Who-Stole-Feminism.-How-Women-Have-Betrayed-Women

THE GENDER WARDENS 267someday films and novels with such themes and heroines will be preferred,replacing the currently popular "incorrect" romances with a moreacceptable ideal.It seems a futile hope. Perhaps the best way to see what the genderfeminists are up against is to compare their version of romance with thatembodied in contemporary romance fiction that sells in the millions. Hereis a typical example:Townsfolk called him devil. For dark and enigmatic Julian, Earl ofRavenwood, was a man with a legendary temper and a first wifewhose mysterious death would not be forgotten. . . . Now countrybredSophy Dorring is about to become Ravenwood's new bride.Drawn to his masculine strength and the glitter of desire that burnedin his emerald eyes, the tawny-haired lass had her own reasons foragreeing to a marriage of convenience. . . . Sophy Dorring intendedto teach the devil to love. 32Romance novels amount to almost 40 percent of all mass-market paperbacksales. Harlequin Enterprises alone has sales of close to 200 millionbooks worldwide. They appear in many languages, includingJapanese, Swedish, and Greek, and they are now beginning to appear inEastern Europe. The readership is almost exclusively women. 33The challengethis presents to gender feminist ideologues is most formidable sincealmost every hero in this fictional genre is an "alpha male" like RhettButler or the Earl of Ravenwood. It was therefore to be expected that theNew Feminists would make a concerted attempt to correct this literatureand to replace it by a new one.Kathleen Gilles Seidel reports that "young, politically conscious editors"have been pressuring writers "to conform to at least the appearanceof a more feminist fantasy." 34But these authors "felt that an alien sensibilitywas being forced on their work, that they weren't being allowed tospeak to their readers in their own voices. They didn't want to write aboutheroines who repair helicopters." 35Ms. Seidel notes that editorial pressurewas especially strong on writers who were drawn to the macho,domineering hero.Seidel is echoed by Jayne Ann Krentz, the hugely successful writer ofromance fiction who created the intriguing earl and his Sophy:Much of this effort was exerted by a wave of young editors fresh outof East Coast colleges who arrived in New York to take up their firstpositions in publishing. . . . They set about trying to make romances