My name is Shannon C. and I’m a feminist who reads romance

Some time ago there was a lot of discussion about how one can be a romance reader and a feminist at the same time. I’m probably going to tread over some old ground, but hey, this is my blog. If I want to repeat what more articulate souls than I am have already said, then that’s my prerogative.

For me, the best romances do tend to be very empowering for women. I love the stories where a woman gradually comes to embrace and accept her sexuality as a woman. There was a Robin Schoen story I read recently whose title escapes me at the moment, but it featured a woman essentially showing a man what she liked, and the man finding pleasure in bringing her sexual fulfillment. I understand that that’s Ms. Schoen’s typical formula, but it totally works for me. That’s one of the reasons I loved Samantha Kane’s first book, The Courage to Love. (Incidentally, I’m thinking I should revise my grade, because that story has stuck with me several days later, and I still find myself remembering certain scenes and bits of dialogue with a smile.) Anyway, at the beginning of the story, Kate is slowly healing from feeling a sense of powerlessness, but as she comes to embrace Jason and Tony, she eventually begins to revel in her sensuality, to accept that it’s her due, that she deserves happiness as a woman. The next books in the series look like they contain more of that, and I absolutely cannot wait to read more about these nearly broken women who come to grips with their sexuality and find acceptance and fairytale love. No, it could be argued, that happens so rarely in real life. But it’s not a bad thing to strive for.

Also, while I am on the tangent of women’s empowerment, I read yet another blog post yesterday about how there are too many kickass heroines. I really want to know where these books are, because I really don’t see them. In fact, I embrace the trend toward giving a heroine more power in the story. I like knowing why the hero needs the heroine and having it be for some other reason than that she’s so darn innocent. I love reading about women whose skills compliment those of the men they’re with, which is why Meljean Brook and Marjorie Liu both work for me. Lilith and Savi are kickass women, but they both compliment their partners well, and I like reading about that sort of equal partnership.

I even don’t think there’s inherently anything wrong with all those books featuring the virginal heroine and the alpha man who needs to possess her. Sure, some of them do have some fucked up misogynistic sexual politics going on, but for me, they’re also pretty hot. Christine Feehan, for example… I hate her books, but I have to admit that the stalker-y obsession that her Carpathian men have for their lifemates totally works as a fantasy for me. There’s a lot about the fated mates concept in general that *doesn’t* work for me, but the whole alpha man saying, “Not only am I going to have you, but you’re going to love it when I do.” works for me as a reader, and obviously it works for many others, and I don’t think that embracing such fantasies is necessarily an indication that one isn’t feminist enough.

There are some tropes that my inner feminist absolutely hates about romance. The rest iof the fated mates concept–where the couple can’t survive without the other half of their souls, for instance, drives me up a tree. So, too, does the overemphasis on sweet, virginal women being paired with bored rakes who take one look at the women in question and discover that they need such innocence in their lives. Because I’m not the most sexually experienced human being on the planet, and even before I lost my virginity, I don’t think I was ever that innocent. In fact, the only sweet, naive virginal people I know in real life are seriously repressed in other areas, and would not be fodder for romance.

I also think there are a lot of other genres that stereotypically treat women in misogynistic ways. Hard science fiction still doesn’t contain very many female characters at all. Fantasy has given us the trope of the gentle healer woman with empathic abilities. And why is it always the femme fatalle who hires the cynical hard-bitten detective in those old pulp mysteries? none of those things are exactly empowering, and yet it’s romance that takes the majority of the flack for not being feminist enough usually from people who haven’t rread the genre.

So yes. I’m a feminist pinko liberal and I read romance. I feel no shame in admitting to that, thank you very much!