Cultural Theory and Popular Culture

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Chapter 7 Gender and sexuality
Janice Radway (1987) begins her study of romance reading with the observation
that the increased popularity of the genre can be in part explained by the ‘important
changes in book production, distribution, advertising and marketing techniques’ (13).
Taking issue with earlier accounts, Radway points out that the increasing success of
romances may have as much to do with the sophisticated selling techniques of publishers,
making romances more visible, more available, as with any simple notion of
women’s increased need for romantic fantasy.
Radway’s study is based on research she carried out in ‘Smithton’, involving a group
of forty-two women romance readers (mostly married with children). The women are
all regular customers at the bookshop where ‘Dorothy Evans’ works. It was in fact Dot’s
reputation that attracted Radway to Smithton. Out of her own enthusiasm for the
genre, Dot publishes a newsletter (‘Dorothy’s diary of romance reading’) in which
romances are graded in terms of their romantic worth. The newsletter, and Dot’s general
advice to customers, has in effect created what amounts to a small but significant
symbolic community of romance readers. It is this symbolic community that is the
focus of Radway’s research. Research material was compiled through individual questionnaires,
open-ended group discussions, face-to-face interviews, some informal discussions,
and by observing the interactions between Dot and her regular customers at
the bookshop. Radway supplemented this by reading the titles brought to her attention
by the Smithton women.
The influence of Dot’s newsletter on the purchasing patterns of readers alerted
Radway to the inadequacy of a methodology that attempts to draw conclusions about
the genre from a sample of current titles. She discovered that in order to understand
the cultural significance of romance reading, it is necessary to pay attention to popular
discrimination, to the process of selection and rejection which finds some titles satisfying
and others not. She also encountered the actual extent of romance reading. The
majority of the women she interviewed read every day, spending eleven to fifteen hours
a week on romance reading. At least a quarter of the women informed her that, unless
prevented by domestic and family demands, they preferred to read a romance from
start to finish in one sitting. Consumption varies from one to fifteen books a week.
Four informants actually claimed to read between fifteen and twenty-five romances a
week. 30
According to the Smithton women, the ideal romance is one in which an intelligent
and independent woman with a good sense of humour is overwhelmed, after much
suspicion and distrust, and some cruelty and violence, by the love of a man, who in
the course of their relationship is transformed from an emotional pre-literate to
someone who can care for her and nurture her in ways that are traditionally expected
only from a woman to a man. As Radway explains: ‘The romantic fantasy is . . . not
a fantasy about discovering a uniquely interesting life partner, but a ritual wish to
be cared for, loved, and validated in a particular way’ (83). It is a fantasy about reciprocation;
the wish to believe that men can bestow on women the care and attention
women are expected regularly to bestow on men. But the romantic fantasy offers
more than this; it recalls a time when the reader was in fact the recipient of an intense
‘maternal’ care.