Last week’s ask column irked many. One reader emailed me to tell me I was off base in my comments, another cancelled her financial support of AAR, and several others got close to testy in the comments.
I thought it would be interesting to pull up some older conversations at AAR and see how or if our topics and/or comments here have changed. I picked four.
The first is Are Feminism & Romance Novels Mutually Exclusive? and was published in November of 1997. (We can’t see the comments on this one–they were lost in a long ago site update, I think.) In it, Laurie Gold asks Kay Mussell, a scholar at American University this:
“I am someone who is a lifelong feminist. I studied it in college, wrote papers on it, and when I worked outside the home, was a strident liver of feminist ideals.
“While I work at home now and read romance, I still consider myself a feminist. What I have a problem with is dealing with the fact that reading romance is considered not to be feminist. I have very mixed feelings about this. Number one, I read romance for the fantasy, and I doubt whether or not it is required that fantasies have to equate to social and political ideals. Number two, nearly all the romances I’ve read have female protagonists who, if not to start, are strong and intelligent women at the end. They may use other wiles in addition to their brains to achieve their ends, but these are not wall-flowers or dummies or doormats.
“Are romance novels and feminism mutually exclusive?”
The second is from October of 2000 and is titled The Author, “Formal” & “Informal” Criticism. This one you can see the comments. The article itself is written by Adele Ashworth. Ashworth addresses this question and readers and reviewers then respond.
“What is the relationship between critics and artists/authors, or the reality of being a public figure, or the right of readers to object or comment on a work which has been sold to them?”
The third is an article by Patricia Gaffney called How Does an Author Feel About Reader Criticism? We can’t see the comments on this one. It’s from 1996.
The last is the first of a series of posts, from 2008, entitled The Happily Ever After Ending which asks that perennial question:
Must a romance have an HEA ending?
The comments on this one are lengthy.
Enjoy!
