could be bringing us a whole lot of happiness and power.”

What other stuff?

And E, you mentioned getting knocked up instead of exploring Mars.

Since when have we had to choose between love, marriage, sex, babies OR
a career?

Hell, Madame Curie managed to have a husband, two kids and later, a possible affair with a younger, married man.  Maybe she’d have gotten more done without all the mushy, ‘love and marriage’ stuff.

Of course, she worked with her husband, and I think, her lover, and one of her daughters also won a Nobel Prize (no pressure in that family).

So, what, exactly, is it, about romantic love, that is preventing us from being all that we can be?

Random ramblings:

I guess what irritates the crap out of me personally is the assumption that what makes Bindel--or whomever--happy/realized as a person/fill in the blank, should make me, in turn happy/realized/etc.

What if what makes me feel perfectly content is to be cosseted and protected and pampered and spoiled? Does that negate the next woman’s right to be the one doing the pampering, protecting, spoiling, whatever? or that of a third woman to do neither? Call me whatever but I don’t see the logic in that.

Wasn’t the whole point of feminism to give women choices???? Choices, plural.

Then again, there’s the whole “blame the patriarchy” crap. Perhaps it’s because I read less category and less variety that most of the bitchery, but the way I see it, most of my romances focus on the domestication of the hero at least as much as on that of the heroine. If she’s expected to “sacrifice her independence” or what not when they get engaged/marry/have kids/whatever floats your boat, then by golly he’s expected to adjust to the new situation.

From where I sit, there ain’t no happy ending if there’s no give and take from both.

Furthermore, the assumption that women by and large are weak enough to be influenced by the fiction they read to the point of “not only to submit to our oppressors, but to love and sexually desire them at the same time” is offensive beyond words.

There’s more I want to say, because the more I think about this the more indignant I get, but I’ll have to calm down a bit to be able to make any sense whatsoever.

For the love of the Arrogant Sheik’s Stolen Mistress’ Baby, why can’t pleasure just be pleasure and fantasy just be fantasy?

People who play video games are outcasts and violent miscreants who are just waiting for the chance to kill someone.  (I’m just waiting for it to be revealed that the young man who committed the Omaha mall shootings played Halo or Gears of War or something.)

People who read fantasy or play D&D are social misfits who live in their mother’s basements and dream of buxom elf babes because they have no hope of touching a real, live woman.

People who read romance novels are barely literate housewives who hate their lives or desperate spinsters who want nothing more than to be raped by a big, strong man.

Can you feel the shock wave that follows my head exploding?  I read fantasy and romance novels, I play video games and D&D, but I am none of those things.  It’s about having fun, not filling the terrible void in my soul.

Face it, when we die and they’re carving a headstone, they aren’t going to put ‘one hell of an editor’, “One Smart Bitch”, “damn fine lawyer” etc.  They will put Beloved Wife/Mother/Daughter (or other connection).  So, if those are the truly important things then, why shouldn’t they be the important things in our books?

For the most part, those epitaphs are written by those left behind.  The Husband/Child/Parent in question.  They become a reflection of what the person ordering it saw as the most important facet of the deceased’s life, which is usually the link the dead had with the survivor.  If we wrote our own, they might be different, like Poison Ivy’s “She was a writer” above.  Personally I’d like “Lived Life to the Fullest.”

See?  This is why I so love the Bitchery!  We go from romance novels to feminists to giant pink headstones.

“able71” - yeah, I hope I’ll still be able to at 71!

OH BARF-O-RAMA!

Some time ago I read a whole boatload of research on romance.  Here is the main thing that surprised me but the more I think of it the more right it seems:  Men do not “win” in a romance novel.  Women and the women’s view of looking at things wins!  The man is “tamed” to love.  Conquered by love.  Yes, possibly even enslaved by love.

Get a grip, Guardian.  Romance is even possibly (gulp) FEMINIST!

Help!  Help!

I’m being oppressed!

Thanks.  There is a now a shower of diet root beer all over my keyboard.

Bindel is pretty much known in the UK for being crazier than a box of frogs. You want an extreme feminist view (with the emphasis on the extreme) you wheel her on.
She quotes blurbs from M and B/Harlequin books that are 20 years old, she admits to not reading them and yet she’s an ‘expert’?
Actually my response to the article is “yeah, whatever.” Daisy did a great job, but really Bindel doesn’t deserve this kind of attention

I’ve always wanted my headstone to say “She couldn’t eat just one...”

‘nuff said

You’re welcome. :-D

The best part about the whole thing was the Bindel’s argument was built on book blurbs and 40+ year old quotes. Oh, I chuckled and I chortled.

I found the positive defence only marginally better—seemed to be all fluff and pretty flowers.

Poor ol’ Harlequin. You’d never know that they had different lines which did not involve very very tanned sheikhs and “swarthy” Greek tycoons.

I spent several hours being oppressed by Nora Roberts and J. D. Robb in the past few weeks. Enjoyed myself a lot (and avoided harming monkeys).  Anyway, LaNora and my other favorite authors can oppress me any ole time they want.

My husband is very stubborn and determined to have his own way.  Since he is (literally) a genius, most of his decisions are good, so going along with them is just common sense.  When he does make a bad judgment, we have a fight and then I win, because he’s wrong for once.

I told him that romance novels are all a giant plot to make me a submissive wife.  He wants to be the first one to know when it starts working.  (Married 30 years in a couple of weeks, been reading romance for 40 years.)

E, you said:
“Maybe it’s so darn popular because so many women are glad to get confirmation that it’s okay for them to enjoy domesticity.”

Yes. Romance novels are about the only place I get validation for my choices in life.

I consider myself a feminist, because I don’t feel inferior or subordinate to men simply because of my gender. But the feminism I subscribe to is about choice - I made the choice to be a wife and homemaker. I made the choice to stay home with my child. I make the choice to indulge in a submissive sexuality, and I like reading books to which I can relate.

I can’t relate to people telling me I’m sexist and trapped and subjugated by my husband. I can’t relate to people who nitpick about romance novels but seem to completely overlook Bratz dolls and misinformation about fertility and all sorts of other things that are far more threatening to women as a whole, as a gender, than the choices of some of us to take on a traditional role that suits us, or to enjoy fiction about that role.

Articles like this miss the point completely. Feminism can’t be undone by fiction. It can be undone by the continued insistence of certain feminists who think men are and will always be enemies and oppressors and insist that those of us who love men, and love our lives, are just fooling ourselves.

I’m going to be very lazy and largely copy and paste the comments I made on the same topic on a different site (http://rapeandadverbs.blogspot.com/)

There is no doubt that some of the action and attitudes (certainly in the Presents line - which is the most popular line) are genuinely hopelessly out of date. (I mean, this whole concept of ‘mistresses’ that they use all the time: no-one these days thinks of a woman who is having a sexual relationship with a man as his ‘mistress’ - even if he is a billionaire and she’s a shop assistant. It’s absurd).

But for Bindel to label these books as misogynistic hate speech is ridiculous. And for her to suggest that the readers of these books regard them as accurately representing the proper world order is positively insulting.

I know that I buy (not many - perhaps 3 or 4 a year) M&Bs. I know (via blogging, not real life *grin*) that lots of intelligent professional women buy them. And I know that we all read these books with a particular mind-set: the same mind-set that I have if I watch an over-the-top soap opera. I don’t subscribe to the world-view (for want of a better term) put forward in them. I just read them for cheap, disposable entertainment.

I can’t say that I am a typical M&B reader. I honestly don’t know whether I am or not. But nor do I assume that everyone else is too lame-brained to make the same nice distinctions that I do.

One more thing....this Bindel chick has no clue As to what REAL hate in the world is today if she thinks that romance novels are hateful and oppressive. Hard for me to worry about what damage a romance novel is doing when there’s a war going on.

Good god...get a real problem, woman.

“The Boardroom Sheik’s Remodeled Kitchen With a Virgin on the Corian Counter?”

*snort*

Thank you Sarah! You made my day.

Colleen, off to research how bloody damn cold a corian countertop would be on a virgin’s virginal ass.

// You go, Amelia Peabody.//

Hell yeah.
They’re mostly loving, but a lot of them have a healthy dose of sarcastic bitch, and I love them).

And Vicky Bliss too!

Oh yay...other people who love Mertz/Peters/Michaels. She’s my all-time favorite.

SPAM Blocker=getting45. Oh no I’m not!

What robin, --E and MplsGirl said :)

I don’t think Bindle is as mad as a hatter. She writes challenging and provocative articles for the Guardian, advocates powerfully for the legal rights of women and generally pisses off a lot of people by saying what she thinks. Sounds like a smart bitch to me.

Here’s her profile on The Guardian: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/julie_bindel/profile.html

I don’t agree with what she wrote, but I think Mills & Boon in particular lends itself to this kind of critique in the way it brands itself. You can’t peddle books like “The sheikh’s captive wife” or “Virgin Slave, Barbarian King” and then express outrage when unflattering conclusions are drawn.

Now, of course, Brindle should have done her homework and based her arguments on recent releases, she should have toned her fiery language down (that’s not her style, though), but perhaps having read a few blurbs -

“Rashad was blackmailing her by insisting she pay up ... as his concubine!”

“As far as he’s concerned Ellie’s a little firecracker who needs to be tamed. “

- she felt she didn’t need to.

It’s all very well *saying* Mills and Boon/ Harlequin have moved on, why don’t they show it?

See, for me it’s not about whether M&B/Harlequin/name your publisher “has moved on” or not--I take offense to the assumption that women as a whole are meek little mindless sheep who are effectively oppressed by the patriarchy through the romance genre.

Women are oppressed, no doubt about it, all around the world--and without the benefit of a genre fiction subliminal campaign.

As far as advocating legal rights for women… I would feel better if more emphasis was made on the freedom of each individual person to choose whatever makes him/her happy--as opposed to having someone else decide what should make me happy. (In other words, what Baconsmom said above--thank you for articulating it so well)

Fiction has the power to undo or empower any movement--social or political--including feminism. Writing is a powerful thing and shouldn’t be underestimated. (It shouldn’t be banned, either.)

I don’t agree with Bindel and the stereotypes that she slathers on romance novels and readers, but I am thankful that the Guardian ran this article because it’s making us all think about women and oppression and feminism--even if it’s pissing the heck out of some.

IMO, awareness and knowledge at the keys to empowering women and it’s really easy to slip into our daily lives and not think about it. When that happens, the insidious acts of oppression can occur.

Some of the books written in the romance genre do perpetuate the stereotypes of cultural roles for women. I do not believe that we live in a highly educated world, and without a healthy does of skepticism (or bitchiness) it can be really easy to fall in to the trap of mindlessly conforming to the stereotype. It’s one thing to choose a traditional path and quite another to follow it without making a conscious choice.

It’s important that we have awareness--knowledge and education are the keys to empowerment and choice.

Ms. Roberts, I don’t believe it’s the writers who intend the romance genre to be a tool of oppression. I think it’s that mysterious “they” to whom we always attribute things (they control us, they oppress us, whomever “they” are) who intend that. I would say it’s a tool of the patriarchy, except I don’t know who the patriarchy is, either. And that just sounds so . . . pretentious.

I want to clarify. I think that romance as a genre is INTENDED as a tool of oppression, but I don’t think it SUCCEEDS as one.

Yeah, I’m overthinking this. The girls on my block and I (a group of 5 moms with toddlers to kindergarten-aged kids) talk about this sort of thing a lot. We need something to talk about while the kids are playing together. . .

Baconsmom said: “I made the choice to be a wife and homemaker. I made the choice to stay home with my child.” Me too and I get so sick of people that tell me WHY I made that choice~I’m oppressed, the patriarchal society made me do it, etc etc etc.  Nope. I did it because it was the right choice for ME and MY family. Maybe not someone else’s and that’s okay. Isn’t that what the feminist movement was all about~having the choice to do what you wanted with your life?  Why does it now mean that the only way you can be fulfilled is to work outside the home?

What I don’t understand is why do people imply that someone who works a job outside the home that completely fulfills her is doing what she should with her life, but because I chose to stay home then I’m some sad sack, oppressed woman who just didn’t understand that she’d be much happier working outside the home. *snort* No thanks. I LOVE what I do and don’t feel unfulfilled thankyouverymuch.

And if my husband tried to rule me? bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha he could try, but *snorts again* he knows not to bother. *wink*

~Ms. Roberts, I don’t believe it’s the writers who intend the romance genre to be a tool of oppression. I think it’s that mysterious “they” to whom we always attribute things (they control us, they oppress us, whomever “they” are) who intend that. I would say it’s a tool of the patriarchy, except I don’t know who the patriarchy is, either. And that just sounds so . . . pretentious. ~

I don’t understand any of this. Just don’t. We who write the books don’t intend for them to be a tool of oppression, but the mysterious ‘they’ do. The they who can’t be identified.

The publishers? I know many publishers, and none I do know think about oppressing readers. Editors? Same goes.

I sit at my keyboard and write the books--as do many others in the genre. Yes, these books go through an editing and publishing process, a marketing process, but WE write them. I simply don’t see how you can say they’re intended as a tool of oppression (whether they succeed as such or not), but those who actually write them don’t do so with this intent.

I know what my intent is, every time I sit at the keyboard. It’s to tell a good, solid story to the best of my ability, and to tell a story which--at the core--spotlights love, emotions and the journey of two people toward each other.

I guess I’d like to know who they are who then takes that work with the intent of oppressing women.

Because if I believed this, I’d have to have a Come-to-Jesus talk with them. ASAP.

I don’t know who the patriarcy is either--because I had a father, four brothers. I have a husband, two sons and a grandson. You’d better believe none of them ever oppressed me. (Okay, maybe my Pop, but that was his job when I got out of line.)

I may not want to be The Billionaire Cowboy’s Secret Virgin Bride, but if I decide to read same, it sure as hell isn’t going to oppress me.

Ms. Roberts?
WORD!

And it’s oppresive to be “happy”? It’s opressive to read *fiction* about people being happy???

It’s opressive to think that two people being in a loving relationship, however it comes about, or ends up- is OPPRESIVE????

Color me totally clueless. Perhaps that’s what is so wrong with some people today- they are just too darned busy to think that “happy” has anything to do with them.

And just because I might read about vampires, pirates, or cowboys- doesn’t mean I *want* to be with one. That’s what *fiction* means. Going outside the realm of reality. If I want reality- I’ll take off my headphones right now and watch the news- thankyouverymuch!

( spamword- hospital91- may I never see one until.........)

Yanno, I wrote this whole brilliant response that has either been sunk by the mists of time of my Thursday-night post-pub-quiz-wine-intake or destroyed by the SBTB power thst be.  But the gist of it was this:

Bite me.  I’m 25.  Am I oppresed by M&B romances?  No.  Do I feel they undermine my feminist upbringing?  Oh Please.  Basically as a child of the nineties I’m espected to have half a dozen children who all play Beethoven sonatas and speak Mandarin by the age of 15 months, while I create cuisine-level meals for the whole family t breakfast.

Whereas, frankly?  I don’t have children, for which I’m grateful not just for their benefit but for mine (because my God, what a lot of work), but for their continued wellbeing (yes-dear-now-shut-up-mummy-wants-to-concentrate-on-her-Richard-Armitage-DVDs is, I fear, not a valid parenting technique).

I can barely bring up a pair of kittens, because I have no clue of how much of my 24 hours I’m supposed to devote to my career, my family, and myself.  24 hours of each seems to be the recommended average.

Romance novels?  Pah.  My History teacher told me true enough, I’d never be able to find a balance.  And you know what?  She was right.

So much to reply to… I’ll take this piecemeal in order, if that’s okay. Also, I want to thank everyone for being reasonable and civilized in this discussion. It’s a difficult topic for me, and I’m feeling a little leery of being jumped on.

Ginger said: Personally one thing I like about my favorite romance authors is that domestic life isn’t always the end goal, and that one way the Right Guy is identified is that he supports the woman’s career and kicks in his share of the housework.

-->I acknowledge that because the bulk of my exposure to the genre is with one publisher (who’s quite respected, and several of their authors are perennial favs here), I may well have a skewed perspective. Can you recommend a couple of books that have this sort of situation?  (Certainly that seems to jibe better with my reality. My male friends are all Good Guys.)

Poison Ivy said: I, too, have worried that people take fiction for gospel. But books are a reflection of our values; they do not determine them.

-->They can reinforce values, and thereby determine them (by eliminating options for change). See further discussion below.

Most people are the religion they are because it’s the religion in which they were raised. I submit that many (perhaps most) women who value domesticity, value it because it’s how they were raised. To my thinking, they never had a real choice, any more than an Episcopalian has a choice to be a Buddhist (or vice-versa). Sure, they could switch, but they’re not likely to. That’s 100% a matter of training and imprinting.

Like I said, being a wife and mother is a great gig for them who want it. But what gets up my nose is the number of young women who complain about the pressure they get from their mothers to hurry up and get married and have children. Or who agonize over how to snag a boy--any boy--when they’re teenagers. Where did they get those values?

(Don’t get me started on parents who buy their girls crap such as the Rose Petal Cottage, which offends me in ways I can’t even begin to describe. Where is the soft playset of a laboratory? No, the only option is the cooking-and-cleaning-in-Pinkville option.)

The “choice” is illusionary. There is no choice if the role-imprinting begins with baby’s first pink booties.

(And if you say that my choice to be a self-sufficient career woman is equally illusionary, the result of my upbringing, I would reply: Hell, yeah. And sometimes I get mad at my folks for encouraging me to swim upstream. That’s life.)

(See? Not saying anyone is weak or sheeplike. Just describing a situation as I see it.)

Christine Merrill said: If women need to turn to romance to assure them that it’s OK for them to enjoy domesticity, then I say “Go romance.” Because if that is seriously what they want to do, they deserve some affirmation for it. It’s a hard job.

-->Yes, it is a very hard job. No wonder half the population is happy to fob it off on the other half, eh? And then to undervalue it! That’s some trick.

But I’m torn. On the one hand, I do want people to have reassurance that they’ve made good, valuable choices in their lives. On the other hand, I don’t like reinforcing choices without critical evaluation of those choices. If one’s choice to be wife and mother really is right for her, then it will stand up to self-examination.

I repeat: I have nothing but tremendous respect for women who take the hard road of keeping house and raising kids (and working a cash-earning job as well, more often than not). I wish their job was valued more by our society.

But I don’t think you give women enough credit, if you’re implying that romantic brainwashing is the only reason someone would choose family over career.

-->That’s not what I said. My objection to most romance novels isn’t that the woman chooses family over career. It’s that Husband And Kids is set up as the best goal ever. Lots of romance heroines have jobs, but the books aren’t about how she can get the great job (sometimes that’s a subplot); they’re about how her HEA is brought about by having Husband And Kids.

Again, I’m not dissing people who read those books. I’m merely explaining why I don’t like these sort of books. Their value system does not interest or appeal to me.

We need to give all waves of feminism credit for the fact that we have much better life choices available than our grandmothers had.

-->Absolutely. But I don’t think we should get so self-congratulatory that we think the issues are all ironed out and the conflict is over. There’s still racial bias and hatred in the USA, but actual lynchings are rare. When rapes and domestic violence are similarly rare, then maybe I’ll relax a bit.

(NOTE: the above paragraph should NOT be read as an accusation that romance novels cause violence towards women. That is crap. I am merely pointing out that just because women theoretically have more choices in our society, it doesn’t mean that women are in fact valued or viewed equally with men.)

SamG said: I like my books that have kids and bliss, but I also like the ones where the woman is satisfied with her career.

-->I would love to read some of these. Please recommend some?

So, if [wife/mother/daughterhood] are the truly important things then, why shouldn’t they be the important things in our books?

-->My problem is the lack of variety in this one megalithic-and-growing genre that purports to be the genre for women. As a woman who doesn’t subscribe to that value set, I feel extremely marginalized. I get really sick and tired of societal undercurrents that say I have no right to exist.

This is why I gravitate to Science Fiction and Fantasy. (Sure, there’s sexism and all kinds of badness there, too. But at least I can find some books that don’t make me feel like I’m weird or miswired.)

Christine Merrill said: Hell, Madame Curie managed to have a husband, two kids and later, a possible affair with a younger, married man.  Maybe she’d have gotten more done without all the mushy, ‘love and marriage’ stuff.

-->Maybe she would have! Or maybe you would have more than one woman to list as an example.

Exceptions happen. I want successful, world-famous women to be unexceptional. How many world-class artists and scientists and statesmen has the world lost because they were discouraged in those pursuits?

So, what, exactly, is it, about romantic love, that is preventing us from being all that we can be?

-->A woman who is raised to believe that romantic love is the be-all and end-all is not a woman who’s likely to spend her energetic youth in pursuit of discovery, invention, or artistic achievement. Further, as long as we have a cultural more that says romantic love is the be-all and end-all, then women who do pursue other things will continue to be devalued for those pursuits.

Again, I support and value women who take the domestic route. You go right on raising well-adjusted, contributing members of society, and I will cheer you long and loud.

“Rashad was blackmailing her by insisting she pay up ... as his concubine!”

“As far as he’s concerned Ellie’s a little firecracker who needs to be tamed. “

I think I’m a good little feminist, but please, can’t we have a fun set up for sex once in a while?

Word Verif: must52.  See what I mean?

The “choice” is illusionary. There is no choice if the role-imprinting begins with baby’s first pink booties.

-->Yes, it is a very hard job. No wonder half the population is happy to fob it off on the other half, eh? And then to undervalue it! That’s some trick.

Yes!

And although I am a happy camper career wise, I still found this article in my paper today: http://education.guardian.co.uk/gendergap/story/0,,2222774,00.html
I don’t want to be comfortable and unquestioning. Discrimination isn’t something that happens “in many places,’ it happens where I work, when the higher you get in the organization, the more men you see.

~I don’t know who the patriarcy is either--because I had a father, four brothers. I have a husband, two sons and a grandson. You’d better believe none of them ever oppressed me.~

Well, I nicked it from wikipedia, but here’s a definition:

“Patriarchy describes the structuring of society on the basis of family units, in which fathers have primary responsibility for the welfare of these units. In some cultures slaves were included as part of such households. The concept of patriarchy is often used, by extension, to refer to the expectation that men take primary responsibility for the welfare of the community as a whole, acting as representatives via public office (in anthropology and feminism, for example).”

(emphasis my own)

Of course, it is worth pointing out that women *and* men are not free under patriarchy. Men have their own burdens of societal expectations they may wish to eschew.

Also - “ Decades of legislation and affirmative action have not yet changed the fact that western culture is male dominated, and that it remains patriarchal.... heads of state, cabinet ministers and the top executives of major companies are still mostly men. Also, women’s average income is still significantly lower than men’s average income. “

So, does romantic fiction - and more particularly the Mill&Boon Bindle was ragging - reflect this?

Who are “they”? Wish I knew so you could go have a Come-To-Jesus talk with them. :) You’d surely give ‘em hell.

--E, I’m in aggreement with your values discussion, especially; thanks for putting it so well.

And what you said about wanting world-class achieving women being the exception is exactly why Amelia Peabody (which I enjoy) is accepted in her society. She’s an exception with the illusion of having a man (her husband) who can/will control her. Even if she’s not really controlled by him, those on the outside will believe that she is and that makes the rest of her behavior tolerable. That, and she’s in Egypt. She’s a outsider in another culture and her behavior can be written off as non-threatening to the traditional role of women in that community.

Fair enough, Sherry!