RWA and Broader Concerns

Australian romance scholar Dr Jodi McAlister has

been wondering about how the RWA implosion is going to function as a paratext to the romance genre in the years to come - that is, how is this going to affect the romance novels that are written and read, going forward?
RWA is a national organisation, but there's no getting away from the fact that North America (and especially the US) is the dominant centre and marketplace for romance publishing.
The impacts of this are not only going to be felt among the RWA membership, but will almost certainly ripple through to most of the rest of the Anglophone romance writing world. But what will those impacts be?

It's because of the importance of the RWA to the genre as a whole that I feel it's important to keep recording some of the details of the current crisis here at Teach Me Tonight, even if all of those details don't seem directly about the academic study of romance.

I didn't want to keep updating my previous two posts about the RWA (1) and (2) so I'll add some updates here.

There was coverage on 27 December from The Seattle Times and since it's an AP article it appears in the same form in The Washington Post. The article is focussed on the situation as it relates to Courtney Milan. This does not mention the fact that the RWA appears to have created an Ethics Committee for this process which by-passed the existing Ethics Committee. Rachel Grant (who was on the Ethics Committee) states that a new committee was created "without informing the existing committee that was never informed of the complaint"

In addition to the implications of the specific complaints against Courtney Milan, the details of the ruling against her, concerns about the processes according to which it was handled, etc

there are broader concerns about how complaints have been handled and used in the past:

1) There is at least one account of a "similar use of complaint as retribution against marginalized authors speaking out against racism in a RWA chapter" (retweet by Alyssa Cole of complaint against Diana Hicks)

Sally Kilpatrick suggests that the complaint was never formalized but that nonetheless "the RWA wanted the then president to ask Diana to resign"

2) By contrast, it appears that formal complaints made by marginalized authors/about discriminatory language used to refer to people from marginalized groups did not reach the Ethics Committee and neither was further action taken.

Katee Roberts reports that she asked the RWA Office about this in relation to complaints by Olivia Waite and received the message that "Olivia Waite's Ethics complaints in fact were reviewed by the office. The subjects of those complaints subsequently resigned their membership and at that point, there were no longer matters to bring to the Ethics Committee."

However, according to Olivia Waite "the person I reported for saying queer women were as repulsive as alcohol addiction (on the RWA forums!) has not withdrawn, as staff claims. Not only is she an active member, she is currently the treasurer of her local chapter."

[Edited to add: Olivia Waite points out a loophole in the procedures which may have allowed the Executive Director to process complaints informally rather than sending them to the Ethics Committee through the formal procedure. However, the use of the informal procedure is supposed to involve the consent of the complainant, and Olivia Waite did not consent to it. Robin Covington corroborates that the staff have "strenuously urged" the "use [of] this informal process but I refused. When I did I was encouraged to drop them [both complaints]. Neither went anywhere."]

Concerns have also been raised about:

1) The interpretation/application of the membership requirement of “proof of serious pursuit” of a career in romance writing, as detailed by Xan West here and another case which is linked to on this thread.

The rejected applications contained the requisite "central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending" (RWA definition of romance).

Karin Kallmaker was refused entry to PAN (the Published Authors Network) despite being a multipublished author:

I joined/rejoined RWA I think a total of 4 times in about 25 years. The first 3 times I had to go through hoops and each time I was not allowed access to the PAN forums. The 4th time I finally was. So I have to wonder.
The first time they rejected Naiad as an appropriate publisher for some technical contract based reason (lack of advance?). Naiad was the largest lesbian press in the world that produced 30+ books a year, more than half romance.
The second time I think the same thing happened and I had 10 books to provide them as proof I wrote romance.
The third time they ruled that I was a publisher because I said that my publisher occasionally asked my opinion on a manuscript, maybe 1-2 times a year (this was long before I joined Bella Books as a consultant).
The 4th time I finally got access to the PAN forums.
It didn't occur to me these were trumped up reasons because nobody wanted the words "lesbian" and "queer" showing up on the forums. That's the insidiousness of discrimination - sometimes you just don't know so you blame yourself wrongly. 

2) Inequality in other contexts, including one Chapter of the RWA paying "black speakers half the rate they usually pay"

Melissa Blue, one of those speakers, gives more details here.

Here are some reader responses, from Wendy the Super Librarian , Smart Bitches Trashy Books and from Lynn Spencer at All About Romance.

An open letter has been composed, from readers to RWA. It will remain open to signatories until 29th December. I have added my signature to the letter.

In an astonishing turn of events, communications have now been released from both the former and current presidents, respectively Carolyn Jewel and Damon Suede. These suggest that the Board made its original decision on the basis of information provided by current RWA president Damon Suede (at the time the Board members had not seen the original text of the complaints):

Here's Courtney Milan's thread. The text of Carolyn Jewel's letter is provided by Alyssa Day.

The above image is only part of the message from Damon Suede, which can be read in full here.

[Edited to add: another surprising fact emerges from a different communication sent by Carolyn Jewel to Carrie Lomax.

One of the things stated is that "The complaint that was made public was only the starting point and does not represent the totality of what the Ethics Committee considered." Jewel adds that "The Ethics Committee then reviews the complaint, the accused's response, and any evidence provided and conducts a thorough investigation of the matter." Claire Ryan has transcribed this communication in full here, along with a time-line of events.

This means that it is unclear both exactly what the Ethics Committee considered and what information was provided by Damon Suede to the Board.]

RWA turmoil continues

One indication of the seriousness of the situation underlying the decision made against Courtney Milan, was the resignation of one of the Board of Directors on 25 December

As shared by Alyssa Cole, Chanta Rand stood down as a Director-at-Large, having voted against accepting the Ethics Committee Report.

This was followed, on 26 December, by the resignation of a large group of the Board, who cited a lack of trust and confidence in the RWA leadership:

Today, I — along with former board members Denny S. Bryce, Pintip Dunn, Seressia Glass, Tracey Livesay, Priscilla Oliveras, Erica Ridley, and Farrah Rochon — resigned from our positions as Directors at Large, because we no longer trust or have confidence in Romance Writers of America’s leadership.
Our resignations give us no joy or relief. All of us have volunteered our time to this organization to help propel it forward and to do our best to represent membership – all membership.
We believe this should never have gone to members of the Ethics Committee. We extend our sincere apologies to Courtney Milan and the romance community.

That's from Facebook and came after the RWA announced that the Board of Directors had

rescinded its vote accepting the findings of the Ethics Committee report and the consequent penalties against Courtney Milan pending a legal opinion.
RWA reiterates its support for diversity, inclusivity and equity and its commitment to provide an open environment for all members.

A great many others have resigned as members and/or as RITA judges. In the process, many irregularities have come to light in the way that some members, and some complaints to the Ethics Committee, have been treated over the years. Here's just one example, from Professor Piper Huguley

Some hard questions must be asked about the role that RWA staff played in this. In the midst of this uproar, my mind goes back to the 2013 Rita/GH reception and how I was blocked from entering EVEN THOUGH I had on my pink ribbon. I was the only Black finalist on either side.

Xan West has written a post with links to many of the issues raised, and details of their own experiences. Ivy Quinn's post here, while from 2017 and specifically focused on Linda Howard, gives some more perspective on the background to the current crisis. Racheline Maltese offers a succinct summary:

One of the things that’s happening w RWA right now is that people are comparing notes and regardless of their views on any one incident are seeing a pattern emerge.
That pattern highlights an organization deeply invested in racism and homophobia while prioritizing the comfort of white, straight, “Christian” members ... all presumably in the name of making Romance “respectable.”
But the respectability battle doesn’t help us as authors and business people. RWA has now spent more than a decade throwing marginalized members under the bus in the name of helping a small handful of authors avoid genre shame by getting to say they weren’t like the rest of us.

Edited to add: The New York Post has published an article about the whole situation, as has The Mary Sue. 

CIMRWA (Cultural, Interracial, and Multicultural Chapter of Romance Writers of America),

a chapter dedicated to advocating diversity and inclusion within RWA and publishing as a whole wrote to the national committee today officially calling for the resignation of the president, president-elect, & executive director

Their detailed response email to the RWA can be found further down the thread. They have been joined in this request by 28 "local RWA current and incoming chapter Presidents", whose full letter can be found on this thread.

The RWA have issued a couple of statement documents.

The first is a "statement to members" (archived here as a Google doc and here from the RWA website) in which it is revealed that the Executive Board President, Carolyn Jewel, has resigned. Despite the demands of the local RWA chapter Presidents, Executive Director Carol Ritter and the President-Elect (now President) Damon Suede remain in place. The second document addresses Code of Ethics Process and Procedure (archived here as a Google doc and here from the RWA website) but does not address how a new Ethics Committee was formed specifically to deal with the complaints against Milan, without the knowledge of the existing Ethics Committee, or the many other issues which have now come to light. The previous President, HelenKay Dimon was clearly unimpressed:

Do better or I’ll start talking about my last day as president, 8/31. The arguments I had. The fight about the improper use of the ethics committee. My concerns about bias. How we veered from our common practices. This disaster could have been avoided.

Romance reader Ridley asked rhetorically whether all of "the board members who aren't white have resigned, and the white folks who remain will choose replacements?" To give Courtney Milan the last word about the RWA responses:

On second thought, I actually think that letter says a lot. I think the between the lines is “sorry marginalized authors if you can’t stay with us because you’ve lost trust, but we will be here for the rest of you.”

Riveted by Race, Disability, Gender and Sexual Orientation

Laura Vivanco

I've just put up a blog post at my own website about romance and the ways in which it's been used to explore issues including racism. One of the books under discussion is Meljean Brook's Riveted. I don't usually cross-post but given the success of Riveted I thought it might be of interest to readers of TMT who don't usually visit my personal blog.

Is Popular Romance Homophobic?

Amy Burge

I recently came across the following passage in a Mills & Boon 'Modern Romance' sheikh title I'm researching. The passage struck me as odd, gratuitous and distinctly homophobic.

The heroine, Tally, is arguing with the hero, Sheikh Tair, trying to convince him that he is not as monolithically violent as he appears to be. The conversation goes as follows:

Tally: "You might say you're a brutal, vengeful man, but I don't see it. Your men adore you-"
Tair: "Please don't say my men and adore in the same sentence. It makes me extremely uncomfortable."
Tally: "The point is, you know your men care about you."
Tair: "You're confusing affection and respect. My men don't care about me. They fear me. Two significantly different things."
(Jane Porter, The Sheikh's Disobedient Wife, p. 105)

The line which gave me pause was Tair's comment 'It makes me extremely uncomfortable'. No explanation is offered for this statement, and the conversation swiftly moves on. But this jarring, homophobic comment stayed with me, as I began to think about how gay male sexuality is figured in heterosexual popular romance. How does this hero get away with being so homophobic?

Clearly, the context of the desert culture of the sheikh romance cannot be ignored here. As parts of the contemporary Middle East and Africa continue to criminalise homosexuality, it could be representational accuracy that leads this hero to espouse homophobic views. Yet given that these romances deliberately distance themselves, both geographically and in political terms from the reality of their Middle Eastern and North African settings (for example in the creation of fictional nation states over which the hero rules), it seems unlikely that this statement is simply a reflection of contemporary social politics.

Perhaps this homophobia is part of the hero's overtly constructed masculinity. Sheikh heroes are amongst the most deliberately masculinised Harlequin Mills & Boon hero; the traditional dress he wears, usually a keffiyeh or dishdasha and a long robe, seems to carry the danger of making the hero appear effeminate. This is frequently addressed and vociferously denied in sheikh romances:

Like her, he wore a long, loose robe. But, far from making him look effeminate, the outfit somehow accentuated the width of his shoulders, the whipcord strength of his body, his innate masculinity.
(Annie West, For the Sheikh's Pleasure, p. 109).

Is it possible that this homophobic comment serves to further masculinise (in the sense of heterosexualise) the sheikh hero (whose masculinity already treads the borderline between effeminacy and masculinity)?

There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of critical work on male homosexuality within heterosexual romances (perhaps because of its usual lack of mention), although a Teach Me Tonight post from 2006 discusses homophobia in romance. There has, however, been considerable work on lesbian romances and Stephanie Burley has considered the homoerotic potential of the romance, although this article focuses on women as the primary readers and authors of romance ('What's a Nice Girl like You Doing in a Book like This?: Homoerotic Reading and Popular Romance').

My reading expertise does not stretch far beyond modern sheikh romances, and homophobic references such as this do seem to be rare. But I would be very interested to hear about any other references to homosexuality (both positive and negative) within heterosexual popular romance. I wonder:

• Is gay sexuality always undesired/rejected in heterosexual popular romance?


• Is there room for the homoerotic in these romances?


• And how do these compare with representations of female homosexuality (of which, in heterosexual romance, I have encountered none)?
  

These are certainly questions I will be considering in my future romance reading.

----
References:

• Stephanie Burley, 'What's a Nice Girl like You Doing in a Book like This?: Homoerotic Reading and Popular Romance', Doubled Plots: Romance and History, ed. Susan Strehle and Mary Paniccia Carden (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003)


• Jane Porter, The Sheikh's Disobedient Bride (Richmond: Harlequin Mills & Boon, 2006)


• Annie West, For the Sheikh's Pleasure (Richmond: Harlequin Mills & Boon, 2007)