Good Women Read The Romance By Janice Radway Essay Example

Janice Radway explores the reasons on why the Smithton readers are pious readers of romance novels. She cites that women resorts to reading novels because they are dissatisfied with their present situation where patriarchal ideology and traditional gender arrangemnets prevail. Thus, reading serves as a “resorative” past time where women identifies themeselves with the novels heroine. The author adds that the readers of romance novels feel a great deal of longing that is an unwanted consequence of the failure of patriarchal marriage.
According to Radway, Smithton readers are dissatisfied with the current institution that support patriarchy and women stereotyping. As a result, they tend to admire the intelligent and ideal heroine in the novels who strongly challenges the norms about gender and proves that they are independent, witty and courageous enough to defy conventional gender expectations.
Furthermore, romance novels assert the functionality and perfection of marriage and romance. This aspect of romance stories provides an inspiration for the Smithton readers because marriage and romance in real life are among the primary causes of a woman’s dissatisfaction. Lastly, women are dissatisfied with the roles that they are allowed to portray in actuality- passive, weak, foolish, and home buddy. Romance novels feature heroine that are competent and independent who can acquire the world beyond home. By reading these novels, the readers reject the duties that the society dictates them to shoulder and recognize the fact they too have the right to be self-interested, to enjoy the pleasure of being who they really are and do the things that they want- just as anybody
else.

Work Cited

Radway, Janice. “Women Read the Romance.” Feminist Studies 9.1 (1983): pp. 53-78. Print.