Why Does A Feminist Love Romances?

I pondered that question this afternoon as I read Elaine Showalter's A Jury of Her Peers, a new book about the female American authors and the failure of the literary world to give them their due.

Which prompted me to start thinking about romance novels. First of all, full-disclosure: I am an aspiring romance author. I read them like crazy, love them to death and want to write oodles and oodles of them.

But why does this old, 1970's "I Am Woman Hear Me Roar" feminist admit to that, much less actually, really, truly mean it?

It's not the happy ending, first of all. I'm one of those post-divorce, baby-boomer women who learned the truth about the picket fence existence and I know there's as many true happy endings, romance-wise, as there are Lotto winners. In other words, they're few and far between.

OK, so is it the perfect heroes? No.

It's the women. Whether they were the fragile flowers of femininity of the 1970 novels of Kathleen Woodiwiss, or the contemporary Stephanie Plums, they are the greatest. I love the books because the authors have given the women the minds, the souls, the hearts to withstand their trials, to rise to the occasions and to beat the odds. Whether they're Regency heroines or paranormal vampire slayers, the women are individuals who fight with whatever talents they have - be they wits or weaponry or feminine wiles.

And in the end, that's what feminism is all about, to me. The ability of a woman to take what life gives her and make a life out of it. It won't always be perfect, and it won't always be pretty. But it will always be hers.

Romance novels give me that very special happy ending. Unlike the real world where, no matter how hard a woman may try, the patriarchy gets her down, or the Man, or bad luck, death or taxes. In romance novels, a woman gives it her all and gets what she deserves. It may be the hero, or it may be a happy ending, the life of her child, the career she always wanted, or great sex.

As we all know, that's not the case off the page. So after a day of toiling for the Man, doling out the hard earned cash to pay the piper, and being pushed and shoved - figuratively as well as literally, never getting my due, or even a modicum of respect, of having to watch others get more than their share, and be reminded of the endless hard row of hoeing ahead of me, there's nothing like a romance novel to sublimate that frustration and to imagine a world where my hard work gets me my just desserts.

OK, so I guess that's what I love about romance novels. They are this feminist's idea of a happy ending.