![]() ![]() ![]() At worst, romance novels keep them from throwing off the shackles of the patriarchy. At best, romance novels give them unrealistic expectations of love and marriage that will destroy their happiness. They read romances to escape the emptiness and drudgery of their lives. The conversation went like this: Women who read romance novels are poorly educated, working class, likely stay at home mothers. It oozed with classism and misogyny, even in room full of women. I don’t remember much of the book, but I’ll never forget the class discussion. In my first graduate school course, focused on the foundational works of American studies, we read “ Reading the Romance” by Janice Radway, one of the first scholarly treatments of the romance novel genre. ![]() (John-Mark Smith/Unsplash) This article is more than 4 years old. ![]()
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