Welcome to Wednesday Links! Hope you’re all having a lovely week and, if not, maybe these links will help!
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Professor Eleanor Ty at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario studied the importance of Outlander and the romance genre:
What fascinates Ty about the series is the juxtaposition between the 18th-century era and a “modern” female heroine.
“The costumes and scenery evoke a period where men were masculine and strong and women were delicate,” says Ty. “However, as a 20th-century woman enters this world, she has this amazing skillset as a nurse that demonstrates an intelligence and cleverness uncommon at that time.”
Ty says that the attraction to the romance genre for women is not that they want to become the heroine, but that it is one of the only forms of media centred upon the female perspective.
Ty works in the Department of English and Film Studies and I, for one, would love to take a class with her.
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Thanks to Reader Stephanie for sending in this link! Our World in Data has a pretty neat chart, showing how what men and women want in a marriage has changed since 1939:
The big winner is ‘mutual attraction – love’ which now ranks as the most important aspect for both women and men. But also ‘Education, intelligence’ and ‘Sociability’ rose in importance. The relative losers are ‘Good Health’ and at the very bottom ‘Chastity’.
Though the data only goes to 2008, it warms my heart to know that “mutual attraction & love” is at the top of the list for both men and women.
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I’m a huge football fan, especially when it comes to the Patriots, and this story gave me all the warm and fuzzies. Malcom Mitchell was just drafted to the team, but he still keeps up with his book club back in Georgia:
“Somebody asked me recently, ‘Aren’t you in Malcolm Mitchell’s book club?’’’ Danna Whaley said. “I said, ‘No, Malcolm Mitchell is in our book club!’’’
You’ll get no argument from Mitchell.
“The book club helped me grow into a better individual, a person who learns and grows throughout life in general,” he said.
Behold the power of book clubs!
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It’s no secret that romances that incorporate aspects of horse racing, riding, or general care are much-loved at SBTB HQ. But recently, author Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire Chronicles has gotten a cover update, which has stirred up some feelings:
Now, the United Kingdom is astir once again, as the cover has dropped for Cooper’s latest addition to the series, Mount! (Heh.) There’s no groping hand, sure, but it’s hard to look at a pair of very shiny boots and a riding crop and not jump to some conclusions.
What do you think about the covers? Have you read the series?
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Don’t forget to share what super cool things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
I am a Georgia Bulldog (Go Dawgs!) and I wish Malcolm Mitchell all the best in the NFL. I love that story!
Just priced Mount on Amazon and yikes, the price, but it may be my vacation indulgence this year. Riders was much passed around at the farm where I boarded my horse when the book first came out. If you’re around horse competition, you’ve seen a little bit of Jilly Cooper’s characters out there.
The new covers are titillating and I’m sure Rupert read FSOG since we last saw him….
Maybe it’s the screen resolution, but that’s quite a… pommel… on the Mount cover model.
“…demonstrates an intelligence and cleverness uncommon at that time.”
I really love Outlander and romance and the genre as a big, beautiful, throbbing whole (*ahem*, that went more salacious than I intended!). That quote really, really grinds my gears. I feel very upset at the characterization of our foremothers as somehow less intelligent or clever than more modern women because their choices and lifestyles were different. I have seen this time and again, even within the romance world, that femininity is denigrated as somehow inferior to more traditionally masculine roles or actions. Why is that? Why does a woman have to be masculine to be considered intelligent or able or valuable? Why is the fact that most women ran households as mothers considerd to be less important than men who worked outside the home? Aren’t they both worthwhile?
I would really like to see femininity in women celebrated more. I feel like there is a perception now that it is weak. Maybe it is because we as a culture in the western world so highly esteem business and money and the achievements therein, which require a pretty masculine, directed sort of energy. Of course women can excel and thrive in business (or whatever else we all want to do), I personally would just like to see more diversity in the means to that end. Femininity accomplishes differently than masculinity; it tends to be more collaborative and less forceful or direct. Isn’t there room for all of it?
I apologize for any rantiness. This is a subject that I really feel passionate about in my own life and relationships. When I read things in books about how the heroine thinks something like needlework is pointless and a sign of repression, it makes me sad. Yes, not every women would’ve enjoyed it (when is there ever a consensus in anything, any time?), but to make out what is a traditionally female craft that takes tremendous time and skill into something insignificant is an insult to those women. Would we say the same things if she was doing something more traditionally masculine like carpentry?
I really like the polarity and differences between the masculine and feminine (which I believe exists in all relationships, regardless of gender or sexual orientation). I feel there is value and joy in both energies and they can be embodied in both men and women and have a fluidity even within the person. Different occasions can call for different roles.
If anyone is interested in this subject, David Reid’s has done some great work. *end rant*
*David Deida
I have fond memories of reading Jilly Cooper while living overseas in a place where books in English were hard to come by – her books were widely shared if someone got their hands on a copy! I don’t remember any of the plot (or even which books I read), but my lasting impression is of bubbly, frothy books that I couldn’t put down until I had reached the last page.
@ Mary Star: Yes!
For those who like goofy Shakespeare fun, there’s the choose-your-own-adventure book ROMEO AND/OR JULIET by Ryan North. Here’s the Amazon description: “In this choose-your-own-path version of Romeo and Juliet, you choose where the story goes every time you read! What if Romeo never met Juliet? What if Juliet got really buff instead of moping around the castle all day? What if they teamed up to take over Verona with robot suits? Whatever your adventure, you’re guaranteed to find lots of romance, lots of epic fight scenes, and plenty of questionable decision-making by very emotional teens… You can choose to play as Romeo or Juliet (obviously) but you can also play as both of them, or as Juliet’s nurse, or, if you’re good, you can even unlock a fourth playable character! That’s right. We figured out how to have unlockable characters in books. Choose well, and you may even get to write the world’s most awkward choose-your-own sex scene.”
Thanks, @Caspian!
Jilly Cooper is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. Lots of horse-related goings on, including polo … I remember one where a young woman, daughter of the hero of another book, is an avid polo player and, in one match, has some teeth knocked out. And keeps playing.
And as to Mary Star’s comments, about traditionally feminine craft/art – someone once pointed out that a lot of them involve stabbing something with a sharp object over and over.
@Mary Star – I screeched to a halt at that quote too! I’m hoping she meant it showed those qualities in a way people weren’t used to from women back then and couldn’t deny, or something like that. It’s true that someone going back to that time with knowledge of something with as many recent developments as modern medicine would probably appear ‘smarter’ than others, even professional doctors.
Women haven’t magically gotten more intelligent or clever over the last couple centuries – we just have slowly forced society to (mostly!) recognize the intelligence and cleverness that we’ve always had.
@lijakaca, that’s a really good point about the dichotomy between someone with more knowledge from the future being judged against people from the past.
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