Romanizing the Patriarchy

I haven't read this book, but the cover tells me it's a romance, which is a genre that doesn't count for much. Well, it's true that as literature it doesn't offer much, but as SOCIAL STUDIES it's a gold mine. Especially if one has some questions as to the fact that most women have been playing along in their own subjection for quite a long time. How come, and why haven't they waged war against the Patriarchy that demeans and robs them of so much?

Many years ago I got interested in this author, Barbara Cartland, not because of her standard as a writer, but because of her numerous books in the romance genre. It has been said that all of them are clones of each other: Read one, and you've read them all. I agree, up to a point, but as it is this very fact caught my attention, especially as this genre also was considered some kind of "narcotics" to young women who seemed to love them and others like them. That made me ask the question WHY???????

Well, my answer to my own question is: They are "Female Power Stories", confirming the readers in their beliefs in their own power WITHIN The Patriarchy they are born into. These beliefs are part of their upbringing, and they need them to fit into the patriarchal society. 

The point in this kind of books is that the main female character gains  power, status, money as well as a handsome husband by operating WITHIN THE PATRIARCHY. That's where the readers are, and they need confirmation in that being the best place for a woman: They don't want to see themselves as victims, but as conquerors and the novels do confirm them in the belief that women may win the gender war that has been going on since the start of The Patriarchy, 8-10,000 years back in time. 

They are well aware that men hold a muscular as well as social upperhand over women, but lo and behold, all of that may be put out of action by some penniless girl if only she is lovely enough to captivate him. In Cartland the poor, but somehow captivating girl, who isn't even a noble-woman, may become a Duchess if that extremely handsome Duke will notice her. Most often these noble heroes - the ultimate catches!!! - suffer from a heart that was broken by a sexy - i.e. "bad"!!! - woman, but that will be remedied by the lovely and virginal heroine. 

The Cartland novels and other romances are "teachings" in patriarchal womanhood as well as in its uses and advantages for women. In many ways it's like the silly American belief in the "Fortune" that will make them endure bad social conditions, exploitation, etc. in the hope that they shall win the LOTTO and thus be able to buy the gold toilet that's, to them, is the ultimate symbol of wealth and status.

 

I haven't read this book, but I take it that it's a romance about a beautiful, brave and alluring woman who enjoys the riches that her slaves have brought her and her family. She probably never thought of the injustice in making slaves of other people, and never for a second did she suspect that she herself was subjected to men. No, most likely she feels that she rules both slaves and men ....

And that's the crux of the matter: Women have their own, more or less hidden, ideologies that run parallel with the male ones that constitute the "general" ideologies of a Patriarchy. These alternate ways of reading certain situations or social settings tie them down, but many of them don't see it that way.