If a genre is saving an industry, wouldn't you think it would be entitled to a little respect?\u00a0 Well you'd think so, or most of us would, anyway.\u00a0 But not so with Romance.<\/p>\n
Romance is the Rodney Dangerfield of genres.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A recent article in Time Magazine <\/a>(which I found from Scott Eagan's blog - see my sidebar) credits romance novels with \"helping some publishers hide from the worst of the recession.\"\u00a0 According to the article,\u00a01.4 billion dollars<\/a> of romances were sold last year.\u00a0 That was the largest share of the\u00a0book market.\u00a0 More than 1 out of\u00a0every 4\u00a0 books sold is a romance novel.\u00a0<\/p>\n If romance is the 1.4 billion industry that's accounting for a large portion of sales, you'd think it would be entitled to a little respect.\u00a0 If romance is the drain plug keeping the circling publishing industry from going under, it should be entitled to respect - and a lot of it.\u00a0 But like Rodney, romance don't get no respect.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The article<\/a> praising romance calls the\u00a0books\u00a0 \"bodice rippers.\"\u00a0 The term implies that the shelves are full of\u00a0men who rape, subjugate and subdue\u00a0women.\u00a0 Instead of calling police - or in historicals, summoning the watch - the women in bodice rippers fall in love with the men who plunder them.\u00a0 The term implies that men have no character and women have no will.\u00a0\u00a0It also implies that women aren't particularly smart.\u00a0 And\u00a0the article <\/a>was written by a woman<\/a>!<\/p>\n Most\u00a0romance writers and most romance readers are women.\u00a0 I said most instead of all and I stand by the generalization and don't expect it to change.\u00a0 That's based on personal experience.\u00a0 I made the mistake of asking my hubby to read one of my books<\/a> and I won't do it again.\u00a0 The man who'll read\u00a0and watch things about people in spaceships saving galaxies that don't exist finds romances hard to believe in or to relate to.\u00a0 I guess my romances, in particular, are tough for him because in my books everyone is over the top - especially the hero.\u00a0 In my books when men fall in love they act the way women want men in love to act<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 I guess I'll excuse my hubby his one lapse in taste, especially since I think it's somewhat genetic.\u00a0 I think men like pictures and women like words - but all that is another blog\u00a0 post and one where we might have to do a he said\/she said thing.\u00a0 The point is,\u00a0since the genre is\u00a0mostly written by women and for women, why would the female <\/em>author\u00a0of the Time article<\/a> call\u00a0the books\u00a0\"bodice rippers?\"\u00a0 Why wouldn't a woman writing about a female fueled industry surviving and even prospering\u00a0spike her article with terms that inspire respect rather than derision?\u00a0 The world\u00a0will never respect our industry until we respect it ourselves.<\/p>\n I do appreciate the article<\/a> and I do cheer for the women\u00a0in the drugstore who tuck a romance novel in their basket.\u00a0 As I've said many times in this blog, in tough times\u00a0happy endings are a survival mechanism.\u00a0 As many have noted, this recession\/depression\/general state of economic dismay has hit men's jobs harder than women's<\/a>.\u00a0 Yeah,\u00a0 likely a lot of that is the result of the fact that the women were paid less than the men to start with so companies saved more money by cutting more\u00a0of the\u00a0jobs held by men. Yeah, it's unfair and terrible and I understand it in a very personal way.\u00a0 But the fact is, a lot of those women tucking those novels in their baskets are carrying the weight of a household on their shoulders.\u00a0 And a h<\/strong>appily e<\/strong>ver a<\/strong>fter (HEA) supplied by a romance writer is an inexpensive form of entertainment that\u00a0a woman can read over and over again so it's a purchase that even in tough times women can still make.\u00a0<\/p>\n What I'm saying is that even if the female author\u00a0of the Time article<\/a> doesn't respect the work of her fellow writers -- how dare she disrespect that survivor\u00a0in the drugstore with the basket over her arm?<\/p>\n Some\u00a0folks in the industry\u00a0think the term bodice ripper was an apt description of the first novels that created the romance genre.\u00a0 I think the term was always a misnomer and that it always disrespected the writers and the readers. \u00a0I also think the term displays ignorance of what romances are about.\u00a0 On the way to the HEA, as we watch the spoiled man get his comeuppance, we're watching a woman growing into her female power.\u00a0 By the end of\u00a0most romances, including those so called early \"bodice rippers,\" the hero is dancing to the heroine's tune.\u00a0<\/p>\n Today's world is tough and reading romance novels\u00a0inspires us, uplifts us, and yes, we know that.\u00a0 What we haven't recognized is that part of the emotional lesson women take from these books is a reminder\u00a0that their spirit, their will, their way can<\/em> carry the day.\u00a0 While times are tight and the future looks bleak\u00a0we should\u00a0ALL be buying and reading more romance books and ebooks.\u00a0 When getting through today is this tough, reading something that\u00a0makes tomorrow better gives women the courage to get to tomorrow, to get through tomorrow and to survive until it gets better for all of us.<\/p>\n Romance novelists\u00a0have enough hurdles to leap without tolerating or encouraging artificial barriers or terms designed to make the writer feel disparaging about her craft, and the reader feel embarrassed about her purchase.\u00a0 A romance writer's white stallion may be her keyboard, and the mouse may be her lance, but she can still rescue her\u00a0sisters.\u00a0<\/p>\n That's something to be proud of - not disrespected or derided.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If a genre is saving an industry, wouldn't you think it would be entitled to a little respect?\u00a0 Well you'd think so, or most of us would, anyway.\u00a0 But not so with Romance. Romance is the Rodney Dangerfield of genres.\u00a0 A recent article in Time Magazine (which I found from Scott Eagan's blog - see ...continue reading \"Romance To The Rescue\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":715,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541\/revisions\/715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}