I usually stay out of fights and drama on social media. I don’t have the time or interest for most of it and it’s mostly a case of beating a dead horse, as they say. We’ve all heard it. Most of us agree. So why is it still a fight?
Romance-bashing has been a thing as long as I’ve been reading the genre and that’s going on 40 years now. I remember clearly sitting in the doctor’s office with my copy of Ashes in the Wind – a pivotal book for me – and having more than one person sneer and comment about my choice of reading material. I was 15 or 16 at the time, firmly entrenched in the “don’t talk back to your elders” mindset (at least if they weren’t my mother) so I didn’t say anything. I just read my book.
It didn’t stop me from reading romance but I did it more on the sly. I bought a pretty cover for my paperbacks so I could read and no one could see the title. And I will be honest with you, as much as I loved the content I often hated the covers. The fabled clench cover was not my favorite. At least in public. At home, I dreamed someone would hold me like that one day, look at me like that. Unless it was Fabio. I hated Fabio. The fact that he got a book deal back then still makes my blood boil.
Anyhoo…I digress.
Romance bashing…yeah…I have a few choice words for people who want to bash romance.
- A billion-dollar-a-year industry. Yes. That’s billion…with a B. About equal to the mystery genre AND sci-fi genres combined which no one, from my POV, are bashing.
- Regular spots on the NYT bestseller lists.
- It’s a genre dedicated to happily ever after (and YES, it must have a HEA/HFN to be a romance).
The problem, in a nutshell, is this: 84% of romance readers are women.
This country (USA) and the world in general, has a problem anytime women choose (insert noun of your choice). Historically, women have been seen as weaker so our choices must be weaker, less logical. Historically, women have been miscategorized as emotional and prone to histrionics, even hysterical (and not in a ha-ha kind of way). We are (typically) nurturers in a society that does not appreciate it, but that relies on it to keep going. We will talk out a problem rather than pick up a stick and try and beat it into submission.
Now I have OPINIONS on why all of this has happened and continues to happen but that’s another form of bashing I don’t want to get into so I’ll leave it where it is.
The romance genre, on a whole, is about women taking all of that back. It’s no longer books about a damsel in distress; it’s a damsel kicking butt and taking names. We no longer need to be rescued but do the rescuing. This reflects the changing attitudes of women in society. We are large and in charge and like it that way. And if we happen to snag the hunky firefighter/secret agent/billionaire cowboy on the way…more power to us.