We all know romance novels have a certain reputation among book snobs. Romance readers and writers often find themselves at the center of controversy and debates within the literary world. So I wasn’t surprised, in the aftermath of the election, to find romance yet again at the center of The Discourse on various social media platforms.
The question at the heart of the hot takes: Can romance really be political, considering it’s light, frothy entertainment? Doesn’t a political book need substance?
My first instinct is, of course, to immediately stop speaking to anyone who refuses to recognize that romance novels are substantive. But today, I’ve got a few words.
In short, yes, romance novels are political. And some of the reasons for that are the same reasons they’re so often made the laughingstock of the literary world: because they are stories typically by, for, and starring women. Historically, publishing has primarily considered serious, political writing to be the domain of men. But as we’ve learned from the feminist movement, the personal is political. Stories about women looking for love, fighting for what they want, and navigating interpersonal relationships in a patriarchal society that values men’s wants and needs above people of any other gender is, indeed, inherently political.
Of course, romance has its own history of racism, ageism, ablism, misogyny, and homophobia. Are there romance novels out there that do more to reinforce patriarchal norms than break them down? Absolutely. Every time an author glorifies a toxically controlling, jealous male love interest, a suffragette rolls over in her grave.
But romance readers know that truly revolutionary work is also happening in our love stories. As the genre grows increasingly diverse, we’re seeing new perspectives on what it means to fall in love and find a place to belong for characters of different genders, races, ethnicities, body types, and ages. We’ve got overtly political romances, like Nikki Payne’s Austenian retelling Pride and Protest, starring a Black woman trying to save her DC neighborhood from gentrification through political protest. Or we’ve got romances that don’t need to incorporate literal politics to show the impact they have on real lives, like TJ Alexander’s Second Chances in New Port Stephen about a trans man with a complicated relationship with his Florida hometown. And we’ve got books like Danica Nava’s The Truth According to Ember, which celebrates the radical act of two contemporary Native American characters falling in love and refusing to let that love be erased.
Love stories starring marginalized characters broaden our conversations about who is deserving of love, respect, and community, and what those things can look like. The great promise of romance novels is that, no matter what their characters go through, they’ll find a happy ending. At a political moment when it feels increasingly difficult to live a good life as a woman, a queer person, a person of color, an immigrant, or a person with a disability, seeing characters who look like you find love and live to see a happy ending is nothing short of radical.
