SLIDES!

The presentation is about the deeper meanings and historical significance of the romance genre. The speaker discusses how romance novels are often misunderstood and seen as lacking substance. They explore the evolution of romance novels and the impact they have had on women. The speaker also mentions the influence of societal events like the Me Too movement and the 2016 election on the portrayal of relationships in romance novels. They discuss the connection between romance and Christianity, as well as the changing gender dynamics within the genre. The presentation aims to highlight the importance of romance novels and challenge the stigma surrounding the genre. Hello, my name is Kaylee Gorswegner, and the topic of my presentation is the romance genre's deeper past. So, I decided to do this topic because I, myself, am a really avid romance reader. Last year I read around 80 books, and most of them were romance. And I noticed that oftentimes when I tell people that that's mostly what I read, it's given a really negative connotation, and people just assume that it's full of fluff and no substance. And while that can be true, there are also so many deeper meanings to romance, and real life effects that they have on especially women. My project is mostly going to focus on the history of romance, and how women have used it in the past, and how they continue to use it today. Additionally, I'm going to talk about some differences in romance today than there were in the past, and how these differences help progress the genre as a whole, and therefore help women. So moving on to the next slide, my first source is a scholarly source by Joanna Kluger, and it's titled, Post-Trump Masculinity in Popular Romance Novels. So basically the premise of this text was comparing heroes in romance novels from the before-Trump era, and after-slash-during-his-presidency era. And I just thought it was important to point out that women often put political commentary in their books, and this is something that she points to a lot, and oftentimes romance novels are a lens into what is going on in society, in politics, and in the world at that time that they're written. So she compares authors to themselves from 2011 and 12 to 2017 and 2019, and these authors are Tessa Dare and Sarah McLean, and they both wrote books in 2011-2012, and then they also went back and wrote another one in 2017-2019, and these books have very different heroes portrayed in them. She also talks about the influence of the Me Too movement, and the 2016 election, and how these things have changed the way that we view power dynamics in relationships. So one of the things she touches on is how the heroes in the first book that were written earlier, they were often violent, more dominant, and a little bit overall meaner, whereas in the second books that they wrote in 2017-2019, the heroes are gentler, they go about relationships in a very different way, and oftentimes it's not as violent, it's more of an emotional connection rather than an unbalanced power dynamic. Okay, moving on to the next slide, this was my second source, also scholarly, by Catherine Roach. It was called Getting a Good Man to Love, Popular Romance Fiction, and the Problem of Patriarchy. So this one was extremely interesting, and a little bit off track than what I was meaning to go for, so I might not use this in my final paper, but it was just a really interesting thing to read about. She claims that romance has a religious nature, and because Western culture is so Christian-dominated, we often look for the happily-ever-afters and redemption in the media that we consume, including books, and so she claims that because Christianity is so redemption-focused, that is why so many people love to read romance. She also mentions how it heals male-female relationships, and she kind of touches on how women are often afraid of men because of the things that have been done to them by men, and so by reading romance and kind of seeing that there are healthy ways to go about male-female relationships, that it kind of heals that barrier between them. And once again, just that my last point is Christianity can be read as a love story, and this is what intrigues the Western world with romance, and the fact that there's a guaranteed happily-ever-after. In Christianity, if you do everything right, you're guaranteed heaven, and so in the same way romance books, if everything goes right, you're guaranteed a happily-ever-after. So she kind of makes that connection between religion and romance, which I found extremely interesting, though it was a little bit off-topic for me. Okay, go ahead and move on to my third slide. So this was another popular source, and it was titled, Has Me Too Changed Romance Novel Publishing? Authors and Editors Say the Changes Began Before the Movement. So the first part of this article talks a lot about actual sexual harassment in publishing workplaces, which is not my topic at all, so we kind of skipped over that, though it is important to discuss. And then we kind of moved on to the content that's actually within romance novels, and she claims that it has affected consent, and so a lot of the times before the Me Too Movement, it was a lot of blurred lines, and consent wasn't really explicit within romance novels, which kind of perpetuates a bad narrative for men saying that that's okay, and then also for women who believe that it's okay. So this is also kind of going off of heteronormative relationships, which is a whole separate issue that I won't be getting into in this presentation, but she also talks about how there was a huge portrayal of toxic masculinity, and once again, telling women that that type of behavior was okay and normal, when in reality, it doesn't have to be that way. And again, like many of my other sources did, it talks about how the way that romance novels are written are extremely telling of society's views on relationships at that time period, so that's why Me Too has changed everything, because we now view sexual harassment and consent as very different things than we used to. Okay, my next slide talks a lot about a different source. This is another popular source by Kim McGrath called What Romance Novels Tell Us About Society and the Changing Role of Women, and once again, it has a lot of the same themes that I've previously talked about, just about how you can see societal changes through the lens of romance novels. And this one was a really short article, so it gave a lot of statistics, though, that were important. 90% of romance readers are women, which is why in this presentation, I will be focusing mostly on the effects to women, and in the 1970s, the heroes were extremely dominant, and once again, going back to that first source that talks about the power dynamics between men and women and how it's changing in this era, she talks a lot about this in this source as well. And then also, in the 1800s, women were encouraged not to read, but they did, and a lot of the times, romance were their books of choice, so just showing how far back this genre spans and how important it's been to women for centuries. My next slide details my first primary source, which is an interview I conducted with Stella Urbanovich. She is an avid romance reader, and she has loved romance novels for as long as I've known her, so I wanted to ask her a few questions about her take on this issue, and I just said, my first question was, why do you like to read romance novels? And she talked about how they empower her to have confidence in relationships, and the fact that she sees these strong heroines in the novels who do what they want while also finding love empowers her to be able to do the same. And my second question was, do romance novels impact the way you look at gender roles and or go about relationships? And she talked a lot about how people have told her that because she reads romance novels, her standards for a relationship are too high, and instead she suggested changing the framing of the issue, not into that she has high standards, but why everyone thinks that these type of relationships that are depicted in books are so unlikely. And so by changing that, we may be able to help gender roles and gender dynamics within the context of society instead of just in books. So her last quote is, women deserve the utmost respect and love from their partners. And she went on to say that romance novels depict this for her, which is why she loves them so much. And for my last source, I wanted to do something of a case study and look at the novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, which was written in 1796. And I just wanted to look at the difference in gender roles portrayed in a novel that was centuries old, and then kind of talk about novels today and how they differ. So there were so many examples of gender roles given in this novel, one of which was the entire idea of marrying off your daughter. So the whole premise of the book is that this couple has all daughters, and they're trying to get them to be married off to wealthy men so that they in turn can become wealthier. And obviously this idea is extremely outdated for us, but it does depict the gender roles that were happening at that time. It also talks a lot about beauty standards, wealth, and other factors that play into how easily one can be married. So these are all things that affected everybody at the time. And then kind of moving away from the idea that it was only women who were affected, men were also affected because they were given value simply based on the materialistic offerings that they had for women. And basically parents would only want their daughters to marry a wealthy man. And so if you weren't a wealthy man, then it was very unlikely that you would meet anybody to spend the rest of your life with. And also women, of course, were depicted as demure and innocent, and we now know that that's not always the case. In the next slide, I talk about the contribution I wish to give to this topic. So firstly, I just want to show the evolution of romance novels throughout history. Display its importance as a genre is a big one for me. And my last point also about ending stigma surrounding the romance genre. Once again, as I talked about at the beginning, it's very often depicted as a fluffy, no good genre of reading that doesn't bring anything to the table, when in fact, there have always been pieces of romance that have helped women, and it has been an outlet for women for centuries. And I feel like one of the main reasons it's looked down upon is because it's targeted to women. So yes, and then it's been used as a form of political discourse for centuries. And recently, there's been a resurgence in romance readers, and I'd really like to understand why and if we think this surge will stick around. And again, like I talked about at the beginning, how romance novels are different today than they are, than they were in the past. And additionally, how the gender roles portrayed are different as well. So talking specifically about my sources, there was a lot of similar information and a lot of them, especially discussions of Me Too, consent, gender power dynamics, and things like that. So I think putting those sources in conversation with each other, and where they agree, where they disagree, will help me kind of build my argument. But some of them are completely different. Some of them discuss the religious roots of romance and the way that Western civilization views romance because of its ties to Christianity, and also the political roots and the political discourse that's always surrounded romance. And then I'd just like to add some more info about why it has a negative connotation it has, like I was saying, if it's because it's a predominantly women genre, or if there's another reason for this negative connotation. So on my next slide, I just depict my next steps. So I want to do some more research to connect the history to today. And I'd also like to conduct some more interviews of why people like, dislike romance and what their personal views on it are, just to get some groundwork as to where we stand as a society today. I'd also just like to have a clearer line of reasoning. I feel like a lot of my sources were kind of pulling from all over the place, so I'd like to have like a plan of action as I tackle my next assignment. And again, answering the question of why is there resurgence today? And I'd also like to be able to provide some solutions to end the stigma surrounding romance, just because I am super passionate about this genre, and I'd like to see it have a little bit higher of a standing than it does today.