Cute and Sassy or Dumb and Demeaning?

"I'm too pretty to do math."


"Future Trophy Wife."

And now, the newest in the line of 'cute and sassy' shirts the fashion industry has cooked up for girls ages 7 to 16: "I'm too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me." from the lovely J.C.Penny's. Link to article here.

Being just over the cusp of the age group that shirt was marketed to (seventeen) I understand exactly how influential even one such 'cute and sassy' shirt can be. Everywhere girls my age and younger turn, we are told to be pretty figures, not intelligent, hard-working women. We're told that guys are the smart, working ones and girls are the cooking, cleaning, pretty ones. Really, the stereotype since the 1950s hasn't changed enough. Girls are told to be pretty above all else (get the make-up, do the surgery even if it might cost your life, wear the shoes that leave you with crippled feet but makes you three inches taller and sexy at fourteen), and that diminishing our intelligence only increases our appeal because intelligence can intimidate the guys. And, of course, girls are all told that they need a guy to be happy. You would think that romance novels would tell me the same thing, right? Well, I'll get to that in a minute. First, some background.

I feel so blessed to have been raised in a family where my mother was an incredibly independent and intelligent woman, owner of two businesses, and for a time the primary and only breadwinner. Reading was encouraged and my parents actually made me math problems when I was in first and second grade when I asked for them. They delighted in my zeal to learn and encouraged my academic growth. I also got to be part of a special program when I was young for 'gifted' students, and the teacher of that program was Mrs. Monas - another incredibly intelligent woman. From there I went on to all-girls middle and high school, learning to be independent and work with other intelligent girls in the classroom. I grew up in a school where women were encouraged to be the best, learn the most, etc all away from the influence of guys. To me, women have and always will (and should) be smart. I know that my intelligence is scary to boys my age because I can see it on their faces. But I also know, in later years, I will find a husband who enjoys my smarticles and has some smarticles himself and I will be thankful that I worked so hard to be smart - not pretty - when I was young. While prettiness and intelligence both fade over time, prettiness fades at a much, much faster rate.

Romance novel heroines have further reinforced what my mother and Mrs. Monas have taught me. While the insipid heroines who are frail and delicate bobble-heads do still persist, most often we see a celebration of a woman's purpose and intelligence. In paranormals, we have kick-ass, physically awesome, cunning, witty heroines that save the world from demons and the apocalypse. In contemporaries we see women facing both the everyday struggles of a harried world being mom, businesswoman, and family caretaker (sometimes all at once) and extraordinary struggles (Lori Foster's novels, for instance, feature contemporary heroines dealing with kidnapping and other conspiracies). In historicals we see heroines struggling to overcome the limitations and boundaries imposed on them because of their gender. Throughout the eras, whether natural or supernatural, romance heroines are smart, rebellious, ambitious, and hard-working. Usually, they're unconcerned with their own physical features. Usually, they're also unconcerned with nabbing the guy. He's kind of a bonus in their life story - an awesome extra that the heroine didn't realize was lurking around waiting to pop up and say 'surprise' and turn her life from awesome to super-extra awesome.

And the wonderful thing is that these 'extras' that pop up love the woman for who she has become. They love her intelligence and independence, her spunk, her personality. Usually they love her looks, too. But they appreciate her inner features far more than her outward ones. The external inspires lust, the internal inspires the love that makes a romance novel different from porn. The hero loves the heroine because she is not one of those vapid airheads who made her brother do her math homework or wants to be a trophy wife. She gets her happy ending because she's not afraid to be the wonderful, intelligent, ambitious woman she is. And to me, that was the most important lesson of all. I can be loved for my intelligence, rather than my looks. I will get my happy ever after even if I'm smart. What my mother, Mrs. Monas, and my education instilled in my, my reading reinforced.

After all, one can't help but have their doubts. Sure, your mom and dad, your teachers, they all encourage you to be smart. But then you hit 14 and suddenly the guys are lookin' good (or not!) and you don't know how to make them like you - but you do know the dumb girls who act even dumber are getting all the guys, especially the ones who grind to the music, wear mini-skirts, go to tanning salons, get mani-pedis and were enough mascara to make an elephant's tail look think. You say to yourself, can there really be a guy out there who likes a girl like me? Who is smart and driven and motivated and doesn't want to wear tons of make-up all the time or worry about how she looks or what she wears? Well, the entirety of the romance genre answered my question with a resounding 'yes' and solidified my desire to be in a relationship with a guy who knew the full expanses of my intelligence, be they broader than his or not. And if I wanted a guy like the romance heroes, and my adolescent brain tells me I do, then I discovered I needed to emulate their good qualities - intelligence, honesty, bravery, caring, stubbornness, kindness, sensitivity, sarcastic wit, good-naturedness (is that even a word?), leadership, etc. I shaped myself after both the women in my fictional life and the women in my real life and both groups were, thankfully, very strong.

So, what's the point? I guess I'm just giving you another reason to read romance novels - personal character building. Maybe if we forced girls to read romance novels instead of *shudders* Robinson Crusoe for summer reading, we'd find the next generation of young women a bit more intelligent - or maybe not.

I guess I just wanted to make note of a problem that is very real to me in my everyday life. Girls, and women, still make 82 cents per every dollar that men make, doing the same work for the same hours. Women, however, have just recently surpassed men in graduation rates from college. But are we building stronger women, or simply letting the men fall apart? Why do we still encourage this stereotype that men were born to be smart and women were born to be pretty by buying millions of dollars of make-up and fashion magazines edited to make people look alien - thin and unrealistic? I don't know the answers, or the solutions, to any of these questions. I'm just a kid. But I do think it's time to stop joking around about the importance of education and making idiotic t-shirts putting people down for being driven and intelligent, and wanting the world to know it. How would the t-shirt designer like it if he inspired a girl to not go to college by sneaking into her subconscious when she's six and turning her into another mindless 'trophy wife', when she could've been the one to discover the cure to the cancer he dies from twenty years later? All of our actions have unintended consequences, and I wish people would think of them before doing dumb shit like this. Why on earth would you encourage anyone to be dumb? And why is that cute, or sassy? Why is it funny to see a girl wearing one of these shirts?

In short, I'm angry. I feel demeaned. I want better for my gender, and I hope you do, too. Don't buy shirts like this for your kid. To be honest, I'm 17, and I know how wrong these shirt slogans are, so if you have a 6-year-old and can't figure that out you must be dumb as a doornail. Encourage her, instead, to be smart and hard-working and to make something of herself with no ring on her finger or guy in her future. She can be independent because she's smart. And our fore-mothers worked too hard to get us that independence for us to abuse it now.

Thank you, Susan B. I appreciate your effort.

To An Author

I would like to dedicate this note to authors who do not like the review I posted on their book. This is in response to one author in particular. But it is in NO WAY limited to that author, as I'm sure I'll be sending this link out many a time as I continue this blog.

Let me start out by say that I am seventeen years old, going in to my senior year of high school. I have written several lengthly english papers throughout my school years. On some of them, my grades are spectacular - A+. On some of them, I receive lower grades.

Those are the most important papers. Those papers teach me things I didn't know. They point out my flaws, and show me how to improve. Every writer should be constantly striving for improvement. I may not agree with my teacher's 'review' and grading of my paper. To me, it may be the most spectacular paper in the world! But the teacher's opinion is the ONLY one that matters. MY feelings, my opinion, the long hours I spent sweating over that stupid paper on To Kill a Mockingbird's black dog symbolism... that doesn't factor in. The only thing that matters is what the teacher thinks.

It's the same way with books. This time, I (as the reader and reviewer) am the teacher, the authors I select are my students. I read their 'essay's with a critical eye. I do not wish failure on them, I wish success. And for success I must be honest. I do not consider what the author's feelings will be when they read my review. I don't say 'Aw, a DNF review will make this author's self esteem drop and it will be all my fault so I'd best bump it up to a B to make them feel satisfied.' No. That's not how it works. That would mean spectacular books and terrible books would receive the same grade. And if your book was a spectacular book - and it received the same grade as a bad book - wouldn't you be a little bit annoyed?

I provide HONEST reviews. They are not nice, they are not pretty. They are meant to provide a resource as to which books are worth the time of other readers as well as critique/feedback to the author's themselves. Keep in mind, as a reader I am your customer, and treating a customer poorly when they provide you with critique is NEVER a good idea. Some authors, such as Lori Foster or Miranda Neville (who have both received less than stellar reviews from me for some books) let it roll of their back. THESE are authors I consider reading again. These authors read my review and file it away with all the other negative and positive reviews. They may disagree with me entirely - they probably do. But they have the etiquette to realize that responding negatively back to someone who's sharing their thoughts and opinions - even the critical ones - is a bad idea. It's poor customer relations. If you don't have something nice to say to your reviewer... don't say shit.

The way I see it, every review of an author's book - positive or negative - is getting their name out there. So next time, author dearest, don't send me a note saying how much you hated my review. That's not nice. I was trying to help you, give you some critique, spread your name. This was not an attack, nor was this personal. This is the world of reviewing. I send out a link of every review I write to the author who wrote the book I reviewed. I let them know when they did something really spectacular and when their work was so-so. THAT is honest reviewing.

Bottom Line: If you can't handle the heat, get outta the kitchen. Not everyone's going to like your book and they can, and will, damn well tell you that. If you can't handle it, tough. But don't bitch to me about it. Swallow it, learn from the criticism, and move on. It's one review. Be mature.

P.S. If you're reading this link - and I sent it to you - I didn't appreciate your attitude in regards to my review. Please understand if I don't read another book of yours again. I support NICE authors. Only.

P.S.S. Sometimes I do misjudge an author. In the case of the author this post was originally written about, there was a slight misunderstanding. What I stay still stands... but this author had been removed from my naughty list.

Romance Novels = Pornography... WHAT?

First, here's the link to the article: Romance Novels Can be as Addictive as Pornography.

I'd like to make it known that this article sees to have been 'heavily influenced' (a.k.a. plagerized) by this article: Erotica Breeds Dissatisfaction, the rebuttal to which is very well written here: There's a Plot; Erotica is Harmless.

And of course, from my favorite Romance Blog of All Time (Smart Bitches Trashy Books) comes this rebuttal: Shooting Fish in a Barrel with Addictive Romance Novels. Well said, well said. Personally I'd like to offer my own rebuttal to this idiotic theory with a short rant. Although I've far less experience that my beloved Smart Bitch Sarah Wendell, I shall endeavor to use my scientific viewpoint to add a new perspective.

First, this quote:

"Men are very visual, and viewing pornography produces a euphoric drug in the body. This drug is the reason pornography becomes addictive. When the natural high wears off, a man will crash and feel depressed (as happens with any drug) and crave another hit.
Women are more stimulated by romance than sex, so when they read romantic stories (and they don’t have to be explicit to work) they can experience the same addicting chemical release as men do."

Now, I don't claim to be a scientific expert on ALL neurochemicals, but I do know a shit load of information about this particular subject. First, I agree that everything said in that post is true, but the words are manipulated to make romance look bad. Endorphins are released in the brain during stages of sexual excitement AS WELL AS DURING VARIOUS OTHER ACTIVITIES, and no doubt reading romance and watching porn, for women and men respectively, produces those endorphins in the body.

There is no doubt in my mind that Endorphins are released in my brain when I read a romance because I AM so much happier when I'm done. But that doesn't mean I'm addicted. Endorphins are released after a long run, when eating chocolate ice cream, or when playing piano (if this is an activity you enjoy). For my mom, Endorphins are released while she reads a good mystery novel. Should my mother stop reading mysteries, should my father stop working on cars, simply because it makes him happy and releases a drug in his brain? Drugs, I hate to tell you, are naturally released in our body all the time - and there's little you can do to stop it. But really, why would you want to? Stress hormones like Cortisol or Epinephrine, happiness neurotransmitters like Serotonin and Dopamine, and countless other drugs are constantly being released by our pituitary or adrenal glands. Happy drugs, naturally made ones at least, are GREAT for your body. Why? I'll tell you.

When the human stress response system first developed in the primitive era, stress came in short bursts (a hunt or a predator) followed by immediate exercise and resolution. The exercise and resolution led to the decreased production of stress hormones (called catecholamines) and increased production of endorphins, effectively triggering the end of the stress-response system (aka no more stress). In our modern times, stress is never immediately resolved but has prolonged effects on our body that can lead to a variety of ill effects, some even fatal. Also, rarely is the release of stress hormones coupled with exercise. The hormonal imbalance leads to unhappiness and depression, as well as constant tension. Romance novels have the same effect on the brain as exercise does - it releases endorphins that combat the stress feeling and reducing the impact of the hormonal imbalance. With the correction of the imbalance comes reduced risks for any number of diseases, as well as a stronger immune system, decreased likelihood of heart attacks and obesity. In effect, reading romance novels is good for your health. Yes. That's right. Really.

 Furthermore, why is the release of endorphins in our brain considered porn? Why is it porn to read or view or do something that makes you happy?

Well, that's when the devil's advocate says that romance reading is harmful in the way mystery reading or piano playing are not. After all:

""In fact, some marriage therapists caution that women can become as dangerously unbalanced by these books’ entrancing but distorted messages as men can be by the distorted messages of pornography,” said best-selling author Shaunti Feldhahn, who studies the differences between men and women."

Women can become dangerously unbalanced by a lot of things, as can men. No doubt there are many unrealistic ideals in romance novels: Men that meet every ideal and never argue with their women about anything more than the type of dog they should own is admittedly unrealistic. I would agree that some women may harbor unrealistic ideals for the men in their lives - but I would never fault a woman for setting her standards too high, and high standards are exactly what romance novels inspire in women. Romance novels address social, emotional, and sexual issues for women in a society that is still too scared to teach its teens about condoms even as pregnancy rates rise. Romance shows women that they should expect a lot from their men and that they are worthy of the best in all areas.

Yes, a woman who expects a flesh and blood Fabio to ride in and save the day is unrealistic, but most romance heroines don't act that way and romance readers are inclined to follow in the footsteps of the strong, self-sufficient, successful, determined, motivated heroines in the novels they read. The year I began reading romance novels regularly in high school (my Junior Year) my GPA went from a 92 - 94 average to a 98 - 100 average. I strongly believe this is because the women I was reading about, and thus modeling myself after in my formative years, were very successful, inspiring, and hard-working women. Also, romance heroines don't (generally) give their favors away for free. At the time I began reading romance, the issue of whether to have sex with my boyfriends was pressing. Although I don't say that abstinence is the only way, I'm glad today that I saved myself for when I truly love someone. The heroines in my romance novels showed me through thought and action that making love required love, and that I shouldn't settle for anything less. What kind of porn is it that makes you want to love?

Well, Rose, you can't deny the effect romance novels have on relationships. For instance:

"“For many women, these novels really do promote dissatisfaction with their real relationships,” Slattery wrote."

""Women involved in pornography have a hard time keeping their family together,” she said."

First of all, good. Men get a lot of slack these days for much of their atrocious behavior, and dissatisfaction with a relationship can be a good thing. Romance novels can inspire dissatisfaction in women in abusive relationships by showing them what love and tenderness can be like. It can give these women hope for a better relationship and a better future. Women are told not to set high standards in their relationships and I say Why the Hell Not? Why shouldn't I expect my guy to be sensitive, caring, and kind or whatever other qualities I admire? Why shouldn't I expect love? Why shouldn't I have high standards? Romance novels inspire readers to recognize their own worth. How is that dangerous?

Second of all, we've already debated the point of pornography. And for that second quote I'd like to steal a line from Sarah Wendell: Keeping the family together is no longer the responsibility of the woman. In the 1800s through the 1960s, sure, but women today do not hold all familial responsibility. Women and men hold responsibility for keeping the family together and I know many a happily married, voracious romance novel reader with a large, well-loved family. Women who read romance are often more informed on the trials of love, but are also more sensitive and forgiving. Also, the romance community is a large support network of bloggers, reviewers, readers, and authors and any romance reader has a huge community to fall back on when having relationship issues. Most often, when I talk to a fellow romance reader, a romance book gives them the courage to address and work through issues with their spouse. Romance novels give women a voice, which can often keep a family together in times of trouble.

Well, that's all well and good, Rose, but romance novels still bring readers into a fantasy and away from the real world. In fact:

"Romance novels are a booming business. Analysts believe book sales are increasing because romance novels provide a perfect escape during tough times."

Doesn't fantasy, sci fi, mystery, self-help, video games, TV shows... hell anything that one reads or watches or does inspire escape? That's why people read! Any fiction novel, and many nonfiction as well, is an escape from the real world even though some argue that genres other than romance address more 'real' issues. To this I say, "Pick up a copy of Lori Foster's When You Dare and read about the horrors of human trafficking. Pick up a copy of Stormfire by Christine Monson and recognize how far women's rights have progressed since Catherine's time. Read a historical and learn about the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror from a personal view of a peasant or lady. Look at what life was really like for a 1950's housewife. Delve into a contemporary and you'll learn about a variety of issues, from criminal to social to economic. Everywhere you look in a romance novel, there are real-life issues and learning to be discovered if you're not too dim-witted or myopic to look for them.
Romance is not the only genre that inspires escape, and I think the writer of our article that compares Romance to Porn would do well to remember that. Our real lives are full of disappointments and stressors, at our job or in our home. Often, an escape can help us deal helpfully with those issues by relieving some of the tension we feel and making our lives feel more bearable.

And I'm going to stop here, even though there's so much more to say. PLEASE check out that Smart Bitches link  - it's a well written and eloquent reply to this moronic article. And please, for the love of... well... love, KEEP READING ROMANCE. People of the world are too scared to talk about love or sex or, good heavens, enjoying it for any reason other than procreation. This is especially true for women, who are expected to be chaste and pure and therefore not enjoy sex. But romance readers are slowly cultivating a society in which love and women that won't settle for anything less are acceptable. Keep reading and teach your children the same love and respect for love.