The Gender Revolution Stall Paradox: Changing Ideal Romantic Relationships Among Devoted Romance-Reading Women

• In Event: 2351 - Section on the Sociology of Sex and Gender Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: 6. Gendered Romantic and Sexual Relationships.

Abstract

Understanding how women’s fantasies of ideal romantic relationships have changed and remained the same in the years surrounding the “gender revolution stall” (GRS) of the 1990s provides new insights into the ideological nature of the stalled revolution towards gender equality. Using interview and survey data collected in the early 1980s and in 2016 from two groups of devoted romance novel reading women, as well as data collected from the textual analysis of over 80 novels, I show that the largest differences in fantasies before and after the GRS are the depiction of more sexually independent heroines and inclusion of more sexually explicit content. As fantasies have changed, related reading behaviors have changed with them. However despite significant changes in women’s social positions, readers’ fantasies have remained remarkably similar. Women still read about beautiful heroines being physically rescued by strong men, and heroines emotionally rescuing these “alpha men” by transforming them into “lover boys.” After showing that fantasy is a reliable proxy of emotional values, I argue that the continuity in emotional values between two groups of women before and after the GRS should be explored further as a potential mechanism behind the stall.

Author

• Maleah Fekete, Harvard University