Time of her own

The Teach Me Tonight blog is where academics interested in the romance genre post, and it is always interesting, sometimes enlightening.

In this blog, (use the link above) Laura Vivanco discussed the classic text, Reading The Romance, by Janet Radway. This is decades old now. In fact, I remember attending a lecture by Radway at Dalhousie University in Halifax Nova Scotia, simply because even then I wanted to write romance and was looking for some insights into the genre.

I also read the book, which did have some interesting insights into romance reading but which I recognized even then as being seen through the lens of the female scholar of the time, and the beliefs they held because it didn't relate closely to my own experiences as a university educated, professional woman who also was an avid reader of romance novels.

Laura Vivanco gives her own, modern interpratation of Radway, which is interesting reading.

I was particularly struck by this piece below. The subject here is the perceived value of (women's) unpaid work in the home v paid work, inside or out. I put the brackets there because I think the weighting exists for either sex; it's just much less common for men to take on the unpaid home work.

The value of women's work is something I'm always aware of in my writing. In the past, men's and women's spheres were often much more distinct and separate, even to the actual management of the house (as illustrated in Amanda Vickery's excellent new book about the home in Georgian England, Behind Closed Doors.) I get annoyed by novels in which the heroine is seen as more interesting, more admirable, if she rejects traditional women's work in order to seek a more manly role. It's not the seeking, per se, because sometimes women had no choice, or had a genuine calling to a manly occupation, but the implication that by doing so they are stronger, better women, and that therefore anyone who managed a household and raised children is inferior.

It's particularly annoying in a historical context when women's work could be complex and challenging, especially in the upper echelons, where she might be managing one or more large buildings, a small army of servants, as well as supporting her husband's out-of-home activities on the social and political level.

Vivanco writes:
"Perhaps the Smithton romance readers, "women who saw themselves first as wives and mothers" (7) were taking a well-deserved break from their work in order to read books in a genre which recognised the value of that work? These were, after all, women who "referred constantly and voluntarily to the connection between their reading and their daily social situation as wives and mothers" (9), who "are angered by men who continue to make light of 'woman's work' as well as by 'women's libbers' whom they accuse of dismissing mothers and housewives as ignorant, inactive, and unimportant" (78) and, as Radway herself has written, "the romance readers of Smithton use their books to erect a barrier between themselves and their families in order to declare themselves temporarily off-limits to those who would mine them for emotional support and material care" (12).

Even workers who enjoy their jobs require some leisure time, but because the work in which these women were engaged is often not considered to be "work," and because it is carried out within the home, there may be no provision made for "clocking off" at the end of a long shift. If one looks at the Smithton readers through the lenses of feminist economic theory, one might suggest that they were finding in these books both a physical means of asserting their right to leisure time, and validation that their work as wives and mothers is indeed of crucial importance. This might explain why "their self-perception has been favorably transformed by their reading" (102)."

This is a gre at insight, and one that could be of use to us all. Women often confess to guilt about taking time for themselves, especially if it means things left undone. Alas, often women are attacked, directly or indirectly, by their family and others for doing so. But this suggests that creating that time slice for ourselves, especially if we are doing work that's not paid for, is crucial to our well being and self-worth. That it is something worth asserting and defending.

Jo