- Amy: I love this!
- P90x: nice story! in
- Uppity: Dark, yes, but
- Unhinged: Yeowl, I just
- damyanti: Absolutely hilarious:)…I am
Uppity Yours
Pages
Back Talk
Filed Under
Uppity Archives
www.flickr.com
|
The Female Gaze
March 3rd, 2008
This morning during my usual drink-coffee-read-feeds-become-human morning half hour, I spied with my little eye a post entitled “Can a feminist write romance novels?”
As a feminist and aspiring novelist, how could I resist that one?
In her post, writer Karen Kendal says that genre romances have a bad rap “because male fantasies are seen as legitimate in our society, while female fantasies are seen as ludicrous. Why?”
Because, continues Ms. Kendal, in a patriarchal (i.e., every) society, the vast majority of media, from Nobel Prize winning books to the Victoria Secret catalog, caters to the male gaze. They portray women - and, significantly, men - the way men want to see them.
Enter the uppity romance novel, in which the male is the subject, portrayed by and for the female gaze.
Not surprisingly, men do not like being the subject if they can’t control the product.
Just as we’d rather not compare ourselves physically with models, most men don’t want to be scrutinized next to body builders or romance heroes. What if they come up short? So they point and laugh at the guy on the novel’s cover and sneer that he’s only a stupid fantasy.
And because the male eye has become the norm, women diss romances, too, without even reading any.
I must admit I’ve done my share of dissing romance novels. I always chalked it up to being a literary snob and thought no further. How could I have missed this? Bad feminist, no biscuit!
I’ve read a few romance novels here and there, and while in general they’re still not my cup of tea, I must say it is clear that “bodice-ripper” is an outdated stereotype. Most modern romance protagonists are at least as feminist (if not more so) than those in their “literary” counterparts.
As Ms. Kendal puts it:
[Modern heroines] don’t shriek – they act. They engage in power struggles with the hero and often win. Along the way they have some great sex, and I happen to think that’s a good thing, since historically women – busy being the objects of male fantasy – have put up with a lot of bad sex, too.
Amen, sister. Amen.
Technorati Tags: feminism, literature, romance, writing
Filed under Feminism, Righteous Ribs, Writing |4 Responses to “The Female Gaze”
Leave a Reply
I eagerly await your Uppity Romance line of books.
I was scoffing at the cover art of a romance novel this lady was reading on the train. I laughed not at her choice of literature, as I am a huge sci fi/fantasy geek and love my escapist books, but at the art.
Picture a shirtless bare chested Native American male on the cover, his chiseled physique a male siren call of lust and desire. The only problem is that the “Native” American was a caucasian with barely a hint of brown and a feather on his headband. It was as UnIndian as you could be …
For some interesting statistics, see http://www.rwanational.org/cs/the_romance_genre/romance_literature_statistics/readership_statistics
Readership for romance novels is 20% men. That must be who’s buying those book covers.
A romance novel in which the man is a widow with no children is written for men. The rape-fantasy ones are as well. Behind many of those fancy author’s names lurks a man — many, many romance novels are penned by men. Who else would get turned on by the “sweep-her-off-her-feet and dominate her” themes?
Bayushi - Every time I go back to South Dakota, I laugh at all the “regional” art posters the white folks sell to tourists. All the Native American heroes look like Swedes with black hair.
Jo - Though my personal experience with the romance genre is limited, I’ve never seen any of the “sweep her off her feet and dominate her” variety w/in the past 15 years. I’m sure some exist, somewhere, for a market of about 100 men, all of whom do the writing, buying and reading.
I read this one with great amusement, as someone recently asked me what happened to the serial bodice-ripper we co-”wrote” a few years ago. I must confess I never kept a copy, so it has been lost to moi forever.