A recent piece at Huffpo made my hackles rise. It was by Anne Browning Walker and entitled "Why Smart Women Read Romance." Granted, I've been at the end of the rope so long that my fingers (my grasp on reality) and everything else is starting to slip. So, it is admittedly easier to raise my hackles. But I think if these were still the red-eye gravy days, this piece would tick me off.
The author of the article is, herself, a romance novelist. She relates that growing up she hid the romances she read because they shamed her. She believed that smart women didn't read romance novels. She's written this piece to proclaim that this belief arose from the bad old days of romance. Ms. Walker states as follows:
Well, I grew up and discovered that someone lied. This stereotype may have resulted from the enduring misconceptions about romance novels thanks to tropes that went out of style nearly 30 years ago. In these "bodice-rippers," heroes captured heroines against their will. The women succumbed to heroes in barely-disguised rape scenes. But just as the role of women in society has changed over the past 30 years, so have romance novels. These types of romances went out of fashion along with leisure suits and acid-washed jeans. Now, I'll admit this trope sometimes creeps back in (ahem, 50 Shades of Grey), but most romances today feature strong, smart, savvy women. And smart romance characters attract smart romance readers.
So, Ms. Walker's type of "smart women"- diploma holding grads of schools like Harvard, Princeton, Oxford & Duke - some with Ph.Ds and law degrees, they will deign to read romance if it's of a certain type. The heroines in these "smart" romances must have "careers" where they grow and establish their independence from the hero. In these books, the hero will never be forceful, controlling or dominant. There could never be a forced sex or "near rape scene" between the hero and the heroine because their acceptable heroines have very strict rules about who they will and won't love.
The problem with Ms. Walker's "smart women" is that they're not smart enough to separate reality from fiction. Many women - including some who lack pretty pieces of paper that are essentially meaningless - are smart enough AND strong enough to know that we can read whatever we like. And we don't have to justify it to anyone. See, the smart-ER women know that it's okay to enjoy a romance written by a writer who takes it over the top. It may be issues of dominance and control or issues of hidden and forbidden love. It may be a heroine who loves a man who gets excited by causing women pain. (Fifty Shades of Grey) It may be a heroine who believes she just killed a man trying to rape her who then gets seized and taken to a ship where the thinks the man forcing her to have sex is "the law." (The Flame and The Flower).
Whatever a smart-ER woman reads is okay, because she knows she doesn't have to justify how anyone in the book behaves to friends, co-workers, strangers on the train or anyone else. That same woman might read a Stephen King novel and enjoy the blood, gore or psychological terror. She doesn't have to go around explaining to everyone she meets that she doesn't support maniacal, terrifying mass murderers. It's a book. It's fiction. Smart-ER women will enjoy reading about many things she'd kick a man to the curb for doing.
Smart-ER women know that one of the reasons they read is to experience a slice of life from another era, from another part of the country, from another planet and from many, many other perspectives. I've said it before and I'll say it again -- WE ARE NOT WHAT WE EAT. WE ARE NOT WHAT WE WATCH. AND WE ARE NOT WHAT WE READ.
And yes, Ms. Walker pooh-poohs women (like me) who read and enjoyed "Fifty Shades of Grey." I wonder what she'd make of the fact that I happen to have a law degree? I just haven't let it hold me back, define me or control me. I don't let my husband do that and I surely don't let my boss do it. But I might enjoy reading a book about a heroine who reacts entirely differently.
Smart women may put their romances to a political correctness test and call their Ivy League friends to see if they're allowed to read a certain book or not. Smart-ER women know that the books they read, just like the lives they lead, don't need anyone's approval but their own.
Agreed!!!!