What struck me the most about our class discussion about the traditional romance novel, was the observation that was referenced in a class discussion that the traditional romance novel's conceptualization of the gender dynamic is a palpable inversion of the "nature is to woman as culture is to man." Women are conceived as civilizing agents of culture through their commitment to the institution of marriage, which, through its endorsement of the nuclear family and the simultaneous requirement that men serve as the sole breadwinners, transforms the role of the family into serving as an obedient unit of production. The idea that women are "taking charge" or are the dominant figure of the family in this particular depiction is an illusory one, as they ultimately serve a very patriarchal function which is to preserve the subordinate role of the family to the state.
Although a lot of focus was obviously, and justifiably, on women in regards to this topic, I would be interested in turning the critical gaze on the depiction of men in not only romance novels, but in popular culture and indeed in everyday media regarding diverse topics, such as news and medical commentaries, etc. “Our” everyday view of men, it would seem to me, has been overwhelmingly influenced by a very traditional socio-biological view: they are the "simpler" sex, as magazine articles often characterize them, especially via widely consumed women's popular magazines such as Cosmopolitan; they are enslaved to the corporeal, and therefore excluded from being properly subjectivized due to the "primitive" sexuality attributed to them. Therefore, I would be so bold as to propose that there is a certain “Othering” of men occurring in this type of discourse; a discriminatory linking them to animality and thus a denial of the social and psychological forces that shape both their subjective and objective identities.
In their indiscriminate pursuit of objectified female bodies, men are “zombie-like” in being denied a sexual subjectivity. However, on the contrary, woman’s very subjectivity is used against her in the romance novel as justification for sexual assault or rape; the discursive strategies that frame her internal monologue insinuate doubt as she simultaneously rejects her perceptibly “true” feelings towards male advances, and thus alleviates the guilt of the male perpetrator. In the incredibly cerebral and existential* romance novel that I chose to read for class entitled “Annie and the Red Hot Italian,” masculinity and femininity are conceived in oppositional linguistic terms: masculinity is hard, inert, and stubborn; femininity is soft, flighty, and malleable. Both of these conceptualizations of women and men deny agency and individuality, in different ways. Women suffer due to the imbalanced power dynamic at work within sexual difference, and men suffer due the inability to recognize their subjectivity. So, although much criticism has been directed against depictions of femininity in romance novels, I think a critical investigation of stereotypical portrayals of men in popular culture would be very useful to not only general social theory but feminist theoretical work on these subjects.
In pointing out the male discrimination that occurs in both the traditional romance novel and in everyday life, I am in no way attempting to deflect attention away from the female discrimination or suggest that the female discrimination that occurs is less important. I am simply trying to acknowledge that the scope of the discrimination that occurs is much broader and extends to both of the sexes and create different levels of harm. The traditional romance novel dynamic undergirds even our contemporary perception of sexual difference.
*Sarcasm
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