Romance For All of Us
In one activity I used to teach debating skills in my English class, I would ask those who identified as male to stand on the right side of the room; all those who identified as female to stand on the left (I asked those who identified as gender fluid to, for the sake of the exercise, artificially choose one side or the other).
I wrote the proposition on the board: Be it resolved that romance movies are better than action movies. I made the male side argue the affirmative (i.e.: that yes, romance movies were better!) The women were arguing the negative (that, in essence, action movies were better).
It always got a laugh because obviously I was working with gender stereotypes. Romance movies are “chick flicks” and thus, not taken as seriously as “men’s movies” like action thrillers. The students understood the spirit of the exercise—a pointed criticism of the patriarchy, but they could also play up the humour in obviously false stereotypes.
Romance novels are the biggest selling genre, with upwards of 80 per cent of readers being women. Yet still, there’s a stigma attached to them as “less than” because they are predominantly read by women.
It’s disheartening that we cannot allow men to value emotions (and love and happily-ever-afters) as much as women, but since we’re nearing Valentine’s Day, I want to celebrate a genre that can offer all of us an escape into a world filled with love. Doesn’t that sound like it should belong to both women and men? 🙂