An Author Reflects: Therese Dryden's PhD thesis on writing feminist romance

In 2011 Therese Dryden (who writes for Harlequin Mills & Boon as Michelle Douglas) came to Teach Me Tonight to discuss her masters thesis in creative writing. This year she completed her PhD and it's available online.

The PhD thesis has various parts. Since this is a PhD in creative writing, the first part is a novel. This is followed by analysis, drawing on the following corpus:

Nobody’s Baby But Mine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (1997)
Blue Dahlia by Nora Roberts (2004)
Daisy’s Back in Town by Rachel Gibson (2004)
Shelter Mountain by Robyn Carr (2007)
Maid For Love by Marie Force (2011)
Somebody to Love by Kristan Higgins (2012)
Along Came Trouble by Ruthie Knox (2013)
Can’t Help Falling in Love by Bella Andre (2013)
A Single Kiss by Grace Burrowes (2015)
Stand By You by Sharon Sala (2015)

Some of these are discussed in more detail than others. The criteria shaping the corpus were publication within the past 20 years, the authors' US and New York Times bestseller status and the presence of a single mother heroine in the text. Dryden's analysis of the feminism in the texts focuses on single mothers and family law:

I explore the issue of female oppression and empowerment via the figure of the single mother heroine in the contemporary American romance novel. The situation of a lone woman raising a child on her own automatically brings to the fore questions surrounding gender roles, ideas of the family, and equality between the sexes. Referencing a corpus of ten contemporary romance novels, I investigate how these single-mother heroines are portrayed, and ask whether these depictions can be considered either empowering or oppressive to women. A granular analysis of the corpus revealed the ideological inconsistency of the genre. There were novels that provided a direct protest against patriarchal oppression by dramatizing the injustices a patriarchal society inflicts upon a single-mother heroine, while others subscribed fiercely to traditional gender roles and models, and in some cases there were novels that did both, highlighting the genre’s complexity. My research demonstrates that, while the romance genre is too big and unwieldy to be called either feminist or anti-feminist, it is possible for individual romance novels to incorporate a feminist ethos.

Finally, Dryden describes her own writing process and how it was changed by reflecting on this issues she'd uncovered in the previous section. She realised that in her published work she'd written "books that, politically, I do not agree with" (384). This she ascribes to the fact that

Writing a book is not a straightforward linear process. As a young writer (young in terms of how long I had been published) my focus was firmly fixed on writing novels that had an internal logic that held them together. That is, stories with strong conflicts, that were suitably romantic, and that incorporated heroines and heroes that readers could relate to and sympathise with. (384)

Bearing this in mind, she wrote her novel and then "reworked and edited The Valentine Wars in an attempt to create a complex feminist novel". Given the way romances sometimes have rather fantastic medical and legal situations (e.g. amnesia and wills that seem to be affected more by plotting requirements than realism), I was interested to see that realism did require adjustments to Dryden's plot:

I wanted to balance the fantasy elements of my novel with a realistic situation and set-up. After reviewing the legislation pertaining to family law in the state of Pennsylvania, it quickly became evident that the scenario I had created—one in which Ellen feared that her daughter’s paternal grandmother would sue and win custod—proved highly unlikely. Even though Ellen has few financial resources and Myra has the financial means to hire the most expensive lawyers money can buy, such a scenario is so improbable as to be almost laughable. (390)

The whole thesis can be downloaded here.Therese's website as Michelle Douglas, which gives details about her novels, is here.

The Berlatsky Affair: a Close Reading (1/?)

--Eric Selinger

[Added note:  In a Tweet, Noah Berlatsky pointed out that "You might have mentioned that you liked the piece until people told you not to."  Fair enough!  For the record, I liked the piece, and said so on Facebook:  "Noah Berlatsky nails it!"  I was very surprised to see the response that it got.  I still think that the essay made an interesting point, which I'll get to in post #2; what follows is my attempt to show how that point got partly lost in the shuffle, and partly left unsaid.  

For the record, I've been very happy to see Berlatsky's articles on romance, and have promoted them, cross-posted them, congratulated him on them, and so forth, both in public and in private emails.  If what follows looks like I'm saying he himself is a sexist jerk, let me be clear: I don't think that he is, but rather that the persona he constructs in the first few paragraphs in his piece could be read that way.  I want to show why and how.

The structure of his article depends on some rhetorical turns, and my posts follow that structure, more or less.  Part 1, this post, accentuates the negative.  Part 2 begins the pivot into what I liked about the essay, and my own role in it.  Part 3 isn't written yet, so I don't know what it will do.]

Last week, an article by "comics-and-culture" writer Noah Berlatsky at Salon drew a lot of attention in the online romance world, or at least the parts of it that I encounter through Twitter.  In it, Berlatsky seemed to say that romance lacked a "canon," and that this had proved a challenge for him--albeit a productive one--as he set about introducing himself to the genre.

I feel a personal stake in the piece and its reception.  I've been swapping messages with Berlatsky on Twitter and Facebook and email for several weeks now, on and off, responding to his forays into the genre.  One of those messages concerned what I thought was a question about whether there was an academic canon out there somewhere: a list of professorially-endorsed Romance Novels One Should Read (tm).  I said that there wasn't, but didn't go into why I would be wary of any one of us putting together such a list.  It was a casual email, which got quoted (with permission) in the piece, so my name is in the mix.

More broadly, though, I feel a stake because Berlatsky and I have a certain amount in common.  We're roughly the same age--I'm a few years older, I gather--; we both live near Chicago; we both started reading romance in middle age, discovering in the genre a number of novels that we really like and admire.  We seem to have similar taste, and we're interested in some similar questions as readers.

And, of course, we're both men.

On Twitter, after the piece went live, I mentioned to Berlatsky that we men writing about romance have to consciously try, at all times, not to be That Guy in our writing, because our training, our habits, and our editors will all encourage us to condescend to the genre, playing up stereotypes.  I've been asked a dozen times to have my picture taken holding up a book with Fabio on the cover, and I've done it, because the book in question (Flowers from the Storm) is one that I've also written about and extol at every opportunity. That was my excuse, at least, but in retrospect, I wish that I'd said "no."

In any case, Berlatsky answered that he'd tried very hard not to be That Guy, and seemed honestly surprised by some of the anger towards his piece.  I figured I should take a second look to see where he went wrong.

Let's start with the title and subtitle, which I'm going to assume were given the piece by Salon, rather than by Berlatsky:

I’m a guy who loves romance novels — and Jennifer Weiner is right about reviews 

Romance is the hardest genre to read, and not because of the stigma. It's because critics don't take it seriously

Right from the get-go, this "guy" has set himself up for a fall.  Announce that "I'm a guy who loves romance novels" and you're calling attention to the immediate salient fact about this essay's appearance in Salon: as men, he and I have immediate access to attention, to a hearing, as romance readers, no matter what we want to say or the knowledge we bring to the table.  To add that "Jennifer Weiner is right about reviews" right in your headline--and again, I'm assuming that he's NOT responsible for this--is to suggest that now that a "guy" has tromped on-stage to weigh in, that question has now been settled. (Were you wondering whether she was right?  Well, now you know!)  Add in the subhead that romance is  "the hardest genre to read" because "critics don't take it seriously"?  What does that say about the people--mostly women--who read it just fine without that critical guidance?  Either they don't exist, or their experience of the genre doesn't exist, or if they and their experiences exist, neither of those matters to the "I" who's speaking and the audience who's been implied.  Strike one, strike two, strike three, and Berlatsky hasn't even stepped up to the plate.

OK, now we're into the article proper.  Here's how it begins.

I’m a guy who loves romance novels. Or, rather, I would like to love romance novels. Jane Austen is just about my favorite novelist; I’ve read “Pride and Prejudice” I don’t know how many times. I also adore Trollope and E.M. Forster and George Eliot. Those folks are all dead, obviously, and aren’t writing any more books, because writing books when you’re dead is tricky, even if you’re a genius like Jane Austen. But it always seemed to me that books in the vein of “Pride and Prejudice” had to be out there somewhere, written by somebody less dead than Jane or Anthony. Witty heroines, and dashing heroes circling each other with arch asides and sudden plunges of emotion that would make me cry the way that last paragraph about Dorothea and Will always makes me cry in “Middlemarch.” How hard could that be to find?

This paragraph is, like many first paragraphs, at once an introduction to the author's public persona and a signal flare that illuminates the kind of person that the reader of the piece is presumed to be.  It introduces Berlatsky as a "guy who likes romance novels," but then immediately qualifies the statement, taking it back. He'd like to love them, as a class, which means that he doesn't, quite.  Why not?

Before answering that question, we get some roadwork:  good intentions laid down like so much pavement, leading just about where you'd expect.  Saying that you don't love romance yet, although you'd like to, and then invoking Austen, Trollope, Forster, and Eliot?  That's a way to say, more or less, "I like love stories when they're by canonical authors, which shows that I'm educated and have good taste, and in fact I'm pretty sophisticated, because I love one author (Trollope) who's not as well known as the others.  Come to think of it, I'm also a really sensitive guy, because I keep rereading "Pride and Prejudice," and I even cry at that one George Eliot paragraph that we all know about, we sensitive and educated types.  But enough about me.  Now, let's talk romance."

I don't mean to be harsh.  But even if every word of this is gospel truth--and why wouldn't it be?--as a rhetorical strategy, it's aimed mostly at establishing camaraderie with a reader who also likes those dead, respected authors, or at least knows that you're supposed to like them, and call Austen a "genius," yet who somehow doesn't like or love or admire or respect them enough to know that calling Austen "Jane" is falsely chummy and insufferably condescending.  (That "Anthony" is just a stalking horse.)  Berlatsky wouldn't be caught dead writing about how he loves "Allen" and "Jack" like a gushing beat wannabe, or announcing his love for feminist poetry by "Adrienne" and "Audre."  Jane me no Janes.

The first paragraph, then, sets up Berlatsky's character as a soi-disant "guy" who's about to judge modern popular romance against some kind of highbrow standard, and who's already implied that--alas!--it really doesn't measure up. We're in this muddle together, the paragraph also insinuates:  you and me, reader, and people like us, who'd really like to love romance, if we could find the right novels.  Texts that are, how shall we say? Truly accomplished. Books handsome enough to tempt us.

Why, then, does that quest turn out to be "ridiculously hard"?  Here's the paragraph that answers:

Oh, there are rafts and rafts of romance novels out there; teetering drifts of Harlequins and historicals and contemporaries, filled with plucky heroines and dashing or dastardly young men. I know that. But the question was, where to start? A friend recommended Nora Roberts at one point, and I gave that a try … but I couldn’t hack the dreadful prose — and this is from someone who rather enjoys “Twilight” and can even manage the occasional Robert Ludlum thriller. I’ve poked around online to find “best of” lists or other recommendations, but it soon became clear that there wasn’t even a provisional consensus on which books were the best or essential romance novels. Jane Austen showed up consistently, as did “Gone With the Wind,” but there was nothing that gave me a sense that certain books were clearly central, or respected, or worth reading. The genre is so culturally maligned that there has been no concerted effort to codify it. There is, in short, no romance canon.

Shall we take this piece by piece again?  Hoo-boy.  Sentences one and two are a shorthand overview of the genre designed to appeal to the common sense of anyone who doesn't read it.  They don't inform that non-reader of anything he or she doesn't already think that he or she knows:  the name of the famous publisher, three character types (one heroine, two men), two genres (historical and contemporary), and of course the scary fact that there's just so much of it!  Even this early in his reading career, Berlatsky knows full well that there's more to the genre than these handy, prefab talking points, but he doesn't mention what he knows, in order to paint himself as a naif, a boy who needs guidance.  "Where to start?" That's the question.

And you know what?  It's a fair question. And I know from Twitter that Berlatsky has gotten solid recommendations--many for books he really likes, which he recommends later in the piece--from romance authors and bloggers and reviewers.  Because the romance community does that kind of suggesting all the time.  Smart, sophisticated, incredibly well-informed readers, women who know the genre far, far better than I do, went out of their way to suggest books that he might like, based on his tastes and interests.  But he doesn't mention them until the end of the piece, waiting several paragraphs to tell his reader that these networks and conversations exist.  To an already skeptical or resistant reader of the piece--specifically, to some of the readers it found on Twitter--that seemed profoundly disrespectful, a missed opportunity for Salon readers to learn where they can go, other than to future pieces by Noah Berlatsky."][Note: my original sentence read: "But he doesn't mention them, or tell his reader that these networks and conversations exist.  That's profoundly disrespectful, and it's bad journalism, too:  a missed opportunity for Salon readers to learn where they can go, other than to future pieces by Noah Berlatsky."  In his comment, Noah replied that this was demonstrably false, since the end of the piece is quite specific about where else readers should go.  Here's the relevant passage:  "I was at a loss for years — but, eventually, I ended up doing what I think most romance readers do. I got some recommendations. Janine Ballard, who writes for dearauthor.com, in particular, has led me to Cecilia Grant, Judith Ivory, Laura Kinsale and a bunch of other wonderful authors." I apologize for insinuating that Berlatsky had not gone on to give those names, and for misrepresenting the piece as a whole.]

The only trace of that guidance by romance readers that shows up in the piece is the bit about one anonymous "friend" who suggests Nora Roberts, "and I gave that a try."

"That"?

Where to begin?

1. She's a "her," not a "that," bro.  Save "that" for important critical pronouncements, like "I'd hit that."
2. She's published, what? 210 novels? So trying one is reading .5% of her work. I've taught four of her novels, over the years, roughly 2% of her oeuvre.  On the basis of that, I am officially incompetent to say anything about the quality of her novels, and if I am, so are you.  
3. I'm sorry, but "dreadful prose" is just one of those vague, important-sounding things that people say about books they don't like, as a way to pat themselves on the back for their own taste. All you've really said here is, "I tried one book by Nora Roberts, and I didn't like it."  As critical discourse, it's about as savvy as "Disco Sucks."

Now, let me be clear.  Have I put down novels for "dreadful prose"? Sure, in every genre.  I've put down books of poetry for bad verse, too.  But that tells me exactly one thing about the book I've shut:  I didn't like it enough for other reasons to read past the language.  Because I can tell you, as God is my witness, if I like something else about the book enough, the language takes care of itself.

Of course, dropping lines like "dreadful prose" is part of a well-established paracritical discourse.  It's the kind of thing that you say when you're arguing over lists of what are, as Berlatsky says, the "best or essential" works of some kind:  the best and essential films of the '60s; the best and essential TV shows of the '70s; the best and essential punk records, and so on.  This is clearly the sort of argument that Berlatsky enjoys:  after all, he's written and linked to many a piece debating which are the most over- and under-rated this that and the other thing, at The Hooded Utilitarian.  Seriously--take a sec and Google "Noah Berlatsky Overrated."  It's a go-to form for him.

To me, such arguments always seem both pointless and terminally boyish, like those scenes in High Fidelity where the record-shop crew one-up one another with their lists of, say, the five best opening tracks for side three of a double album released from 1966-86, in reverse order, go!  And their academic equivalents, which codify which novels or poems are "central, or respected, or worth reading," strike me as equally bogus.  I'm old enough to have watched texts cycle on and off of those lists, to have listened to the critical debates that undermined them, and to have seen my students come to life when given texts--especially poems--that seem to be found on nobody's lists but mine.

There are, of course, plenty of lists out there in the romance world.  I'll talk about them, and about the rest of Berlatsky's article, anon.  For now let me just say that Berlatsky tells me, via Facebook, that ages ago he read and loathed High Fidelity, because he "felt like the criticism of insular white dude music obsession seemed more like a intensification of the insularity rather than a critique of it [...] especially because the female characters are so much of an afterthought."

Yet the pose Berlatsky strikes in the first few paragraphs of his Salon piece make this dislike pretty ironic. To paraphrase Oscar--see how that grates?--this loathing of High Fidelity is the rage of Rob Fleming (John Cusack) seeing his face in the glass.

I asked Laura for help in tracking down the responses of romance readers, and before I turn to the next few paragraphs in Berlatsky's piece--I'll do that in the next post--let me step back and let her prose and links take over.  Take it away, Laura!

"Berlatsky's comments on the lack of a romance canon came under particularly intense scrutiny from romance readers. Meoskop swiftly retorted that Berlatsky's argument seemed to be a complaint that

The patriarchy has failed to elevate romance as a genre, therefore the patriarchy has not prepared a Recommended Romance Diet for him to follow and yet he’s never been the sort of dude who believes in such a thing anyway? Pick a chair, son! (Then sit down.) If you can’t write a piece on the genre without taking a swipe at Harlequin and spitting on Nora then a Recommended Romance Diet would give you exactly the indigestion you’re fearing. Canons are not simply best of lists, they are reached by consensus over large periods of time and include major works. Roberts is going to figure heavily on this magic list you claim you want but also don’t want. 

In her response to Berlatsky, Sunita stated that

“influential” and “good” are different categories, and while you find people regularly putting certain books in both, there are many more that qualify only for one or the other. And even with supposedly consensual choices there will always be dissenters.

As Wendy, the 2011 winner of the RWA's librarian of the year award, observed:

Berlatsky bemoans the lack of a romance genre "canon."  A definitive list of books within the genre.  But digging deeper into his article what he is really bemoaning is A Lack Of Canon Featuring Books That I Deem As "Good." [...] Bemoaning that it's hard to find shit you personally like isn't enough.  It's understanding the history of the genre.  And lucky you - here I am to give you Wendy's Starter Guide To The Romance Canon That You Think Doesn't Exist.  It does exist - it's just not required by law to be validated by your personal tastes and preferences.

Close quotes--back to Eric.  See you in the next post, folks!

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Noah Berlatsky Loves Romance but Can't Find Romances He Loves
Wendy the Super Librarian Fires the Canon
Meoskop on Dudesplaining
Sunita on The Uses and Misuses of Canon  

Linking to Others

Laura Vivanco

Cora Buhlert has a

theory – to be explained at length in my PhD thesis – that the portrayal of “monsters” such as vampire and werewolves became more human as the othering of marginalized people in the real world became less and less acceptable. This also fits in with my findings that the 1960s were the turning point where the portrayal of former monsters began to change. And of course supernatural beings make excellent metaphors for the marginalized group of the author’s choice.

A different way of creating "Others" is explored by Melanie Tannenbaum. It's called "benevolent sexism" and it's

a formal name for all of those comments and stereotypes that can somehow feel both nice and wrong at the same time, such as the belief that women are “delicate flowers” that need to be protected by men, or the notion that women have the special gift of being “more kind and caring” than their male counterparts. And yes, it might sound complimentary, but it still counts as sexism.

Jonathan Frantzen writes in The New Yorker about Edith Wharton and Steve Donoghue is

appalled.

It wasn’t just Franzen’s pseudo-professorial leather-elbow-patch “let us now consider” air of arrogance, either, although you know you’re going to get plenty of that in a piece that begins, “The older I get, the more I’m convinced that a fiction writer’s oeuvre is a mirror of the writer’s character.” [...] the real horror of this piece is the fact that Franzen only needs four paragraphs to get to what’s really on his mind: Edith Wharton wasn’t hot. See, Franzen’s idea is that we like to root for our authors, and that process is facilitated by every flaw the author has. Edith Wharton “wasn’t pretty,” and so, according to Franzen, she spent the rest of her writing life exorcising her shame and anger over that fact in her fiction. Franzen can actually look at a book like The House of Mirth and then write something like this: “The novel can be read as a sustained effort by Wharton to imagine beauty from the inside and achieve sympathy for it, or, conversely, as a sadistically slow and thorough punishment of the pretty girl she couldn’t be.”

I know we don’t hire Jonathan Franzen to be a great literary critic. We hire him to be a bloatedly overrated literary sexist (the death of Norman Mailer left the position open). But even so, it would never have occurred to Franzen in a million years to get four paragraphs into a piece about F. Scott Fitzgerald or Ernest Hemingway and then start talking about how physically attractive they were – and even if he tried it, no New Yorker editor would have allowed it to see print.

The Queen of Sheba was known for her wisdom and her wealth:

Almost 3,000 years ago, the ruler of Sheba, which spanned modern-day Ethiopia and Yemen, arrived in Jerusalem with vast quantities of gold to give to King Solomon. Now an enormous ancient goldmine, together with the ruins of a temple and the site of a battlefield, have been discovered in her former territory. [...]

Sheba was a powerful incense-trading kingdom that prospered through trade with Jerusalem and the Roman empire. The queen is immortalised in Qur'an and the Bible, which describes her visit to Solomon "with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices, and very much gold and precious stones ... Then she gave the king 120 talents of gold, and a very great quantity of spices."

Although little is known about her, the queen's image inspired medieval Christian mystical works in which she embodied divine wisdom, as well as Turkish and Persian paintings, Handel's oratorio Solomon, and Hollywood films. Her story is still told across Africa and Arabia, and the Ethiopian tales are immortalised in the holy book the Kebra Nagast.

Hers is said to be one of the world's oldest love stories. The Bible says she visited Solomon to test his wisdom by asking him several riddles. Legend has it that he wooed her, and that descendants of their child, Menelik – son of the wise – became the kings of Abyssinia.

Another mine, and another love story, are depicted in Marie Bjelke Petersen's Jewelled Nights, "written in 1923" (Delamoir 115), which was turned into a 1925 silent movie starring and produced by Louise Lovely. This film has now

been brought back to life.

Adapted from a novel, the film follows a 'social butterfly' who runs away from her Melbourne home to a mining boom in Tasmania. She wants to restore her family's fortunes which were lost on the Melbourne Cup.

The film's restorer Bernard Lloyd says it is an epic love story.
"She dresses as her brother and she comes to Tasmania because she's heard that in Tasmania there are riches to be made, there's a mining boom going on," he said. "There, on the mining fields, she finds something much more valuable; true love."

The novel features a heroine who disguises herself as a man, the film was "advertised as being based on 'Marie Bjelke Petersen's virile story'" (Delamoir 119) and

at the novel's romantic climax--at that narrative point when it could be expected that gender matters the most--Bjelke Petersen empties out the categories male/female. Salarno actually seems disappointed at realising that 'Dick' is really Elaine. Indeed, he has to reason himself around to accepting it:

the fact should not make any vital difference between them; for was not his little pal just the same? His personality, his delightful ways, his high courage, the qualities he most admired in him, these could surely not be affected by the circumstances of sex. Besides, his affection for his young mate was by this time of too deep a nature to be affected by the newly-gained knowledge. (75)

Bjelke Petersen goes against the romantic grain by arguing that, in the end, gender is irrelevant to the formation of the couple. Simultaneously, gender is shown to be irrelevant to the achievement of 'masculine' success as a miner; with some guidance from Salarno, 'Dick' is just as good at finding the mineral as the 'typically Australian' men.  (Delamoir 123-24)

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Delamoir, Jeanette. “Marie Bjelke Petersen’s ‘Virile Story’: Jewelled Nights, Gender Instability, and the Bush." Hecate 29.1 (2003): 115-131.

Sex and Sentimentality: On Women Writers

Laura Vivanco

VS Naipaul, [...] winner of the Nobel prize for literature [...], who has been described as the "greatest living writer of English prose", was asked if he considered any woman writer his literary match. He replied: "I don't think so." Of Austen he said he "couldn't possibly share her sentimental ambitions, her sentimental sense of the world".

He felt that women writers were "quite different". He said: "I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not. I think [it is] unequal to me." The author [...] said this was because of women's "sentimentality, the narrow view of the world". (Fallon)

When Naipaul made these comments last week I contacted Smart Bitch Sarah to pass on some information about a response to them and elaine mueller then left a comment containing a quotation from Dale Spender's The Writing or the Sex? or Why You Don’t Have to Read Women’s Writing to Know It’s No Good. I was intrigued and wanted to find out more about Spender's views. Here are some quotes from her Mothers of the Novel: 100 Good Women Writers Before Jane Austen which demonstrate that Naipaul's comments are just the latest in a long line of attempts to denigrate women writers by casting them and their writing as sentimental and limited:

That Jane Austen, Maria Edgeworth, Fanny Burney and many more good women novelists wrote 'love stories' is not in dispute. What is at issue is the way in which the love stories of women have been devalued. For it is not that male novelists from Samuel Richardson to D. H. Lawrence have not written love stories, but that when they have done so they are called by a different name - and are accorded a more deferential status. D. H. Lawrence is not labelled as a writer of romantic fiction: his reputation would be eroded if he were.

That women writers have had their mobility constrained and their access to certain areas of life reduced, is not at issue. But so too have men. And what is at issue is that the partial experience of half the population - that of women - is judged to be narrow, second rate, specialised, while the partial experience of the other half - that of men - is held to be supremely significant and universal. Such a value judgment which is associated with the status of the sex and not the quality of the experience leads to the absurd situation where Jane Austen is patronised as a prisoner of the country parsonage while the parameters of T. S. Eliot's office pass without critical comment.

Even if it were the case that women writers were unable to directly participate in the more turbulent and treacherous ebb and flow of life (and to assume that male experience is more turbulent, treacherous and 'alive' than that of women is questionable indeed) there is no evidence that direct participation in the entire gamut of human involvements and emotions is necessary in order to portray them convincingly in writing. (163)

The reception of the novel Mary Barton demonstrates the extent to which the presumed sex of the author, rather than the subject or style of the writing itself, can shape the reception of a text:

When it was believed that Mary Barton was written by a man, the Athenaeum (1848) was full of praise for the author's grasp of politics and the fair and forcible portrayal of the working classes [...]. But when known to be written by a woman, the whole tenor of the criticism changed. It is not the political acumen of Elizabeth Gaskell but her ability to promote sympathy which becomes the focal point. Her emotionalism, her lack of objectivity are soon 'discovered' and the broad canvas of class politics is reduced - by the critics - to a 'sweet and fragrant' love story. The literary records are tampered with and rewritten to the extent that Elizabeth Gaskell's 'mental palate fed always as it was on the fruit and frothing milk of her nursery days, kept a nursery simplicity and gusto. And in consequence her whole picture of life is touched with a peculiar dewy freshness, shimmers with a unifying, softening light' [...].

This is the woman writer who not only provided a fair and forcible account of class politics but who, in Victorian times, dared to write about prostitution, unmarried mothers and dominated wives - from a woman's point of view. (164-65)

Of particular relevance to this blog and its readers is one of the conclusions Spender reaches about the consequences of these sexist attitudes towards women authors:

The terms 'women's novels' and 'romance' are often used interchangeably and to signify deprecation. Whether this is the result of the low status of women being transferred to 'romance', or the low status of 'romance' being transferred to women, is not possible to determine. But as there is little justification for the wholesale devaluation of women, so too is there little justification for the wholesale devaluation of 'romance'. As Margaret Jensen (1984) has pointed out, such dismissal generally occurs before and not after an examination of the facts. [...]

Now anyone who has defied convention and actually studied women's writing would not want to contend that all women writers are excellent and all romances works of art. But most would want to suggest that it is nonsense to lump together all women's novels and to call them 'romance' [...]. Not only is this practice unjustified in terms of the diversity of the writing: it is unjustified in terms of the bad name it gives to romance.

For there is nothing inherently inferior or deficient about romance. When it is the substance of men's writing it can become an exploration of human relationships and provide an insight into the human condition. And to think that the status of the woman writer could be improved by the repudiation of romance is just as misguided as thinking it could be improved by the repudiation of sex. The derisory connotations of woman and romance are equally undeserved and there are good grounds for seeking to reclaim both woman and romance, instead of subscribing to the inferiority of either. (166-67)

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• Fallon, Amy. "VS Naipaul finds no woman writer his literary match – not even Jane Austen: Nobel laureate says there is no female author whom he considers his equal." The Guardian. 2 June 2011.
• Spender, Dale. Mothers of the Novel: 100 Good Women Writers Before Jane Austen. London: Pandora, 1986.

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I chose the image because of a comment made by Jane Austen in a letter dated

December 16th 1816, to James Edward Austen

This comment to her nephew has been famous (or infamous) since its publication in her brother Henry's "Biographical Notice" in 1817, even though it is probably one of the most facetious of all her proclamations, in its way:

"What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited Sketches, full of Variety and Glow? -- How could I join them on to the little bit (two Inches wide) of Ivory on which I work with so fine a Brush, as produces little effect after much labour?" (Pemberley.com)

The dimensions of the portrait, painted in watercolour on ivory, are 2 1/2 x 2 in. It was, however, probably painted by a man: "Portrait of Mrs. Franklin Haven (Sarah Ann Curtis); about 1830. Attributed to: Thomas Edwards, American, 1795–1869." I downloaded it from Wikimedia Commons.

Well, thanks for letting me know...

Laura Vivanco

Sometimes, I get the impression the author is trying to embed what she thinks is a nugget of worldly wisdom into a novel. Unfortunately, I'm not always grateful for those nuggets. How do you feel about this description of one heroine's mother, for example?

Laura Stanford was not much like her daughter. Although they were of a similar height and build, Laura's hair was brown and undistinguished, and now she wore it dragged into a rather severe knot which added years to her age. She wore horn rimmed spectacles, too, and looked every inch the university lecturer she was. Tamsyn had sometimes wondered whether it was her mother's lack of femininity which had driven her father into the arms of a woman who hadn't an original thought in her head. She couldn't really understand how they had ever got married at all. They were not alike. Her mother was so much that breed of American woman who needed to feel intellectually superior to her mate. (Mather 11)

Have you ever wondered what "breed of [...] woman" (or "breed of man") you are? If not, this is the kind of passage that might make you start wondering. And if you're female and happen to wear horn-rimmed spectacles and/or your hair in a "rather severe knot" you've now been warned! People you meet may think you lack "femininity." Or perhaps they'll offer you the kind of career advice John Sawyer dispenses in Barbara Delinsky's The Dream Comes True:

"You make time for what you want," he stated in a voice that was deafeningly clear. "You give a little here, give a little there. It may mean that one thing or another takes longer to achieve, but it all comes out in the wash."
"One thing or another," Nina echoed. "You mean work. If a woman is willing to sacrifice her career, she can have the husband and kids."
"She doesn't have to sacrifice the career," he insisted, "just defer the ultimate gratification. And that doesn't mean there isn't gratification along the way, simply that the achievements may not be as high until the kids are grown and out of the house."
"She's an old lady by then."
"No way." He sat back and linked his fingers, seemingly more relaxed, as though confident he had the argument won. "Take that woman. She had kids in her mid-twenties. They're out on their own by the time she's fifty. Fifty is not old."
"It's too old to start building a career."
"She's not starting. She started years ago. She may have taken a leave when the kids were babies, but after that she worked part-time, maybe full-time as the kids got older. Okay, so she didn't go running off on business trips, or push past a forty-hour week, and maybe that held her back a little. But look what she has. She has a solid career. She has a solid marriage. She has kids who probably give her more satisfaction than anything she does at work. And she's only fifty."
With barely a breath, he raised a hand and went on. "Then again, take the woman who put her career before everything else. She got out of school, entered the marketplace and worked her tail off. She started climbing the ladder of success, and the drive became self-perpetuating. The higher she climbed, the higher she wanted to be. The more money she earned, the more she needed. There was always something more, always something more."
"Her being a woman didn't help," Nina put in. "A woman has to work twice as hard."
To her surprise, John agreed. "You're right. And that made her all the more determined to make it. So she put off thoughts of getting married, since she didn't have time for that. And she put off having kids, because she didn't have time for that. Then she reaches her mid-forties, when theoretically she should be up there on the threshold of the president's office, only there are suddenly four other candidates vying for the job and one of them is the new son-in-law of the chairman of the board. So she misses out. And then what does she have?" He raised a finger. "She doesn't have the corner office." Then another. "She doesn't have a husband." Then a third. "And her childbearing years are gone." He dropped his hand to his lap. "Do you think she's happy?"
His eloquence left Nina momentarily speechless.
"She's alone, Nina," he said more quietly. "She's alone, and she's getting older, and she's beginning to wonder what she'll do with herself if she ever has to retire. Happy? My guess is she's scared to death." (165-66)

John's "eloquence" left me "momentarily speechless" too. But not for long. I wonder if he would direct this kind of helpful advice at men? At women who don't want to have children? Or who don't want to marry (and the assumption is that the marriage would be to a man)? Is he assuming (a) that a woman needs a husband and children to make her happy and (b) that a post-menopausal woman couldn't find a husband? Oh, and Nina the career-woman almost dies from a ruptured appendix, since she didn't stop working to get it checked out, and John's career-woman first wife "was driving home very late one night after a three-day symposium, fell asleep at the wheel and hit a tree. Death was instantaneous" (163). Strangely enough, I can't help but see this as a not so subtle hint that career women are risking death by not slowing down to marry and care for children. Personally, though, I'd argue that it makes a better case for implementing a working time directive.

So, after all this instruction on how women should change their appearance and behaviour, I was intrigued when I picked up Sharon Kendrick's One Husband Required! and saw this comment from the heroine:

there was no way he would look twice at her. Men like Ross Sheridan were never attracted to women with unfashionably curved bodies of softly cushioned hips, and breasts which looked like overripe melons. They liked their women slim. No. Skinny. With plenty of bones showing, like sleek race-horses. Classy women. (8-9)

I hadn't thought about the possible class connotation of slimness, so that was interesting. However, would Ursula be proved right about the preferences of "Men like Ross Sheridan"? No, because apparently he thinks she's "a beautiful woman [...] like a rich, ripe, beautiful peach" (172). But immediately after having had sex for the first time, which provides her with irrefutable proof that men like him can indeed like women who resemble ripe (or over-ripe) fruit, Ursula realises why she had remained a virgin into her late twenties and why she had acquired this body shape:

'When I was growing up, men frightened me. I knew so little about them. I'd grown up in an all-female household - my father died too young to be any kind of role model. [...] And all the other men on the estate where I grew up seemed to think of women as being good for just one thing.' That had been the beginning of her plumpness, she realised now. A cushioned body had protected her and meant that the ferret-eyed boys had left her alone. (175)

It reminded me of Susie Orbach's Fat is a Feminist Issue, in which Orbach suggests that "There is also something positive to be gained from being fat that we must explore. I am not suggesting that the desire to be fat is a conscious one. Indeed, I would argue that people are largely unaware of it" (42). She reports that "the most common benefits that women saw in being large had to do with a sexual protection. In seeing herself as fat, a woman is often able to desexualize herself; the fat prevents her from considering herself as sexual" (43). Orbach herself found that once she had thought about her underlying attitudes towards food and fat, she gradually began to lose weight. Something similar happens to Ursula: following her insight into why she ate

'[...] I just kind of lost interest in food. I never really found the time to snack once I started living with Ross.'
'You mean that sex replaced food?' queried Amber bluntly.
Ursula blushed. 'There's no need to put it like that!'
'Well, it's true, isn't it?'
Yes, it was true. Ursula's world had changed immeasurably - Ross had seen to that. It had become brighter, sharper, clearer - more real than real. Mealtimes had lost their allure as the focus of her day. Not that she had become an unsightly skinny-ribs - a woman obsessed with the amount of calories she put in her mouth - or anything like that. No, it was just that the rounded hips had melted away to firm curves, and she definitely had an hourglass shape now! (182-83)

Again, I think there's a lot one could say about this. But my conclusion from this week's reading is that if, as is often said, romance is written by women, for women (although RWA's latest statistics suggest that "men make up 9.5 percent" of the readership, and there are male authors), then perhaps in some ways the genre's the textual equivalent of a feminist consciousness raising group crossed with a storytelling session at which women reveal their internalised sexism.

Internalized sexism refers to women‟s incorporation of sexist practices, and to the circulation of those practices among women, even in the absence of men. [...] Everyday conversation is woven from the conventions, motivations, and negotiations that make up life in cultural communities. When sexism is part of a culture, sexism, and the internalized sexism that accompanies it, becomes one of the threads out of which conversations are woven. (Bearman, Korobov and Thorne 11)

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• Delinsky, Barbara. The Dream Comes True. Don Mills, Ontario: Harlequin, 1990.
• Bearman, Steve, Neill Korobov, and Avril Thorne. "The Fabric of Internalized Sexism." Journal of Integrated Social Sciences 1.1 (2009): 10-47.
• Kendrick, Sharon. One Husband Required! Richmond, Surrey: Harlequin Mills & Boon, 1999.
• Mather, Anne. Chase a Green Shadow. 1973. London: Mills & Boon, 1980.
• Orbach, Susie. Fat is a Feminist Issue ... How to lose weight permanently - without dieting. 1978. Feltham, Middlesex: Hamlyn, 1982.

My thanks to Tumperkin, who gave me the Delinsky and the Kendrick.