I’ve been thinking a lot about the role romance novels play for its readers and authors ever since reading Teresa Medeiros’ inspiring and heart-wrenching post about why she writes romance novels. If you’ve been buried underneath some sort of Internet rock and haven’t read it yet, go have a look-see. That piece does more to allay doubts about the power of popular fiction to make a substantial, beautiful difference in people’s lives than anything I’ve read in recent memory.
A few things Medeiros wrote caught my eye, however, and started my brain spinning in all sorts of loops. Forgive me if this is somewhat incoherent; it’s still a thought-in-progress in many ways, and I’m hoping to have a conversation with you guys about it.
This is the first bit of the post that really snagged at my brain:
. . . “What the romance novel is really all about is the archetypal human struggle of integrating the masculine and feminine aspects of our psyches.”
My first reaction, which was really strong and immediate, was “Hell no it’s not.” Then I had to stop and ponder a) why my reaction was so strong, and b) whether I had any reasoned basis for that disagreement, rather than just a strong personal squick over the idea of masculine and feminine aspects to psyches, much less the idea that they need integration (more on that below). I agree that romance novels, more explicitly than many other genres, grapple with gender roles, gender identity and cultural expectations of gender. I don’t know that I’m convinced that they’re about integrating both aspects of our psyches. Some romances make an attempt, and a few succeed, but the vast majority of romances seem more comfortable enforcing gender norms as they are within the author’s cultural context. If romance novels truly were about integrating masculine and feminine aspects of our psyches, I’d expect them to be, I don’t know, more queer than they are—and they by and large aren’t. They’re incredibly heterosexual and heteronormative, and most gender stereotypes are adhered to quite faithfully; if there’s any kind of integration to be seen, it’s in the portrayal of the emotional growth and increased emotional vulnerability in heroes, and I think that can be largely explained by the fact these books portray female fantasies, and most women-who-like-men want their fantasy men to be dangerous yet nurturing and protective. And even then, the nurturing tends to occur in ways that are acceptable within the bounds of masculinity—and I’m talking about masculinity as defined by female fantasy, not necessarily masculinity defined by male fantasy. So, in romance novels, acceptable, masculine behavior for heroes that’s normally associated with the feminine include nursing a heroine through an illness, or confessing his emotional vulnerability, or being gentle and loving with animals and children. Other types of feminine behavior or traits outside the masculine, heteronormative norm are either seen as:
1. Transgressive and therefore villainized (homosexuality, bisexuality and general gender queerness used to be one of the most reliable earmarks, though that has changed somewhat in recent years. There are cross-dressing heroes and heroines, which is potentially queering, but they do it out of necessity and for purposes of disguise; there are not, to my knowledge, heroes or heroines who are true transvestites; anyone transgendered for a hero/heroine is still pretty much right out);
2. Signs of effeminacy, emasculation or mental illness and often portrayed comedically (slim physiques; preoccupation with fashion; dislike of violence or physical confrontation); or
3. Emasculating and therefore not portrayed very often at all (heroes who give up their successful careers to be with the heroine; stay-at-home dads). One big exception: if the hero’s job is one that substantially endangers his life, such as being an assassin, it’s perfectly acceptable for him to give up the job for love of the heroine, but then there’s usually the understanding that his super-secret Swiss bank account is every bit as turgid as his Staff of Pleasure and Wonderment. Or if the job is dangerous but either socially acceptable or not outside the law (he’s a Bow Street Runner, for example), he switches to a desk job, and it’s usually a sign of promotion.
These are generalizations—and not only that, they’re based on the sample of romance novels that I’ve read and can remember; I’m sure exceptions can be found to the rules. Nonetheless, these seem to be the patterns I’ve noticed in romance novels. More than the integration, I notice the gender separations in romance novels along fairly traditional masculine and feminine lines; I have yet to run across a genderqueer protagonist, for example, nor do I expect to any time soon. But gender presentation is tremendously important in romance novels, because gender presentation is culturally important. For example, Lynn Viehl has, in the past, ladled vitriol and contempt on “sheroes” (which I responded to with an entry entitled “In Defense of Girly Men”), and she is far from alone; I’ve seen similar expressions of contempt on blogs and forums for as long as I’ve been a part of the on-line romance community.
And to give you another idea of how important traditional gender presentation is: this year, the RWA National Conference featured not one, but two workshops on how to accurately portray men and women. One, called “He Said, She said: Doing the Other Sex and Doing Them Well” focused on “how to write the opposite sex, how to write them real, and how to leave readers wanting more”; the other was entitled “Body Language: Writing Compelling Characters of Both Sexes,” and it “examines the real differences between men and women and how writers can ensure their characters are true to their gender.” (Credit to Rose Fox for pointing out the fact that there were two workshops exploring gender differences—presumably among heterosexual specimens.)
This men from Mars, women from Venus outlook is just plain weird to me, because people are people. When I read my favorite authors, I don’t think “Wow, she certainly created a convincing masculine male in this one.” I think “She created a convincing character, with believable motivations, strengths and weaknesses.” Cultural expectations within the fictional world inform the behavior and gender presentation of hero and heroine, and if they openly transgress these boundaries, I expect to read about at least a little bit of fallout. But the cultural expectations of the author at the time she writes the book are what matter most (and I’m not only talking about culture-at-large and society-at-large, but about the microculture of romance novels and the romance community in particular, too). The hero and heroine won’t violate the author’s cultural expectations—and it doesn’t even necessarily matter whether the author subscribes to those expectations herself. If the author’s cultural expectations dictate that women deserving of a happy ending must be sexually pure, then the heroines are going to be virgins; if they’re not virgins, then they’re punished with either miserable or unfulfilling sex lives, or they’re not virgins because they’ve been sexually abused, and true fulfillment and happiness can be bestowed only by the hero’s magic wang. If the author’s cultural expectations dictate that women want to be mothers, or that abortion is in no case acceptable, then you’ll have heroines who have babies under the most improbable circumstances, or who think of abortion with disgust, and you’ll see women who do have abortions villainized. (Seriously, it’s even more heinous than having a good manicure and being vain. Women who have abortions in romance novels are Instant Evil, the way homosexuality used to be Instant Evil.)
Ultimately, I’m not sure that there’s a masculine or feminine aspect to our psyches. I’m not sure I subscribe to the ideas that psyches can be gendered in any kind of essentialist way. Gender and gender presentation (as distinct from biological sex, usually connoted with the terms “male” and “female” vs. “masculine” and “feminine”) aren’t just highly dependent on culture and cultural trappings, but on the individual, and where his or her particular gender boundaries are—and those boundaries can be fluid, changing with age and circumstance.
Another bit that Medeiros wrote sparked a train of rumination:
Probably the most subversive thing we dare to do is to make the woman the hero of her own story. And to realize exactly how subversive that is, I want each of you to honestly ask yourselves if the marvelous J.K. Rowling would have been such an international success if her first book had been titled, HARRIET POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE.
I think she’s absolutely right in this regard, and in my opinion, it’s why romance novels are stigmatized to the extent that they are. Generally speaking, when a book’s protagonist is a woman, or somebody not strictly heterosexual, or a racial minority, all of a sudden, it’s immediately tagged as A Book About the Other. Try all these other delicious variations: if Harry Potter were black, if Harry’s name had been Cheng Wei, or if he’d been gay.
One of the most powerful aspects of romance novels is the fact that they feature women who get to win. And it doesn’t matter if I agree with the terms of the heroine’s victory—I may think that her win was unrealistic, or unhealthy, or pyrrhic at best, or even a dead loss. What matters most is that the heroine triumphs, and that she ultimately gets what she wants. This doesn’t mean that I’ll stop critiquing the terms of that victory, and what those victories in aggregate say about readers and authors and society in general, but no other genre allows the women to win as consistently as romance novels do—and this is a valuable thing in and of itself.
This bit here sparked a train of thought so loopy and tangled, I’m still not sure I’m done unraveling the mess:
Our heroines don’t just “stand by their men”, they “stand up to them.” And guess what—their men love it! We celebrate both a woman’s softness and her strength and introduce her to a man capable of recognizing the value of both. Is it any wonder that both she and our readers fall in love with him?
When I think of romance novels, I don’t think of heroines standing up to the heroes, because it seems to me that when the heroine is pit against the hero, she will lose nine times out of ten if it’s related to anything involving careers, competency or ass-kicking. The message used to be much more stark in older romance novels, where the hero often talked about “taming” the heroine but not “changing” her; nowadays, the heroine’s power is undermined in more subtle ways. How many legions of heroines in contemporary romances make protestations that their career is their number one priority, that they are the best at their job, only to have the author show her to be incompetent over and over again, or to have her crumble like wet cake once the hero shows up? How many chic urban heroines discover that Twue Happiness lies in a small-town life with lots of babies and a white picket fence? Heroines tend to more consistently garner the emotional and moral victories, but most of the time, the heroes are the ones who win, and I can understand that—losing is strongly associated with emasculation. Heroines only get stand up to heroes in certain ways, and those acceptable modes of resistance have everything to do with our societal expectations of masculinity and femininity.
Romance novels, in my opinion, perform two major functions:
1. They’re about building stability and family—usually a fairly heternomative nuclear family, with the hero and heroine having lots of happy children and sidekicks who get their own books somewhere down the line and repeating this pattern.
2. They exorcise demons. I thought about this when I saw @redrobinreader‘s Tweet about how romance was filled to the brim with violence against women. And she’s right—the violence isn’t just visited on the heroine (rape being especially popular, with physical and emotional abuse from family members and former husbands being popular as well), but on villainesses and on supporting characters, too. I mean, if you thought comic books had problems with women in refrigerators….
There is a major difference here, of course: the heroines in romance novels aren’t used as disposable devices in and of themselves; however, their trauma certainly serves to move the plot along. (Are they indisposable devices, then? Hmmm!) (Also: I’ve long thought that readers and authors are simultaneously sadistic and masochistic when reading about these traumas; however, I still haven’t sorted this one out coherently yet, and I’ll hopefully address it in another piece.) In any case, women in real life are still disproportionately the targets of sexual violence and domestic abuse, and romance novels provide vehicles for exploring some truly scary shit, with happiness and hope for healing for both hero and heroine provided by the happiness and stability they find with each other.
I don’t really have a good way to wrap up all these messy thoughts—and as you can see, they’re pretty damn messy, with lots of gaps and skips and loops that turn in on themselves. I do want to ask all of you some questions, though: what purposes do you think romance novels serve? Do you see our psyches as gendered? Does it even matter? Do you think romance novels, more than other genres, attempt to bridge this gap?
Tina C: thanks for clarifying; I now see that we are pretty well in agreement. 🙂
I have heard some people speak of gender stereotypes as though they were solely the product of cultural conditioning, and that male and female animals have no innate biological/behavioural differences at all other than the mechanics of their reproductive systems. This is not so, as anyone who knows creatures of another species well can attest. There are some differences, elements that can be called masculinity and femininity, but there are no sharp lines, and the complexity of humans is such that the range of possibilities is vast — even within the same individual.
Lexie’s post above seems to me to be a very telling illustration of just how complex and interesting human self-identification can be. And men and women are long-lived animals, which gives us the opportunity to change a lot over time on an individual basis.
This has been my problem with romance, particularly historical romance, from the outset. Don’t get me wrong – I adore romance – but I don’t think it really is a genre that celebrates women, so much as simply panders to, and rewards, existing gender stereotypes.
Very rarely do you see a heroine who is capable of besting the hero. Or the heroine who can save herself from her own troubles. If the heroine does “win” by book’s end – it’s a victory that is almost solely on the hero’s terms, and the victory is made possible only because the hero finds the heroine sexually attractive.
Truly progressive portrayals of heroines – women who are intelligent, emotionally mature and sexually experienced (and not demonized for it) are so very rare. I’ve always wondered why romance, a genre written largely by women for women, seems stuck on arrogant Alpha males and the young, passive, often painfully naive virgins who love them (Harlequin Presents, any MM releases, anyone?).
… said Christine
I don’t agree—necessarily—but that may be because I don’t understand quite what you mean.
a) heroine who is capable of besting the hero—what does this mean? Besting him in business? Smarter than him? Need more parameters please.
b) heroine who is capable of saving herself—I’m sure I can think of heroines who saved themselves (the gals in Nora’s KEY Trilogy for instance) but I guess bonus, they got a hero too.
c) truly progressive portrayals of heroines—I’ve been racking my brains to think of a book(s) that have that because I “think” I encounter said heroine a lot, in historicals and contemps, but my brain is not giving my examples 🙁 Who comes to mind for you for a truly progressive heroine?
I studied Jungian theory and I’m going to assume that when Medeiros says:
What the romance novel is really all about is the archetypal human struggle of integrating the masculine and feminine aspects of our psyches.
she means it as a Jungian would. She’s using the terms he used.
In real life, a woman isn’t the feminine principle and a man isn’t the masculine principle. A real life human being has both in their psyche. Some of it is more unconscious than others, but it’s all there.
Writers struggle to make our characters as real as possible, but in the world of the story in Jungian theory, the entire story represents the entire psyche. The characters represent various aspects of it, such as the masculine and feminine principles. The integration Medeiros is referring to isn’t the relationship’s effect on the character, but the relationship itself. The relationship stands for the integration of the feminine principle and the masculine principle.
Alpha males are not feminized or emasculated. They learn to work with the female to form a relationship. This is the integration of the masculine and feminine principles Medeiros speaks about, this form of cooperation and often compromise.
Building stability and family is the result of this integration. The more integrated our psyche, the more stable we are and the more productive we become.
Exorcising demons is bringing the unconscious to the light of the conscious, the definition of integration.
There’s a lot more Jungian theory at play here. The muse is the unconscious’ way of making itself known (through the transcendent function). It is a way to work out issues you might not even realize you have. Analyzing what we write is akin to dream analysis.
“Truly progressive heroine”—Sophy of Georgette Heyer’s “The Grand Sophy”—she even completely engineered her own HEA. There was nothing she couldn’t, didn’t and wasn’t capable of doing. She doesn’t fit the sexually experienced category but sexually knowledgeable, without a doubt.
@ Janet W: I was talking more about historical romances then contemps; and I should have been clearer on the whole. I was actually thinking of making an addendum to my post, but I didn’t think anyone was going to pay attention to my bitter ramblings. 😉 Also:
a) heroine who is capable of besting the hero – I haven’t encountered too many heroines who are smarter or more capable than the hero. That’s what I was talking about. For example, like in Anne Stuart’s Shadow Dance, as well as others: if she can speak a smattering of conversational Arabic, then he is fluent. If she is smart, then he is the chessmaster: happily manipulating her to do just what he wants her to do. In a few contemps I’ve read, as well, if the heroine is allegedly a good businessperson, then the hero comes in and totally outshines her in every way. It always seems that, in sort of all areas, the hero sort of “tops” the accomplishments of the heroine. Ah, god – does that make sense?
b) heroine who is capable of saving herself – I’m sure there are exceptions to this situation, but I, personally, haven’t seen many. Usually, if the heroine is in danger, the hero comes in and rescues her. It’s rare to see a chessmaster heroine who can deftly manipulate the situation in order to get out of trouble on her own, without help from the hero. Or, god forbid, a heroine who knows what to do to get out of danger, and then makes/tricks the hero to do her bidding to help her.
c) truly progressive portrayals of heroines: Just what I said. Someone who is intelligent (doesn’t make dumb choices), emotionally mature (knows how to communicate with the hero, doesn’t act like a 14 yr old in a woman’s body) and sexually confident (not a virgin, technical virgin, virgin widow, or the heroine who had three relationships and all of them were shit). I also think that well done assertive heroines (who are not TSTL) are rare. I don’t know if this is “truly progressive”, but intelligent, emotionally mature and sexually confident heroines do strike me as rare in romance novels, or really – any novels.
Did that make more sense? 😉 I admit, these are just my jumbled, disorganized opinions after having read romances for many years. Off the top of my head, I can think of quite a few counter examples to each of my arguments (like you did with Sophy); but what I’m talking about is the genre tropes and trends as a whole, the way I see them from my personal reading experience. I know that many authors subvert these ideas – Nora Roberts, for one – but a lot of authors, on the other hand, seem content to write in these tropes. Probably because people enjoy them and find them erotic.
It totally makes sense … you’re saying and I’m agreeing (now that I get what you’re saying) that what you describe is very much the norm and the occasional Roberts/Heyers/et al that we point to are the exception, not the rule. And that even if the heroine is walk on water smart/brilliant/competent/charitable/whatever, the hero is going to be more so. I’m exaggerating here but yes—thanks for the clarification.
I voted for Nora & Jesus because after all, is there a difference? But I LOVED the Stephanie Meyer & Stephen King one. Good job!
Understood and agree with you Christine!
This has been a major problem with me in my years of romance reading.. sometimes I can put it aside, but it still bugs the living daylights out of me.
Liz-
I cannot agree with you more. I read pretty much equal parts “serious” literature and trash, and I am always struck by the fact that in order to be “serious”, it seems that book must not have a happy ending… and I spent a lot of time thinking about that idea, and realized that I shared that idea. Anytime a book or even a movie had a happy ending, I automatically assumed it was “lighter”. This disregards, of course, those rare books that manage to be happy and sad at the same time. Anyway, it’s all very cynical and troubling, but I think it says something that right after I finish letting F Scott break my heart, I reach for a romance to remind me that finding love doesn’t mean I’ll end up burning to death in a lunatic asylum while my alcoholic husband runs around with a younger woman.
The other thing I wanted to comment on is how bothered I am by the fixation on motherhood and childbearing in romance novels. I can dismiss it easily enough in the historicals I favor, because it’s easier to take when I justify it to myself by saying that at that time, this was the norm for women, etc, and it’s presentism to make them want anything else, and that sort of makes it okay. But, I find it extremely troubling in the handful of contemporaries I’ve read. I, myself, don’t want kids, and I often feel like a freakshow for that… surely there are other romance readers whose happy ending doesn’t include a litter of brats. I actually avoid contemporaries for that specific reason, and even branched into some Emma Holly, only to find that even amid teh buttsecks and threesomes, our heroine wants to be a mommy. Not that threesome/buttsecks would or should preclude a desire to reproduce, of course! But why perpetuate the myth that there is something unfeminine about not wanting kids, or that women who don’t want kids are “bad” or unwomanly?
Also, I second the comments of those who notice that women in contemporaries (and historicals) often give up their careers to be with their heroes… not all of the time, of course, but often enough for this to be troubling.
Wow, what a wonderful post, Candy! I’m so glad I was able to read this.
Add my voice to the other’s who thought that
was tongue-in-cheek. But other comments on this line are very interesting!
So wait, what’s inherently feminine and what’s inherently masculine? What do all the dudes do and what do all the ladies do?
It’s amazingly hard to determine exactly what is a uniquely “manly” or “womanly” trait, without being reduced to “Well, uh….isn’t it obvious?”. I think everybody brings their own confirmation bias with them on this issue, and that leads us to assume something is “obvious”, when it might be entirely different for someone else. It seems obvious that X is a defining male trait….except here’s a woman who does it. Even biology is uncertain, when you have some people who are biologically one sex, but are completely certain in their minds that they’re the other. It’s an interesting subject to think about in general.
Candy,
To be honest with you, when I explore this site, I tend to just dive in and read it as a continuum of ideas. Esther was correct in saying that I was responding primarily to her post, and I should have specified that. However, I was also responding to the following:
I am not comfortable with this idea because, when it comes to sexual violence and domestic abuse, there should be better ways to “exorcise demons.” If we read objectively, and see the heroine’s trials and trauma as some kind of social symbol and the HEA as a promise of resolution and happiness, it feels to me as though the reader—well, this reader, anyway—is trivializing the problem. If read emotionally by someone who is dealing with abuse in her own life, it seems possible that faith in the HEA could prove fatal. How many women enter relationships believing that they will reform their partner, or stay in abusive relationships because they believe he really loves them? Even a whiff of rape, violence or even coercion makes me squirm and that goes for Taming of the Shrew or John Wayne spanking Maureen O’Hara, as much as it does for romance novels. An author would have to be incredibly skillful to resolve this sort of situation in a way that I could accept. I’m not talking about conflict between hero and heroine (no story without it), but about situations when gross inequities are enforced or furthered by violence or abuse. Sometimes just knowing he could beat you up if he wanted to is oppression enough, and no amount of sex, love or domestic bliss could heal that scar. That is the real “scary shit” and romance novels just don’t seem to address it for me.
There was an awful lot of substance to this thread even at the point where I commented, and it’s become progressively more interesting. I am embarrassed to admit that I lost track of the original questions that was posed and responded like the little BS-meister of my youth. However, the goal was not to BS; I guess I just followed my own obsessions into a tangent. Most of the discussions of gender and sexual stereotyping don’t have a lot of meaning for me, perhaps because I seek out unconventional characters and situations anyway. I know it’s an important discussion to have, but it doesn’t resonate with me.
Your first question was “What purpose do you think romance novels serve?” My short (well, long) answer was that they were fun. They make the reader feel good. I do think that the genre has evolved along with social and cultural attitudes, and perhaps the role of the romance novel has evolved too. Then again, maybe not—readers are still looking for the *sigh*.
More specifically, romance novels reinforce the notion that two people together can become more than they are as individuals—the whole greater than the sum of the parts. The stories can be framed as quest or puzzle or fencing match, but all of them should result in one or more transformative moments that take your breath away. HEA doesn’t really happen to the hero and heroine; it happens to the reader who can close his or her eyes and relive that moment when a couple becomes something greater than two isolated individuals. I’m having a hell of a time writing this without inadvertent double-entendre. It’s important because this concept applies to more than romance novels. There are stories of friendship, parenthood, and other relationships that present these kinds of complex, layered bonds between human beings, and there is something exquisitely satisfying about them.
The other quality I look for in romance is intensity. I started to write emotional intensity, but that’s too limiting. Intellectual intensity, beautiful writing, sexual passion, yearning, faith, honor—if the writer conveys these qualities as white hot, complicated, and utterly authentic, I’m hooked. Again, not limited to romance, but absolutely required for romance.
To sum up, I think romance novels appeal to readers longing to believe that humans can become better than themselves or perhaps more truly themselves in the course of building a relationship. The emotional satisfaction that romance novels give their readers is proportional to the intensity and passion created by the interaction of hero and heroine, and neither of these qualities is limited to a single aspect of their relationship. Furthermore, these elements are important in many types of fiction and not limited to romance. Finally, while romance offers these satisfactions to me and perhaps some other readers, I’m sure that for many others, these qualities are totally irrelevant. I still believe that the purpose of the romance novel is ultimately determined by the individual reader and not by some nebulous social imperative. And I guess I like it that way.
Abby writes:
Coming at this from the opposite end of the spectrum (straight erotica or even pr0n), one could make an argument that the buttsecks/threesomes etc. plus the wanting to be mommy thing is not primarily intended to “motherize” the erotic romance heroine, but rather to “eroticize” the erotic romance reader. Looked at from the perspective that the heroines having these wild and erotic sexual adventures—without the usual consequences of raunchy sex=skanky villainess—are, in fact, possessed of the same hopes, dreams, and somewhat similar sensibilities as the readers of said heroines’ adventures, actually widens the dialogue about feminine sexuality. By saying “hey, these kinky broads aren’t that different from me” (while in pr0n or straight erotica they’ve always been these exotic, plasticky creatures without other context to their existence) then we can also say, “hey, maybe I, the reader, could stand to try something new in my own sexual dialogue without getting automagically hit with the Shame-hammer.”
@ Christine – part of the problem with “heroine smart, hero smarter” is that in most romances, a layer of conflict exists that has the hero and heroine in direct opposition. Of course he has to be the one she can’t outsmart, because if she could, then there would be much less conflict between them (and they’d be a little more boring to read about). Emotionally mature, sexually confident, intelligent heroines are probably not found all that often because they don’t have a character arc to go through in order to grow and change throughout the story. When I think back on the stories I really love, both characters do change by the end of the story—maybe not in the same way, and maybe the trappings are different (and in some cases, as with the “family reunion picnic with potato salad and masses of babies” epilogue, waaay overdone), but both main characters make changes in order to fit the relationship into their lives.
spamword – planning69 hur hur hur hur