MV: Why should feminists read romance novels?

SW: It’s a 50-plus-year-old industry comprised mostly of women writers operating their own businesses and producing a genre about women’s self-actualization, pursuit of autonomy, and acquisition of sexual agency for an audience made mostly of women, who buy over $1.4 billion dollars worth of books a year. No, no, nothing feminist or even subversive about that.

If more people thought of it in these terms, maybe romance would cease being viewed as the most sexist, anti-feminist literary genre out there.  It’s not even close to being that; science fiction and fantasy, in my opinion, wins that one hands down – this is, after all, a genre where its acceptable for Harlan Ellison to grope a female author on stage and pass it off as a joke.

There’s also some interesting discussion of Mandy Van Deven’s use of ‘smut books’ to describe romance novels.  I kind of agree with people who don’t really like the use of that term, but in my case it doesn’t have anything to do with the ‘derogatory’ connotations of the word – I use smut myself to describe my own erotic/pornographic writing.  My problem with it is that it’s…not accurate.  For one, does any novel with explicit sex count as pornographic now?  If so, I have a long list of more ‘literary’ novels that I’ll now be referring to as smut.

And there’s a second problem with the use of the word – not all romance even fits into Mandy’s own definition.  There’s more than one subgenre where the sex is either nonexplicit or nonexistent.  Where do these books fit?

But all in all, a really awesome article, and I’m glad to be seeing coverage of romance in the feminist press, if only so that the next time the fact that I admit to reading Claudia Dain and Sherrilyn Kenyon, I can have links to send to feminist friends who roll their eyes and accuse me of being counterproductive to the cause.

Yeah.  It happens.

Anyway, Kimberly, who I met through Jezebel, has created A Rahm A Day, and it is possibly the best thing ever.  If anyone else reading this also has a thing for screamy, snarky, ass-kicking Democrats from the Midwest, it’s definitely a must see.

Dear Norm,

We go way back.  I originally didn’t vote for you as governor of the state of Minnesota my freshman year of college.  You may remember that election; it’s the one you lost to a former professional wrestler.   Paul Wellstone had to die for you to get into the senate.  Now you’ve been defeated by a comedian who hasn’t even lived in Minnesota for most of his life.  It must suck a lot.  Really.  I sympathize with you.

But it’s time to be an adult about it, Norm.  You lost the election.  Al Franken is now the senator from Minnesota.  Let it go.  Go….consult or something.

Hugs and kisses (no, not really),

Amanda

Nevermind the last balanced budget was under Bill Clinton’s administration, and the national debt first went out of control in the Reagan years.

My brother is an accountant, and he probably voted Republican too.  My sister is apathetic and didn’t vote at all.  My uncle, Dad’s brother, also voted Republican and has nothing but snide comments for people who work off the “taxpayer’s back” like my parents, who have spent their lives working for pennies in the public education system.  It should be noted that Uncle Don works for a company that gets the majority of its income from government contracts.

(This isn’t the same, apparently.  He’s performing a service. Unlike teachers, who are after all only educating future generations.)

Mom said to me this morning that my parents and I are probably the only liberals in the family, she didn’t understand what was wrong with people, and then we hung up.  I had to do laundry.

I called her back 20 minutes later, after I arrived at the laundromat and put my laundry in to let her know that here, in a working class neighborhood in godless liberal New Jersey, we were watching Obama’s acceptance speech again.

It made her feel a little better.

1. I have never been so relieved and happy with an election result in my entire life as I was with the one on Tuesday.  I’m looking forward to 2009 – to a president who isn’t actively trying to erode my rights, a president who is extremely intelligent and thinks before he makes decisions, and a president who will hopefully help us regain respect from the rest of the world.  I don’t agree with all of Obama’s stances – for one, I think marriage should be available to all people, regardless of race or sexual orientation – but I do think he was a far, far better choice than John McCain, and he gives me hope for the future.  Also, his running mate is not batshit insane.
2. This week I have developed (renewed?) my crush on Rahm Emanuel.  He’s married, he has three kids, he’s probably shorter than me, and he’s an acknowledged asshole, but none of that seems to matter to me.  In part because of this awesome, awesome video: How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways
3. For reasons that should be obvious, I am really having the urge to watch The West Wing again.
4. My boss has been on vacation for three weeks (well, one week vacation + two weeks unpaid leave).  I’ve kind of gotten used to going it without her and don’t want to deal with her generally panic-stricken, slightly hysterical behavior when she comes back Monday.  Is that bad of me?

I didn’t live in New York during 9/11, but this still pisses me off.  And being  characterized as a pinko commie because I live about a mile from the island of Manhattan pisses me off to.

That’s why I sent my own paragraph here: Are You A Real American?   I’d like to encourage anyone else reading this to do the same thing.

(I’m pretty sure you can guess which one is me.)

It’s making me tired.

She made me furious when she was first selected, not only because her stances appear to be as opposite to mine as you can possibly get, but also because I firmly believe that 2 years as a governor of the least populous state in the country, preceded only by a tenure as mayor of a town of 9000 do not make her qualified to be vice president of the United States, especially VP behind a candidate in his seventies with a family history of heart disease and cancer.  She could be president, and the idea is frankly terrifying.

But I’ve moved on.  I’m ready to do everything I can to make sure she and Senator McCain are not elected.   I just wish everyone else could move on along with me.