"Reading the Feminist Romance? An Exploration of Feminist Interventions into Romance Culture During the 1960s and 1970s"

As they politicized the personal, many participants in the women’s liberation movement turned a critical eye towards mainstream popular culture. Believing that popular entertainments played crucial roles in constructing and perpetuating patriarchal notions that rendered women subordinate to men, many feminists were especially critical of romance culture for its role in convincing women that romantic love was a just reward for their continued dependency upon men. Beyond seeking to expose the pitfalls of such romantic tropes, feminist critics also sought to actively intervene in mainstream culture with the goal of altering societal perceptions of romantic and sexual relationships so that they prized egalitarian, rather than hierarchical, ideals instead.

This paper focuses on those feminist interventions via the works of novelists such as Erica Jong, Rita Mae Brown, Marilyn French, Alix Kates Shulman, and Marge Piercy, all of whom wrote what can be described as “feminist romance novels” during the 1960s and 1970s. With varied results, their literary products demonstrate how activist-minded writers grappled with issues ranging from celibacy to marriage to polyamory along the spectrum from lesbianism to heterosexuality through a feminist lens. As such, an historical analysis of their cultural products enables scholars to understand feminist critiques of historically contingent ideals of romantic love; the gut-wrenching challenges many feminists faced as they sought to reconcile their feminist beliefs with their romantic and sexual longings; the extent to which they succeeded in altering traditional romantic ideals; and, how feminist activism often stood at the intersection of politics and popular culture.