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For the Sake of Hearth and Home: Gender Schematicity in the Romance Novel

Discourses on Gender and Sexual Inequality

ISBN: 978-1-78743-197-3, eISBN: 978-1-78743-196-6

Publication date: 21 September 2017

Abstract

Purpose

This chapter explores factors presented in romance novels that reify gendered assumptions of masculinity and femininity to present readers with narratives that serve as powerful agents of socialization.

Methodology/approach

We conducted directed content analyses of over 180 mass-market romance novels published by Harlequin and Silhouette over an approximate 30-year period to ascertain common themes regarding gender polarization and gender schematicity in the maintenance of family and work.

Findings

Our review of this literature illuminates the assumption of “naturalized” gender roles for men and women in the construction and maintenance of marriage and the family, calling attention to the ways in which we remain constrained to polarized gender roles in the depiction of romantic encounters.

Research limitations

This study is limited to romance novels published prior to 2006, although we see replications of gender schematic narrative in current romance narratives featuring paranormal encounters (Twilight) and erotica (Fifty Shades of Grey).

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge Gloria Gadsen, Annula Linder, and Emily Hutton for comments on various drafts of this chapter as well as Kenyon College for funding this research endeavor with a Teaching Initiative Grant and a Summer Research Grant.

Citation

Kohlman, M.H. and Simpson, S.N. (2017), "For the Sake of Hearth and Home: Gender Schematicity in the Romance Novel", Discourses on Gender and Sexual Inequality (Advances in Gender Research, Vol. 23), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 115-128. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1529-212620170000023006

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited