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The beautiful blonde, blue-eyed virgin: An analysis of adjectives to
describe women in pulp romance fiction
by
Faye L. Kilday, journalism student
and
Carol S. Lomicky, Ph.D., associate professor
Department of Communication
University of Nebraska at Kearney
Mitchell Center
Kearney, NE 68849
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Submitted to AEJMC, Commission on the Status of Women
San Antonio, Texas
August 2005
The beautiful blonde, blue-eyed virgin: An analysis of adjectives to
describe women in pulp romance fiction
Abstract
This paper summarizes a study that examined the depiction of women
characters in current romance fiction. This content analysis of
adjectives used to describe the women in the text of the novels found
that women were significantly described in terms of their physical
appearance while intellectual attributes were significantly
underrepresented. Of the 302 adjectives examined, 50% described
women in terms of their physical appearance.
Women in romance fiction
Background
Since the founding of the Romance Writers of America in 1981,
writers of romance pulp fiction have identified themselves as
feminists, who value self-assertion and are aware of themselves as
successful working women in a difficult profession. The question
then becomes: to what extent is feminist ideology reflected in the
novel itself especially in terms of how the writers of romance
fiction portray the women in their stories? This study seeks to
examine how women are portrayed in current popular romance through an
analysis of adjectives used to describe the women in the text of select novels.
The popularity of romance novels is not new. Historians trace the
origins of romance fiction back to the first modern novel in English,
Samuel Richardson's Pamela, published in 1740 (Douglas,
1977). Pamela also happens to be the first seduction story in which
young girls are instructed to resist the wiles of men, where marriage
is reward, and death and disgrace is retribution—a moral lesson that
persists in current romance fiction. By the middle of the nineteenth
century so-called woman's fiction experienced a heyday when
sentimental domestic novels written largely by women for
women dominated the literary market in America (Douglas,
1977). Since the 1960s, Western women writers have flourished in the
romance fiction market with unprecedented output and worldwide market
domination (Mulhern, 1989).[1] As Mulhern notes, "The title of the
first romance series and the name of its publisher, Harlequin, (have)
become something like a generic term . . ." (p. 50). Today romance
accounts for well over one-third of all popular fiction sales in
America and more than 54% of total mass-market paperback sales
(Ramsdell, 2003) Romance sales bring in more than $1.5 billion a
year. ("True love returns," 2001). No longer limited to paperbacks,
romance novels regularly appear on the New York Times bestseller
lists (Beam, 1997).
The romance plot line—historically and today—is formulaic. As
Moffitt (1993) describes the stories:
...are about virtually two characters, the heroine and hero. The
young heroine is alone in the world and without the strength of
family or friends, but she possesses an inner strength and spunk and
a perfect beauty of which she alone is ignorant. The hero is
rugged and handsome, and throughout the course of the story and
their developing relationship
. . . changes from an uncaring, even verbally or physically abusive
character initially, to a nurturing, caring and affectionate lover
by the story's end, punctuated in their final reconciliation and
declarations of love (p. 54).
Despite the formula, since the late 1980s romance has diversified to
appeal to a changing readership (Frenier, 1988). For example,
romance readers today can choose from categories such as:
"time-travel, African American romances, romances featuring the
handicapped, erotic, mystery and suspense romances, comic romances,
and even Christian romances focusing on God-fearing couples for whom
the height of excitement is a shy goodnight kiss" (Bemrose &
Atherley, 1999, p. 58). The diversification continues. In the
ongoing quest to broaden its audience and attract new readers,
romance publishers' categories are going through a period of
addition, multiplication and diversification (Danford, Dyer, Holt, &
Rosen, 2003). For example, in 2001 publishers Jove and Kensington
introduced new lines of romance that promised to be "the best in
erotic romantic fiction" (Ramsdell, 2001). That same year Harlequin
added a modern twist with its release of a new line called Red Dress
Ink ("Romancing new readers," 2001). Unlike the traditional romance
that ends in wedding bells, the Red Dress series "present(s) a more
realistic picture of single life and dating, one that ends not
necessarily in marriage but self-discovery" ("Romancing new readers,"
2001, p. 33). As one editor of the series commented, "They're edgy;
they've got attitude and a certain hipness to them" (Marsh, 2002, p.
39.) In the fall of 2004, Kensington also began publishing its
Dafina line of African American romance ("Return to romance," 2004).
Two authors have created the ultimate romance—one that features the
reader. For $50, the name of the purchaser or anyone else's name
will be incorporated into customized romance novels. Versions are
"mild" or "wild" to fit the reader's preference which is determined
by a customer questionnaire used to discover a partner's eye color,
pet names, and other personal information. Since their inception,
about 6,000 copies of the personalized novels are sold each year
("Between the Covers," 2002).
Romance novel leading ladies have had a facelift as well. "Gone are
the prim, modest and decidedly passive young women of earlier
decades: the nurses and manicure girls hoping to catch some wealthy
Mr. Right. Now, romance protagonists are more likely to be business
executives or sky divers, and they know how to demand respect and
erotic stimulation in equal measure" (Bemrose & Atherley, 1999, p.
58). Add to that, publishers are introducing romances with
larger-bodied heroines, some of the women already are grandmothers,
many have aged a decade or two—even three— and a divorcee with a
child may enter the plot line ("Romance novels feature full-figured
women," 2001; "True love returns," 2002). In 2003 Ballantine
published "The Hot Flash Club," which is considered the first women's
fiction novel that features protagonists in their 50s and 60s
(Danford et al., 1993). In 2004 Berkley Books and Pocketbooks
released several erotic romance thrillers. This new genre of
"romantica" is a combination of romantic and erotic fiction that
traces its beginnings to a number of so-called e-publishers that
produce fiction for the Web (Heaton, 2004).
Some traditions, however, endure: there's the relationship, the
conflict to make the love work, the monogamous relationship (once
love has been established between the hero and heroine), and the
happy ending ("True love returns," 2002).
Who are the women reading romance novels today? The stereotype is
that romance readers are under-classed, uneducated homemakers (Toth,
1993). The reality is that 59% of romance readers work outside the
home; many have completed some college (Sachs, 2002). More than half
(57%) of romance readers are married while 23% are single (Sachs,
2002). "Many began romance reading when they entered the workforce
and began battling for their rights as women" (Toth, 1993, p.
11). Other reasons women give for romance reading
include: "empowerment of women, the molding of positive healthy
outcomes to difficult social problems, the ability to engage the
emotions, the affirmation of moral values, an optimistic outlook, the
validation of the family—and pure, simple enjoyment" (Ramsdell, 2003,
p. 64). Some readers explain that the stress of working outside the
home while trying to keep up with home and family responsibilities
has enhanced the popularity of romance reading. "Many find [a
romance] a helpful antidote to the increasing stress in their lives,
particularly as they have entered the labor force..." (Frenier, 1988, p. 10)."
Still intellectuals criticize romance fiction as being
low-brow—indeed, anti-feminist. For instance, since its beginnings
in 1981 Romance Writers of America[2] has been concerned that
romance novels are denigrated as "women's literature" by academic
critics, the literary establishment and a vaguely defined public
(Christian, 1980; Toth, 1993). Or, as one author noted, the criticism
may also stem from the fact that romance is written and read
overwhelmingly by women (Regis, 2003). Certainly romance fiction has
not received the critical attention given to other genres of popular
fiction ( Regis, 2003).
Given this, the stigma of reading romance has attracted some recent
attention. According to one romance reader, "Yes, I read them. I've
read them for 20 years. But if you use my name in the paper, I'll
kill you. People think you're stupid if you read romance
novels" (Potts, 2001). Such comments cause romance readers to
develop "face-saving strategies" in social situations (Brackett,
2000). One successful romance writer acknowledged that it is
difficult for women to read romance novels in public because they're
afraid of what people will think (Krentz, 1992):
Few people realize how much courage it takes for a woman to open a
romance novel on an airplane. She knows what everyone around her
will think about both her and her choice of reading material. When
it comes to romance novels, society has always felt free to sit
in judgment not only on the literature but on the reader
herself. The verdict is always the same. Society does not approve
of the reading of romance novels. It labels the books as trash and
the readers as unintelligent, uneducated, unsophisticated or neurotic (p. 1).
Thus concealment is a romance reader's first-line of defense against
criticism. If a romance reader is found out, she often will attempt
to boost the intellectual credibility of the genre (Brackett,
2000). Other romance readers will try to separate themselves from
other romance readers by making it appear that they aren't the normal
romance reader; for example, by having an above average education
level (Brackett, 2000).
Like their readers, as a group, romance writers defy
categorization. Romance fiction authors represent a cross-section of
educated women including geologists, lawyers, historians, librarians
(Toth, 1993). In her study of Harlequin, Jensen (1984) concluded
that the experience of women becoming writers in a male-dominated
publishing world has created a group of women writers who identify
themselves as feminists. Moreover, these authors work together to
keep alive the tradition of literature that is written by women for
women, and, with great pride, refer to themselves as a sisterhood
that battles for women's voices and values (Toth, 1993). Rabine
(1985), who also examined Harlequin, concluded that the publisher has
responded to the specific needs of the modern woman in the novels by
focusing on the "juncture between their sexual, emotional needs on
the one hand and their needs concerning work relations on the other .
. ." (p. 39).
The notion of romance writers as feminists also is argued by Krentz
(1992). In her book of essays by romance writers, the authors
unabashedly declare themselves feminists dedicated to creating
feisty, independent women characters. According to one author, a
woman's ultimate fantasy is not be beautiful—but to have her looks
not matter at all (Krentz, 1992).
Literature Review
In the scholarly literature much of the research about romance
fiction is grounded in audience reception theory, which shifts
emphasis from meaning encoded in the text and authors to the role of
the reader in decoding the text .[3] For example, one researcher
concludes: that the romance reader "actively attributes sense to
lexical signs in a silent process carried on in the context of her
ordinary life" (Radway, 1984, p. 8). Moreover, Radway finds that ".
. . romance reading seems to permit American women to adopt some of
the changing attitudes about gender roles by affirming that those
attitudes are compatible with the social institution of marriage . .
." (p. 73).
Moffitt's study of adolescent and adult mothers and daughters, who
read romances, found her sample of readers to experience the
ideological framework of the romance novel, which suggests to them
that they should match certain socially-dictated ideals (1993). Most
importantly, in terms of the study at hand, Moffitt (1993) argues
that while readers receive positive meanings from romance novels,
meanings also can be subversive. She cites as example: "Reading a
text that suggests women should match socially-dictated physical
ideals" (Moffitt, 1993, p. 52).
In a more recent study of female teens and romance reading, DeBlase
(2003) found that "girls pay close attention to what they read in and
out of the classroom as they engage in a meaning-making process
designed to help them understand their gendered selves in relation to
others" (p. 633).
A review of the literature also reveals a number of studies using
discourse analysis. For example, Jones' intertextual reading of
Ladder of Years, typically cast as anti-feminist, and The Awakening,
a landmark feminist text, concludes that the former constitutes a
"post feminist" revision of the latter—"one that posits a feminist
trajectory for women that does not necessitate a complete flight from
the domestic sphere" (Jones, 2003, p. 272). Darbyshire's study
focuses on the transformation of the romance industry in the late
1990s during which he finds a proliferation of Christian-theme
romances. Moreover, he notes, "The anti-feminist bias of these books
. . . actually reflects a popular trend in the general North American
populace, one that fits into the political fantasies, if not the
romantic fantasies, of a significant number of North American women"
(p. 80). Furthermore, underlying the submission to patriarchal
authority in the Christian-theme romances is a renewed submission to
the ultimate figure of male authority: God (Darbyshire, 2003, p. 83).
Meyer also used discourse analysis (2003) to examine three Victorian
romance novels. In this study, the researcher found that consumption
was used in the texts to link the disease to the misfortunes of
love. The researcher concludes that such portrayals of the Victorian
heroine and the mythology of the consumptive most certainly would
have been recognized by the audience of the time. Similarly, more
contemporary readers also would recognize the captivity and romantic
discourses in pulp captivity romance, according to another
researcher. Indeed, this author argues that pulp captivity romance
promotes the reproduction and proliferation of the conventional
social order (McCafferty, 1994). Such story lines establish official
ideals including "universal, enthusiastic heterosexism; the need for
women to be extra ordinary in their beauty, bravery, wisdom, etc., if
they are to be loved; and the construction of an exotic people who
unhesitatingly welcome a magnificent white hero" (McCafferty, 1994,
pp. 52-53). On a slightly more positive note, Frenier (1988)
concludes that British portrayals of heroes and heroines are more
stereotypic than their American counterparts.
The romance fiction literature also is comprised of various studies
relative to the burgeoning romance novel industry outside of the
United States. For example, Azar (2003) focuses on the changing
images of women in public and private spheres in contemporary Iranian
literature; Slavnikova (2003) explores the fate of the romance plot
in Russian literature; Puri (1997) examines the role of romance
novels in the lives of young, single, middle-class women readers in
urban India; Harney (1994) examines the role of money in medieval
Hispanic chivalric romance; Mulhern analyzes the literary
characteristics of the then relatively new genre of romance fiction
in Japan in 1989.
In summary, although Radway's research finds that romance readers
negotiate meaning and understanding of the books, the literature also
suggests that romance fiction reinforces attitudes about gender roles
(Darbyshire, 2003; McCafferty, 1994). Or, as Moffitt (1993) found,
women may be compelled to match socially-dictated physical ideals
found in the text of the novels. For younger girls, romance fiction
provides even stronger messages about gender for, as DeBlase (2003)
argues, girls reading romance novels are involved in a meaning-making
process designed to help them understand their gendered selves in
relation to others. Discourse analysis also reveals that the plot
lines of romance frequently reinforce stereotypic ideals of womanhood.
Others have observed the scarcity of scholarly research in women's
romantic fiction (Brackett, 2000; Regis, 2003). This research seeks
to begin to fill that void by empirically documenting the way in
which romance writers depict women in their novels by examining the
adjectives within the text of select novels. It is important to
analyze current popular romance fiction especially when
self-proclaimed feminist romance authors and their publishers profess
that current romance reflects the changing role of women while moving
away from stereotypic depictions of female characters. This study
set out to answer two questions:
(1) Which types of adjectives do writers of current romance fiction
use with more or less frequency to describe the women in their novels?
(2) When adjectives are used to describe women in current romance
fiction, are the descriptors positive or negative?
Method
For this content analysis, the focus was on adjectives that
described women in the first chapters of 10 current romance
novels. The USA Today "Top 150 Best-Selling Book List" and the New
York Times "Best Selling Paperback List" were used to determine the
top 10 best-selling paperback romances for the week of Sept. 29,
2002. The 10 best-selling paperback romances for that week
included: Going Home by Nora Roberts, Full House by Janet Evanovich,
Summer Pleasures by Nora Roberts, Once Upon a Kiss by Nora Roberts,
Kentucky Heat by Fern Michaels, My Favorite Bride by Christina Dodd,
Mercy by Julie Garwood, A Woman Betrayed by Barbara Delinsky, 204
Rosewood Lane by Debbie Macomber, and Uneasy Alliance by Jayne Ann Krentz.
The text was examined to identify adjectives used to describe women
in the first chapters in the novels. Adjectives were coded to
determine the total number of adjectives. The adjectives were
then categorized into the following designations:
Cognitive. Adjectives that referred to a woman's intellectual
ability and skill. Examples include intellectual, analytical, and inept.
Personality. Adjectives that showed a woman's personality or
nature. For instance, outspoken, defiant, confident, and helpless
were coded as personality adjectives.
Affective. Adjectives that portrayed women in terms of their
reaction to a situation or described the woman's emotional
state. Some adjectives used to describe women in an emotional
context are: frightened, anxious, hysterical.
Appearance. Adjectives that described a woman relative to her
appearance. Examples of appearance adjectives are beautiful, soft, and fat.
Sexual. Adjectives that depicted women in a sexual context. Such
adjectives include passionate, tantalizing, and erotic.
After coding each adjective in terms of the above categories, the
researchers examined the adjectives qualitatively to determine if
they were positive, negative, or neutral. This was determined by
examining the context within the sentence from which each adjective
was taken. An explanation of the sub categorization for each type of
adjective follows:
Cognitive Adjectives. Was the woman's intellectual ability
characterized as average, above average or below average? An example
of an above average intellectual ability would be clever. If the
adjective characterized the woman as average or above average in
intelligence, it was considered positive; if the characterization of
the woman's intellect was below average, it was considered negative.
Personality Adjectives. Was the woman depicted as dependent or
independent? Dependent adjectives were ones that referred to a
woman's personality that caused the reader to believe she was unable
to take care of herself (example-helpless). Independent adjectives
were the opposite; they implied that a woman was self-reliant
(example-aggressive). Adjectives depicting independence were coded
as positive; adjectives reflecting dependence were coded negative.
Affective Adjectives. Was the woman portrayed as weak or
strong? Adjectives that implied a woman was vulnerable were
considered weak (example-hysterical) and, therefore, negative;
positive emotion adjectives reflected strength or a positive
emotional state (example-happy).
Appearance Adjectives. Was the woman described in terms of her
appearance in a positive or negative way? Adjectives that portrayed
women's appearance as attractive or above average were positive
(example-stunning) and adjectives that showed women's appearance to
be unattractive were negative (example-fat). Descriptive adjectives
without a positive or negative connotation about a woman's appearance
were coded as neutral (example-tall).
Sexual Adjectives. How were women described in sexual
terms? Adjectives including sexy and passionate would be considered
sexual adjectives. The coders were unable to determine a positive or
negative connotation to sexual adjectives; thus, all were categorized
as neutral.
Adjectives not fitting into any of the main categories were coded as
indeterminate. Adjectives without a positive or negative connotation
were coded as neutral.
A pilot study of six different romance novels also was
conducted. These romance novels were selected randomly among a local
public library paperback romance collection. The only criteria used
for the novels selection for the pilot study were that they were
written by different authors, and the novel had a post-1980 copyright
date. The content of the first chapters of the books was examined in
order to fine-tune the categories and sub-categories used in the
study. A single researcher working with the coding instrument coded
all the content. Recoding was conducted periodically to ensure
intracoder reliability. Intracoder agreement for all categories was
98.6%. A second coder also coded a random sample of two
chapters. Intercoder reliability for all categories and
sub-categories was 92.3.%.
Findings
The research results indicate that women in the romance novels
examined here were described by appearance significantly more than
any other category of adjectives, and the women characters were
described significantly less in terms of cognitive ability and in a
sexual context. Overall, romance writers used 302 adjectives to
describe women in the first chapters of the 10 best-selling paperback
romances used in this content analysis. For statistical purposes,
the four indeterminate adjectives were dropped from the analysis. A
Chi-Square Test for Goodness of Fit was calculated, and, as Table 1
shows, the differences between the observed and expected frequencies
in the five categories of adjectives are too great to be attributed
to sampling fluctuation. In order to determine which categories of
adjectives were the major contributors to the statistical
significance, a standardized residual was computed on the five
adjective categories. When a standardized residual for a category is
greater than 2.0 in absolute value, one can conclude that the
category is a major contributor to the significant X2
value. Specific to this study, adjectives describing women in terms
of their physical appearance, cognitively, and in a sexual context
were major contributors to the X2 value (see Table 2). In other
words, appearance adjectives were statistically significant for their
frequent use, and cognitive and sexual adjectives for their
infrequent use as descriptors of women characters.
A discussion of the findings in terms of each of the research
questions follows:
Which types of adjectives do writers of current romance fiction use
with more or less frequency to describe the women in their
novels? Romance writers significantly used adjectives to describe
women in terms of their physical appearance. As Table 1 shows, 50%
(151) described women's appearance while only 6% (18) were cognitive
adjectives and 6% (18), referred to the woman's sexuality. Other
descriptors of women: 20% (61) referred to personality, 18% (54)
concerned emotion.
Seven of the 10 novels contained cognitive adjectives to describe
women in the text—although cognitive adjectives comprised only a
small percentage of the total. All of the books contained appearance
personality adjectives, and 9 of the novels contained emotion
adjectives. Four of the books had sexual adjectives in the first chapter.
When adjectives are used to describe women in current romance
fiction, are the descriptors positive or negative? This analysis
revealed that overall more positive adjectives were used to describe
women—48% (145) compared to 36% (108) and 16% (49), negative and
neutral, respectively. Of the 151 appearance adjectives 62% (93)
were positive while only 18% (27) portrayed women's appearance
negatively. In the appearance category 20% (31) were
neutral. Robert's Once Upon a Kiss illustrates positive appearance
adjectives with, "She was pale and beautiful . . ." (p.
7). However, in Mercy, ". . . but now her body was fat and grossly
bloated, and her once perfect alabaster skin was blotchy and sallow "
(p. 15), is an example of negative appearance adjectives. Kentucky
Heat by Michaels provides several examples of neutral appearance
adjectives. "Her hair had grown in curly red and was about two inches long."
Although not statistically significant, the category of adjectives
used most often after appearance adjectives was personality
adjectives. Personality adjectives that implied a woman was
dependent made up 36% (22) of the 61 personality adjectives while 64%
(39) of the personality adjectives suggested female independence. An
example of independent adjectives can be found in Summer Pleasures:
"Lee glanced up again, her eyes calm and confident" (p. 17).
Interestingly, adjectives that described women in emotional terms—54
total—made reference to strength and stability only 26% (14) of the
time while nearly three-quarters, 74% (40), of the emotion adjectives
implied female weakness. For example, Garwood's Mercy, uses a weak
emotion adjective in "John dismissed the nearly hysterical woman
without a backward glance" (p. 34). By contrast, Krentz uses a
strong emotion adjective in Uneasy Alliance with "Her reaction was
that of fierce determination . . ." (p. 9).
Although the authors in this study appeared to have little interest
in the women's intellectual attributes, when cognitive adjectives
were used they were positive: 89% (16) of the 18 compared to 11%
(2). For example, in Robert's Summer Pleasures, positive cognitive
adjectives can be seen in "I know a woman who has one of the
sharpest, most analytical minds I've ever come across" (p.21). By
contrast, "She might be a little harebrained, but she wasn't
dangerous, (p. 18) is an example of a negative cognitive adjective
from Evonovich's Full House.
The 18 adjectives that described women sexually were coded as
neutral because such adjectives defied positive/negative
categorization. In Robert's Going Home, the author gives examples of
how sexual adjectives typically were used in the novels. "The
coolly, sexy, passionately driven Vanessa Sexton . . . " (p. 10) and
"She, who was known for her passion . ." (p. 19).
Table 1
Adjective typology used to describe women in current pulp romance fiction
Cognitive
Personality
Emotion
Appearance
Sexual
Total
Positive
16
22
14
93
145 (48%)
Negative
2
39
40
27
108 (36%)
Neutral
31
18
49 (16%)
Total
X2 (4, n = 302) = 196.09
p< 0.005
18 (6%)
61 (20%)
54 (18%)
151 (50%)
18 (6%)
n = 302
Table 2
Standardized residuals for adjective typology
Adjective Typology
R
Cognitive
-5.45
Personality
.077
Emotion
-.82
Appearance
11.66
Sexual
-5.45
Total n =302
Discussion
Despite romance writers' identification with feminism, this research
tells us something about what female qualities romance fiction
continues to celebrate. Women in current romance pulp fiction are
portrayed as beautiful damsels—if not in distress—clearly needing an
emotional crutch. Although this study did not examine the work and
careers of the women in the novels, a qualitative analysis revealed
that publishers appear to be making good on their promise that the
stories should reflect the increasing number of women in the labor
force. Many of the women in the novels in this study held jobs or
were involved in careers. That said, however, the adjectives the
authors used when describing women in emotional terms still
frequently referred to them as weak or needy. And although the
personality adjectives that portrayed women as independent
outnumbered the dependent adjectives, there were all too few of
them. The same can be said of adjectives used to describe women's
intellectual abilities. Overwhelmingly, the authors attentions were
turned to the physical appearance of the women characters. Clearly,
looks matter.
Then again, perhaps women don't really care if the characters in
romance novels resemble reality. In Radway's study, the women she
talked with "readily admit in fact that the characters and events
discovered in the pages of typical romance do not resemble the people
and occurrences they must deal with in their daily lives" (p. 59).
She also found that the women in her study "insisted repeatedly that
when they are reading a romance, they feel happy and
content. Several commented that they particularly relish moments
when they are home alone and can relax in a hot tub or in a favorite
chair with a good book" (p. 62).
"It's genre fiction," according to one romance writer. "I'm not
trying to write the great American novel. I'm writing to
entertain. And what's wrong with that?" (Potts, 2001, D1).
Apparently nothing—at least according to the nearly 40 million women
who read romance novels every year despite criticisms against the
genre and its readers (Sachs, 2002). As one romance reader
commented, "We don't want to read about guys with beer bellies who
come home from work and park themselves in front of the TV. We live
with these guys" (Wagner, 1985, pp. 78-81)."
That said, however, in the aggregate, romance fiction along with the
content of other popular media—especially television—contribute to a
culture in which femininity is defined narrowly and primarily in
terms of a woman's physical attributes. For example, Glascock (2001)
concluded that female characters on prime time television are younger
and more provocatively dressed than male characters and that
enticement continues to be more common among females. Indeed,
Glascock's study reinforces Davis's (1990) conclusions of some 15
years ago in which the appearance of the television woman was
premium and "reflective of traditional cultural definitions of
beauty and femininity" (p. 330).[4] In 1996 Gow's study of the
portrayal of gender on MTV found that for women to star in music
videos they had to demonstrate physical talents rather than exhibit
the musical talents typically displayed by the men in lead
roles. Moreover, women in both lead and back-up roles in music video
were portrayed primarily in ways that emphasized their bodies and
facial features (Gow, 1996).
In terms of the romance novel, additional research is needed to
examine what appears to be a great disconnect: between the writers'
claims of dedication to creating feisty, independent women characters
unconcerned with their looks and the way in which women characters
actually are depicted in the stories, as well as how the readers
may—or may not—be incorporating the lessons of romance fiction into
their lives.
[1] For example, Harlequin began shipping romance books into China in
1995 as part of a co-publishing arrangement with China's Foreign
Languages Press and the China National Publishing Industry Trading
Corporation ("Romances for China," 1995).
[2] The first national conference of the Romance Writers of America,
held in Houston in June, 1981, had 800 participants, mostly women
(Rabine, 1985). Today the organization boasts more than 8,000
members ("True love returns," 2002).
[3] See Radway, J.A. (1984). Interpretive communities and variable
literacies: The functions of romance reading. Daedalus 113. 49-74;
Radway, J. A. (1983). Women read the romance: The interaction of
text and context. Feminist Studies 9, 53-78; Snitow, A. B. (1983).
Mass market romance: Pornography for women is different. In A.
Snitow, C. Stansell & S. Thomas (Eds.), Powers of Desire: The
Politics of Sexuality (pp. 141-161). New York: Monthly Review Press;
Modelski, T. (1982). Loving with a vengeance: Mass-produced
fantasies for women. Hamden: Archon Books.
[4] Since the 1990s researchers examining the types of female
characters on prime-time television have included studies on single
women (Atkin, 1991) and working women (Atkin, Moorman, & Lin,
1991). Other studies that have examined characters in terms of
gender include Davis, 1990; Greenberg & Collette, 1997; Lauzen &
Dozier, 1999; and Elasmar, Hasegawa, & Brain, 1999. And while the
research shows that the face of prime-time television has become more
feminine and the role of women more accurately reflects reality, a
premium continues to be placed on attractiveness.
Women in romance fiction
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