Dangerous Books For Girls: The Bad Reputation of Romance Novels, Explained

"Romance novels feature nuanced portrayals of female characters having adventures, making choices, and accepting themselves just as they are. When we say these stories are silly and unrealistic, we are telling young girls not to expect to be the heroines in their own real lives. Romance novels depict female sexuality as a loving, pleasurable, and above all acceptable part of being a happy woman. But when we call them smutty, dirty, or trashy books, we are negating that message. Romance novels portray life as we, women, would love it to be. One that recognizes our worth, rewards us for our confidence, and supports our choices. When we say these books are unrealistic, we are telling young girls, who might still be open-minded about their own opportunities, that they should lower their expectations. Romance novels show a variety of heroines, be they plain, pretty, plump, or skinny. They might be black, white, rich, poor, gay, or straight. But when we say only stupid women read these books, we are telling young girls that they are foolish for believing that they can be beautiful and loveable just the way they are. Even when we don't talk about romance novels, we are sending a message that women are not worth talking about and that they should be seen and not heard." [From Dangerous Books for Girls: The Bad Reputation of Romance Novels Explained by Maya Rodale, "Why It Matters How We Talk About Romance Novels"] Dangerous Books for Girls is an examination romance as genre primarily through the lens of gender. The author brought up a lot of points that I hadn't considered and constructs an interesting and well supported argument about how the romance genre isn't treated fairly (in comparison to contemporary lit or fantasy or historical fiction or literally any other genre) primarily due to its mostly female authorship and readership. The author also points out the likely role that the romance genre has played in social movements due to the inherent message of the stories. Despite romance's reputation for cringy bodice rippers and rapist 'heroes' - a reputation largely based on early to mid twentieth century books, not the modern genre - more recently published romances often are nuanced explorations of any number of issues, only organized around the axis of a relationship and invested in a hopeful conclusion. As the author points out, trashing an entire genre based on commonly appearing tropes is unfair in the extreme, prevents readers from picking up the books or respecting people who read the genre, and denigrates the kind of discussion and change that the themes are meant to promote. An equivalent would be trashing fantasy as a genre because the apocalypse (or whatever their specific variant is called) is a commonly used trope and saying that discussion of racism and fascism through the medium of Harry Potter is a worthless endeavor, people who read the Harry Potter are stupid anyways and no semi-intelligent person would stoop to picking up those kinds of books because they aren't worth the paper they're printed on. There are some people who feel that way about fantasy, but the author's point is that such people are comparatively few and far between when one takes into account the mass of people who think something similar about the romance genre, often without even realizing it. Overall, Dangerous Books for Girls was an enlightening read, and it is one that I would recommend to others.

Enjoyed it! But know going in that it is accurately titled. The book is survey data, historical context, and analysis about why Romance has such a reputation. I still hate traditional covers, but I enjoyed thinking about a very written-by-women, read-by-women genre --- at that angle, it constantly being trashed starts to make sense given how male-centric our society is. Not a how-to-write book, so if you are looking for that, go elsewhere. The cover is horrible and you'll get grease prints on it no matter how clean your hands are.

Well-researched, brilliant read! if you've ever wondered why romance gets a bad rep, this book is for you! So many well-presented arguments and sources on everything from Fabio covers to alpha heroes, from covers to happily-ever-afters, Rodale reminds us masterfully why it is important how we talk about romance novels. Highly recommend for anyone interested in the genre!

"Dangerous Books for Girls" attempts to combat stereotypes of romance novels as low-quality, repetitive, and anti-feminist. Maya Rodale paints romance novels as subversive, feminist, and empowering because they: are written by women, for women, and about women; show women getting what they want; allow women to make money as authors; allow women to travel imaginatively beyond the confines of their confined lives; show women having sex and orgasms; and show women marrying for love. She goes to great lengths to show how romance developed as way for women to imagine having it all at a time (1700s) when they were not expected to marry for love or have a career. This premise is plausible with applied to the 1700s and 1800s, but it was not persuasive as an explanation of modern romance. As the list above suggests, the values embedded in romance novels are feminist only against a baseline of total female subordination and cultural taboos against extramarital sex. I am not in a position to assess the liberating potential of romance in the 18th century (many early romance novels were written by men, for instance), but modern romance emerged in the 1970s, during Second-Wave Feminism. Modern feminism: views marriage as outdated; trumpets women’s independence from men; either eschews heterosexual sex because men are sexist pigs (second-wave) or valorizes casual sex that empowers women to gain control over men using their sexuality (third-wave); believes the categories of sex and gender are socially constructed and meaningless; increasingly believes that monogamy is unnatural and favors polyamory; and believes that beauty standards are socially constructed and thus that it is morally wrong to view some bodies as more attractive than others. Romance novels promote none of these things. Instead, beautiful virgins (or at least sexually inexperienced women) enter into monogamous, lifelong marital relationships with hunky alpha males. These men are often rich, domineering, and have high social status. True, the heroines are not chained to the kitchen, but neither do their lives resemble the ideal of modern feminism. A second major problem is that Rodale does not convincingly handle the gendered nature of romance. She downplays the “strangeness” or uniqueness of female desire and (sometimes but not always, as we’ll see) treats gender differences as social constructed. Like almost all English majors, Rodale ignores any possibility of natural sex differences between men and women, and instead explains non-feminist aspects of romance as products of social expectations placed on women. For instance, Rodale argues that the trope of the wealthy hero arose because, in the past, women had to negotiate between marrying for love and marrying for money. Romance gave them both. Fair enough. But what does this have to do with modern romance, which still overwhelmingly features dominant, wealthy alphas (ex. 50 Shades)? She says that the trope of women taming alpha rakes came as a response to a misogynistic society, trying to negotiate respect in a man’s world (123). She says that men and women share the same desires, that the “alpha” character doesn’t have to be the man, that the alpha character is almost always the man because we are “stuck in a rut” of outdated perspectives (125). She says that women identify with the alpha males and that it lets them tap into their masculine side (125-26). She explains the rapey books from the 1970s-80s as stemming from the fact that “women’s desire and sexuality still freaks us out,” although she never explains why this would be so (94). (Husbands hate it when wives go off sex.) [Weirdly, she seems to blame men for bad sex, even though women are far more likely to have sexual disfunction and cut their partners off from sex.] Yet, at other times, she seems to validate women’s desires even when these are very traditional. She defends the desire for home, children, hot alpha males, heterosexual love, and a monogamous marriage because “women want them and real feminism is women getting what they want” (my paraphrase). But she just said—and here she agrees with almost all feminists—that women’s desires have been shaped, deformed, and molded by a patriarchal society. Why does she dismiss some desire that women have, but not others? Why are some of women’s desires seen as authentic, while others are seen as products of sexist social construction? How do we tell the difference? Shouldn’t feminists focus on transgressing these desires and replacing them with more liberating possibilities (as traditional feminist scholarship seeks to do)? Another pet peeve is that downplays the difficulty of male partners living up to the standards of the romance hero. She equates the female fantasy expressed in romance with the modest expectation of “fidelity, respect and orgasms” (89). But clearly the hero goes far beyond this baseline standard, or fulfills it in such a perfect way that it is no longer baseline. They get off on doing anything to make their woman happy. Also, romance heroes are not just average guys who promise love and commitment. They are often tortured souls who are fiercely strong, masculine, and even aggressive, but who have a tender side that is unlocked by a woman’s love. To me (a man) they seem like schizophrenics and it hard to imagine genuinely acting like that. Certainly, “normal” beta males who offer women “fidelity, respect and orgasms”—but not a fortune or an English title—do not meet with a particularly positive response on the dating market, to say the least. Yet Rodale appears to argue that romance novels offer an actionable template for real relationships, at least once the more obvious fantastic elements are stripped away. I think it is a mistake that Rodale denies that romance novels are evidence of (on average) sex differences or that romance novels reveal that (the average) woman’s deepest desires regarding sex and love differ from men’s. I think the case for (average) sex differences is much stronger than she allows. If you are interested in a good book that explains in more detail the differences between male and female fantasies, I suggest "A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the Internet Tells Us About Sexual Relationships," by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam. "Dangerous Books for Girls" is too wedded to a contradictory feminist mindset to be honest about what romance is and what makes it unique.

A short, but utterly fascinating read on the origins of the 'romance novel' -- both the ones from the 18th and 19th centuries, and the modern definition that we use today-- as well as the history of the stigma against reading them, and the idea that romance novels are frivolous, only for women and thus ok to disregard as 'literary.' Truly, for anyone who reads romance novels, or for anyone who thinks they're "porn for women" this should be required reading to understand the historical, political and sociological environment that created the romance novel, and that created the opinion that has shaped the way romance novels were seen, and are still seen by the majority of people. Romances are generally seen as lacking in proper literary merit, as frivolous reading for women, as unrealistic, as emotional, and something that can be completely disregarded, even though romance novels are the most popular type of novels published today, and, historically, were also incredibly popular during the 19th century. Recommended for anyone who likes romance novels.

Citando il trailer di ‘Barbie’, ‘se ami i romance questo libro è per te’ e ‘se odi i romance questo libro è per te’! Non capita spesso di leggere raccolte di saggi così scorrevoli come questo e ogni saggio mi ha aperto maggiormente gli occhi sul perché i romanzi rosa vengono ancora oggi visti male quando forse è uno dei generi letterari più rivoluzionari di sempre, incentrato sul prendere il controllo della propria vita e trovare la felicità, tradizionalmente prodotto e indirizzato alle donne perché più propense alla lettura e vittime del patriarcato e delle sue imposizioni, ma che negli ultimi anni si sta aprendo a un pubblico sempre più variegato, specialmente appartenente alle minoranze. Insomma, leggere romance è un atto rivoluzionario e femminista, e se le persone non hanno smesso di farlo in tutti questi anni nonostante la fama che li circonda, perché smettere adesso?

Don’t knock it or mock it till you’ve tried it comes to mind. A well written and researched book, I would highly recommend. This little read should put any critics, snobs and closet romance readers to shame. Thank you, Maya Rodale I wish someone had explained the importance and significance of the romance genre to me in my teens. It would have been enlightening and well placed.

Honestly, I really thought I would read a true study, written by literary scholars, feminists... I was so disappointed to read another apology of romance that I did not read it until the end. Honestly, how can somebody say that rape literature is great for woman's perception of the world. Don't they know the Stockholm syndrome ? Or that woman does not always bring redemption? I am tired to read stuff like this that promotes a vision of romance that is blurred by the need to fit into the patriarchal scheme, honestly heteronormativity and coercion in gender studies is outdated now.

Sem palavras pra descrever um livro que eu PRECISAVA LER. Ele não é completo, e está desatualizado, mas ajuda a organizar as coisas na bagunça que é o mercado. romances importam, e muito. Romances são a expressão mais profunda do feminino. São assuntos de mulheres para mulheres em que elas podem ser livres e terem prazer. Em que não são coadjuvantes desfocadas vestindo biquínis para agradar o herói. Elas não elevam nossa expectativa quanto ao que queremos da vida (embora, pera: pq isso seria ruim?) elas só mostram que o que recebemos nos relacionamentos pode e deve ser melhorado. Tive alguns pensamentos divergentes em alguns momentos mas que não tirou nem um pouco minha completa concordância com a premissa geral.