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Romance novels: Anti-Feminist?
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Cora

Joined: 12 Mar 2008
Posts: 1091
Location: Bremen, Germany

Posted: Mon Dec 08, 2008 11:14 pm Post subject:

Sterling_95 wrote:

It's strange that this post just went up, because for a while, I've been thinking of placing up a a post on true equality and whether we really want it or not. A couple of readers have already pointed out a couple of discriminations already. We have chubby and short heroines, but rarely stocky, short and balding heroes. I'd add a few others to the list:

- Women rarely buy the heroes extravagant gifts in romances while heroes often buy heroines expensive gifts

Eve Dallas buys Christmas presents for Roarke in (I think) Memory in Death, though she doesn't match his extravagant gifts. But then Eve is uncomfortable with Roarke's gifts anyway.

The heroine of Shanna Swendson's excellent Enchanted Inc. series gives the hero homemade cookies and knits a scarf for him at one point (which he enjoys a lot, because he did not have the sort of family life that involves homemade cookies). She also buys books for him she knows he'll love. Not expensive gifts, but gifts from the heart.

But otherwise I agree, the heroes are generally more lavish with gifts than the heroines.

Quote:

- Modern romances often feature the heroine, slapping, punching or otherwise physically hurting the heroine, while you almost never see the inverse. At most, the heroine gets a spanking which hurts her pride, but not much else. Even Eve Dallas has never been punched by Roarke, even though she has hit him several times

Eve and Roarke fight quite a bit as workout and some urban fantasy couples get physical with each other as well. But a hero getting violent with a heroine who cannot fight back like most urban fantasy heroines can is inacceptable to me. I'm not a big fan of slapping or hitting heroines either, unless they have a good reason. And if there is a genuine reason to slap/hit/hurt the hero that's not a misunderstanding a la "I mistook him for a burglar", then why is this guy the hero?

Quote:

- We often hear about the single mother barely scraping by because her worthless career driven ex won't send child support. I've never read about single fathers scraping by because they are waiting for the mothers to send child support

There are quite a few single fathers, particularly in category romance, though most of those seem to be widowed rather than dumped by evil exes.

Quote:

- Raped heroes are extremely rare; raped heroines...not so much

Uhm, Outlander, The Shadows and the Star. And male rape is still a lot rarer than female rape, so romances only reflect reality.

Quote:

- There are several romances where the heroine is plucky and hardworking, while her ex-husband is a lazy, underprivileged bum, but even so, the wife never pays alimony to support the husband, even if the husband's poorer

Well, I would hate for the heroine to support a lazy bum, just as I would hate it if the hero had to support a lazy and evil ex-wife.

Quote:

- The hero almost always pays for dinners, opens doors, etc.

That's probably the old chivalric ideal rearing its head. Though I for one would like to see a heroine pay for dinner (though sometimes they get to cook for the hero) or split the bill, just as I would split the bill with my partner in real life. But a lot of women still seem to expect that the man has to pay, even though that's not fair towards him.

Quote:

- If a man in a romance complains about a woman's sexual performance, he is always the villain, even if women are free to say that they're less than pleased

Well, since sex between hero and heroine is almost always immediately mind-blowing that problem doesn't come up much. And if one partner was unsatisfied, I'd much prefer that they talk about it.

Quote:

- The heroine will often have multiple men vying for her hand and will sometimes consider the Other man very seriously. The hero on the other hand, is not supposed to lust after another woman after he meets the heroine, period

Agreed. If there is another woman, why must she automatically be evil instead of a perfectly acceptable person, who just isn't the right one.

Quote:

- If there are strenuous physical activities to do, the hero always has to do it, not the heroine

Some heroines quite hold their own. And as mentioned above, men are stronger on average than women.

Quote:

So in some ways, romances are very strange, because we have a very politically correct world where women can drink, work, swear and hit men, but we still want the advantages associated with chivalry as well. Guess that's why it's a fantasy genre

I think we're also seeing authors and publishers wanting to please both the traditionalists and more modern readers.

shilohmm

Joined: 04 Dec 2008
Posts: 33

Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 12:25 am Post subject:

ladynaava wrote:

Everyone has read a novel where the hero is a borderline stalker. The message that these kind of relationships are okay 'because they love eachother' is not a good one and most feminists would agree being a person's property or being treated like a child/slave is not good.

This is another one where I think movies and TV are even worse than romances. I've read a number of feminist blogs ranting about it, and one of them listed a whole slew of films that I found very convincing (although of course I can't find it now), and I know there was discussion on it on feminist boards like "Girl Wonder" when the character Zach showed up on the series Heroes.

Kass wrote:

There are also Catholics who are anti-death penalty as well as pro-life.

And Protestants. I haven't known a lot of pro-life people who are completely pacifist outside of the Amish and Quakers, but I have known a lot who are anti-death penalty, pro-life, and opposed to all violence that isn't either self-defense or defending the weak - which means they are opposed to having a standing army but okay with a militia on par with that of Switzerland (i.e., where they'll fight against invaders but refuse to invade anywhere to fight).

Which is roughly where I'm at, although I'll confess I'm not completely outraged that the U.S. joined in the war against Hitler, which some of the people I'm thinking of are...

Kass wrote:

I think this just reflects the fact that heroes are almost always considerably larger than the heroine, so if they want to intimidate her or are furious with her they can just pin her down or pick her up or otherwise toss her around. They don't "need" to hit her to get her attention. There's also the fact that the smaller person is "freer" to hit the larger without risk of damage - according to Richard J. Gelles, "women are 7 to 10 times more likely to be injured in acts of intimate violence than are men" (my emphasis).

Studies also indicate that women strike out when they feel threatened (or feel their children are being threatened), while men strike others in order to control; all the situations where I've seen a heroine hit the hero, the hero has picked her up and is hauling her off, or he has cornered her or pinned her, or in some other way he's using his superior strength to control her and she's trying to fight him off, which to me just fit the stats on real life.

Kass wrote:

- The hero almost always pays for dinners, opens doors, etc.

As has been mentioned, I've seen a lot where the heroine fixes dinner for the hero and otherwise pampers him as well.

Kass wrote:

- If a man in a romance complains about a woman's sexual performance, he is always the villain, even if women are free to say that they're less than pleased

I've seen a lot of romances where the hero is unimpressed with women's sexual performance - generally when it comes to women other than the heroine, but of course the heroine is usually pleased with the hero even when disappointed by other guys as well.

I liked your description of the different types of feminism, and while I enjoy a lot of her writings, I think Gloria Steinem and the radical egalitarians go too far in ignoring reality. Although it could certainly be argued they are just as close to reality in their arguments on how men and women "should" be as those who argue that men "should" be larger than the woman they're romantically involved with and other cultural nonsense. (Which is not the same as personal preference - it's one thing to say, "I prefer my man bigger" and another to say "a guy should be bigger").

Point is, I do think many aspects of romances that are called "anti-feminist" would more accurately be labeled "anti-egalitarian-feminist," because romances reflect realities many feminists recognize (men are generally stronger than women, for many women sex creates a biologically-based bond, etc.). I do find some romances irritating to my feminist side, but my feminist inclinations are perfectly comfortable with more romances, proportionately, than with the offerings of many other genres.

Schola

Joined: 10 Jun 2007
Posts: 1867

Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 3:59 am Post subject:

LizA wrote:

Quote:

I agree that nothing is accidental in a single novel or in an author's entire backlist; but I'd say it's too much of a stretch to pin this on everyone writing in the same genre. I think that authors write what they like, and if 80% of them happen to like the fantasy of the small heroine and the big hero, then that is accidental.

See, that's where I beg to differ. I think one person chosing something is an accident (personal experience, preference, whatever). 80% chosing the same thing is a trend, and I have to ask for the underlying pattern.

What if the underlying pattern is really just personal preference? Regardless of the author's height relative to her husband's/lover's height, she really thinks the pairing of a tall hero and a short heroine is romantic?

In that case, we'd say cultural conditioning is "to blame," but before we get to that point, I'd like to question one assumption we've been making: that "anti-feminist" equals something bad.

I told Dick on another thread that I do perceive an anti-feminist thread in Romance, but that is one of the reasons I love Romance so much.

Sterling_95 wrote:

It feels strange to read that here, Sterling, because I've just come from another thread in which some posters voiced dislike of epilogues in which the heroine, having assumed the role of wife/partner to the hero, has pretty much given up her old life so that she could fit into his.

So, yes, there's a strange blend of political correctness and chivalry during the courtship stage; but after the leads get married, they are as traditional as they can be. Well, I can think of several novels in which the woman balances children and a career--but it is a more family-friendly career. (For instance, in Susan Elizabeth Philips Lady Be Good, the pregnant heroine has clearly resigned as headmistress of her old school and gone into teacher training.)

Anyway, it all seems to balance out. We certainly don't see her drinking, swearing or hitting the hero much after the first baby is born.
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Kerstin

Joined: 23 Mar 2007
Posts: 1124
Location: Germany

Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 5:07 am Post subject:

LizA wrote:

Kerstin, that was really interesting. It is honestly the first time that I have heard of active hight discrimination! I know plenty of women who are around 5'10'' and none of them ever complained of being snubbed for that reason. On the other hand, people are absolutely paranoid about weight here, as I can attest on personal experiene - being told that I was fat and unattractive when I was a size 8 (I am 5'6'' or 7''). I guess there are sub-cultural norms at play, too. Maybe I find the physcially weak heroine offensive because in my reality, being athletic is pretty much a must. A women who cannot carry her own skis, rucksack/backbag, supplies.... does not really fit into our society. It puts a lot of pressure on people who, well, do not fit, but I am sure every society has things like that. However, I always assumed Germany was more or less like Austria in that respect, esp. as Germans are rather tall!

Yes, we Germans are rather tall. For some funny reason I did never get snubbed by an American man while I was in the USA because the "exotic" allure of being European seemed to have balanced out the height factor, lol. It is even more funny since American men are in general a lot smaller than German ones so they should have more troubles with it rather than less. But on the other hand , seeing Linda's post, it might just be that American men are much more polite than German men.

I think though if I were twenty years younger my height would not pose much of a problem here in Germany either. For example since ten years ago or so I have no longer troubles finding pants that fit in terms of length so I assume the younger generation is much taller than my peer group is. I also think that younger men are more self confident in regard to women. I'm forty now BTW. I assume that your friends and you might be a lot younger than I am. One of my rather attractive girl friends who recently went on a date was told approximately ten times how tall she is and not in such a fashion that it seemed meant as a compliment. She's five foot ten and he was six foot four. She was so angry that even a man of his height felt compelled to compulsively notice how tall she is (she felt like a freak during the whole date). And then he topped it all by telling her that the last woman he fell in love with was five foot three (his love interest found him too tall though, lol). She was all the more angry since he knew her height in advance (she told it in her ad). Strangely enough he later (after the date) took an interest in her and even told her that he finds her attractive but she was already so pissed off that everything was lost. She imagined he might have had other dates with ladies that weren't half attractive as she was and decided to "overlook" her height. I had a similar experience with a man during a dance course. He was taller than me but yet told me every five seconds or so that I am soooooo tall. He then took the first opportunity to leave me standing on the dance floor to take another, much smaller partner. You can't imagine how humiliated I felt. And I was thin and still very attractive then. I can't imagine what would happen now that I'm slightly chubby. On the other hand I would now have the courage to tell this man loudly and in his face what an absolute ass hole I consider him to be.

The women I know who are about my age and my height are usually quite self conscious about their height. It was such an issue for me for a long time that I absolutely couldn't read romances with very small heroines and unusually tall heroes. It took some time to overcome that minority complex and I still have not gotten really totally over it (I think). BTW none of my friends ever got snubbed by a man their height or smaller. Strangely enough only the tall guys were cruel or insensitive in that regard.

On the other hand the men of my generation are a lot more tolerant in regard to weight. I also had a slightly chubby phase in my life when I was younger and I never noticed any discrimination in regard to that.

Kerstin

PS: Lisa Kleypas recently wrote a romance ("It happened one autumn) with a tall heroine and she always used to have the small ones. What I found noteworthy that she didn't pair her off with a much taller guy. He was "just" of average height so they must have been on eye level. The book as a whole was nothing out of the ordinary but this one detail stuck out as rather unusual in the genre.

Kerstin

Joined: 23 Mar 2007
Posts: 1124
Location: Germany

Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 5:48 am Post subject:

Sterling_95 wrote:

I think the true equivalent of the short, stocky and balding hero would be the tall, broad-shouldered and slightly chubby heroine with short hair and I have never seen her either in the genre. The (few) tall heroines are inevitably skinny to make up for their abundance of height. Being just short is no minus at all in a heroine, in fact it is still seen as the beau ideal by many authors (and readers).

Kerstin

Linda in sw va

Joined: 27 Mar 2007
Posts: 4708

Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 7:04 am Post subject:

Quote:

[On romances and feminism: we've entered into a sticky situation which people like to call the "No true Scotsman" paradigm. What counts as feminist exactly? A woman who advocates true equality, no differences like Gloria Steinem? A "women are morally superior to men" feminist like Elizabeth Cady Staunton, or a "celebrate differences" like Carol Gilligan? Is Condolezza Rice - who holds multiple degrees, has risen to extremely high positions and is every bit as hard driven as any male - a feminist icon for her achievements, or not because of her beliefs?

As a side note, I found it fascinating that Gloria Steinem finally got married at 66.

I love your post by the way, it's very informative! I had no idea there were feminists that 'celebrated differences'. I find that a breath of fresh air and if I were to place myself in any feminist column I guess this one would be it. Smile

Quote:

You mentioned that feminism is inherently liberal, while romances are inherently conservative, therefore the 2 are not compatible. However, Carol Gilligan and other difference feminists consider themselves very much feminists,d and equality feminists sexists, because the difference feminists celebrate traditional feminine qualities - such as love, family and home, as important - while equality feminists typically glorify masculine qualities such as ambition, money and power. Every feminist treaty I've ever read advocates daycare subsidies because good childrearing is hard work and deserves to be honored and compensated as such.

Again, I am liking the sound of these 'difference feminists'. :)

-

Quote:

Modern romances often feature the heroine, slapping, punching or otherwise physically hurting the heroine, while you almost never see the inverse. At most, the heroine gets a spanking which hurts her pride, but not much else. Even Eve Dallas has never been punched by Roarke, even though she has hit him several times

This double standard is one of my pet peeves. I've seen that heroines can kick, punch or slap a hero and they're often celebrated as 'strong' and boy would high hell broke loose if the hero did the same. There seems to be the attitude of because he's the stronger of the two she can't really hurt him and he could defend himself if he had to so that makes it ok.

Quote:

-So in some ways, romances are very strange, because we have a very politically correct world where women can drink, work, swear and hit men, but we still want the advantages associated with chivalry as well. Guess that's why it's a fantasy genre

I guess so. Not that I'm complaining, I have no real beef with the romance genre other than I would like to see more variety. It seems as if the rules some readers hold as to what can and cannot happen in a romance suffocate it at times.

Linda
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Linda in sw va

Joined: 27 Mar 2007
Posts: 4708

Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 7:23 am Post subject:

Quote:

Kerstin, this isn't related to dating but the other day I was in Walmart and met a co-worker's husband there for the first time. She later told me that he commented to her that he wasn't used to being able to look a woman right in the eye. Ha! I read in an article recently that the average height of an American woman is 5'4" and the average height of an American man is 5'9".

Quote:

I think though if I were twenty years younger my height would not pose much of a problem here in Germany either. For example since ten years ago or so I have no longer troubles finding pants that fit in terms of length so I assume the younger generation is much taller than my peer group is. I also think that younger men are more self confident in regard to women. I'm forty now BTW

.

Height seems to be less of an issue for me now than it was when I was younger as well. Though I too just turned 40 this year and it could be that I've just gotten less self conscious about my height the older I"ve become.

As it turns out with my own children, my 15 year old daughter is 5'6" and I don't know that she'll get too much taller. I was already 5'10" at her age. Our 13 year old son though looks like he's going to be well over 6 feet by the time he's done growing. He's already a head taller than most in his class and wears a size 13 shoe. Already the girls can't leave him alone and call the house constantly. Of course, he's got a great personality to match the height. :)

Linda
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Yulie

Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 1053
Location: Elsewhere

Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 7:29 am Post subject:

Linda in sw va wrote:

As a side note, I found it fascinating that Gloria Steinem finally got married at 66.

OT, she's Batman's stepmother, you know. Seriously - her husband was David Bale, Christian's father.

Kerstin

Joined: 23 Mar 2007
Posts: 1124
Location: Germany

Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 8:06 am Post subject:

Linda in sw va wrote:

Our 13 year old son though looks like he's going to be well over 6 feet by the time he's done growing. He's already a head taller than most in his class and wears a size 13 shoe. Already the girls can't leave him alone and call the house constantly. Of course, he's got a great personality to match the height. Smile

Linda

Isn't it rather nice to see how handsome boys/men get pursued today by girls/women? A friend of mine who has a grown up son remarked upon that the other day and how in her youthful days (in the sixties and seventies) it was still unthinkable to call after a boy. Nowadays the mothers have to wait on the garden porch with a rifle in order to protect their young sons ;-)

Kerstin

xina

Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 6630
Location: minneapolis

Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 10:20 am Post subject:

This double standard is one of my pet peeves. I've seen that heroines can kick, punch or slap a hero and they're often celebrated as 'strong' and boy would high hell broke loose if the hero did the same. There seems to be the attitude of because he's the stronger of the two she can't really hurt him and he could defend himself if he had to so that makes it ok. Linda[/quote] I dislike this double standard too. Older books (I haven't read her new ones) have the heroine throwing plates and dishes at some of her heroes. Wouldn't that seriously injure a person if a plate were thrown full force from across the room and the person wasn't lucky enough to dodge it? I just think physical abuse can go both ways. _________________ "As you wish" ~The Princess Bride

xina

Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 6630
Location: minneapolis

Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 10:25 am Post subject:

Isn't it rather nice to see how handsome boys/men get pursued today by girls/women? A friend of mine who has a grown up son remarked upon that the other day and how in her youthful days (in the sixties and seventies) it was still unthinkable to call after a boy. Nowadays the mothers have to wait on the garden porch with a rifle in order to protect their young sons ;-) Kerstin[/quote] When my son was in jr. high and high school, the girls would call our house too. They would be in the stands during his hockey games and baseball games too. I didn't mind it a bit, but I knew many mothers that didn't care for it with their sons. I could never figure out why. My son grew up around a sister, all girl cousins and a ton of aunts, so he was always very good with females. _________________ "As you wish" ~The Princess Bride

Kass

Joined: 23 Mar 2007
Posts: 722
Location: under a cockatiel

Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 2:44 pm Post subject:

Quote:

You mentioned that feminism is inherently liberal, while romances are inherently conservative

--No, I didn't. I said that there are conservative feminists out there, like Christina Hoff Sommers.

Quote:

The Quakers or Friends, as they call themselves also abhor violence of all kinds, including wars and death penalties.

--Yes, but they aren't anti-abortion. The words "pro-life" don't usually mean pro-life. They mean anti-abortion. I myself am pro-choice, as I believe an already born woman trumps a fetus.
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Linda in sw va

Joined: 27 Mar 2007
Posts: 4708

Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 3:16 pm Post subject:

xina wrote:

When my son was in jr. high and high school, the girls would call our house too. They would be in the stands during his hockey games and baseball games too. I didn't mind it a bit, but I knew many mothers that didn't care for it with their sons. I could never figure out why. My son grew up around a sister, all girl cousins and a ton of aunts, so he was always very good with females.

It doesn't bother me either, well it hasn't since I put a stop to them calling after 9pm. One called at 11:30 one night and woke me up out of a sound sleep so we now have a few rules regarding phone calls. :)

Linda
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"The Bookshop has a thousand books, all colors, hues and tinges, and every cover is a door that turns on magic hinges." ~ Nancy Byrd Turner

Natalie

Joined: 25 Mar 2007
Posts: 1566

Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 5:13 pm Post subject:

Re male rape - there was an entire thread in the Let's Talk about Romance forum about heroes who have been raped. Quite a few books deal with this issues, not much fewer than with heroines as victims IMHO.

CD

Joined: 15 Sep 2007
Posts: 655
Location: London, UK

Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2008 9:15 pm Post subject:

Quote:

There was a really interesting thread recently over at Dear Author on this here:
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2008/11/05/physical-violence-poll/

Although it side-tracked into issues of domestic abuse, I think most were against it for the simple reason that men are stronger and can do more harm. That does make a difference. If you're stronger, you have more of a responsiblity to control yourself even if the other person is behaving badly. It's a bit like if you're in an SUV and a guy on a bike rams into you - you have the responsibility not to retaliate in the same way. If both the man and the woman are enemy combatents, I have no problem whatsoever.

As for feminism, that's a pretty involved discussion - suffice to say that the meaning of feminism has been subverted from what I believe was it's original purpose of giving women choices over their lives and over their bodies. I can't imagine any woman not wanting that, so it saddens me when I hear women in the Western world - women who've reaped the benefits of a huge struggle - to say that they are not feminists.

In my opinion, what you do with those choices is up to you. You can then go and argue about whether the "choices" you then make are then still shaped by a "patriachal" society (eg social pressures to be a wife/mother or wear make up or be thin/beautiful etc) and whether that's a good/bad/neutral thing, but then that's more of a discussion on what freedom actually means, not on the virtue of freedom itself.

As for abortion, that's a definite touchy subject but was originally a feminist one because it was about control over your own body. The question then is when does it stop becoming about the ownership of your own body and when does it because about the life of another. A question which is ethical, sociological, religious, scientific, and heaven knows what else. No surprise that different people have widely different answers to it.

As for whether romances are inherently anti-feminist - not at all. Like all genres, you have some which are anti-feminist and some which aren't - the genre is sufficiently broad that you can more or less read what you want.

The only way you can read the genre itself as being anti-feminist is because it obviously sees a woman's life without a man as being less fulfilling than a life with one. But then, it also sees a man's life without a woman as being less fulfilling than a life with one. Granted, it's a viewpoint that not everyone would subscribe to - I don't myself even as a romance reader. But it's not anti-feminist in the way I understand the word.
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