The Glass Slipper: Women and Love Stories

by Susan Ostrov Weisser

Why is the story of romance in books, magazines, and films still aimed at women rather than at men? Even after decades of feminism, traditional ideas and messages about romantic love still hold sway and, in our “postfeminist” age, are more popular than ever. Increasingly, we have become a culture of stories of all kinds shape the terms of love. Women, in particular, love a love story. The Glass Slipper is about the persistence of a familiar Anglo-American love story into the digital age. Comparing influential classics to their current counterparts, Susan Ostrov Weisser relates in highly amusing prose how these stories are shaped and defined by and for women, the main consumers of romantic texts. Following a trajectory that begins with Jane Austen and concludes with Internet dating sites, Weisser shows the many ways in which nineteenth-century views of women’s nature and the Victorian idea of romance have survived the feminist critique of the 1970s and continue in new and more ambiguous forms in today’s media, with profound implications for women. More than a book about romance in fiction and media, The Glass Slipper illustrates how traditional stories about women’s sexuality, femininity, and romantic love have survived as seemingly protective elements in a more modern, feminist, sexually open society, confusing the picture for women themselves. Weisser compares diverse narratives—historical and contemporary from high literature and “low” genres—discussing novels by Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë, Victorian women’s magazines, and D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover ; Disney movies; popular Harlequin romance novels; masochistic love in films; pornography and its relationship to romance; and reality TV and Internet ads as romantic stories. Ultimately, Weisser shows that the narrative versions of the Glass Slipper should be taken as seriously as the Glass Ceiling as we see how these representations of romantic love are meant to inform women’s beliefs and goals. In this book, Weisser’s goal is not to shatter the Glass Slipper, but to see through it.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Academic, Romance, Womens

235 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Wanda Pedersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Victorians have a lot to answer for! The basic formula that they set in motion for the romance is still very much in use. The woman protagonist has to be beautiful, but not vain. She can be aware that she’s moderately attractive, but mustn’t put too much stock in it. She must also be stubborn (or spunky or full of vitality) because she’s going to need all her resources to win her man. And she better be a one-man woman—not too easily tipped into bed, as she needs to be sure that the man is truly interested in her, or she will be left alone and humiliated. There is no doubt that “alone” is a punishment and a sign of being “less than,” which makes me laugh, as it’s the only way I want to live my life.

Men in this genre are usually rich or at least comfortable financially, but billionaires abound these days. Then they should be hunky—broad shoulders, small waists, ripped abs—because why waste all that work on a regular guy, right? Plus, he should be powerful, both physically and in the world (Alpha male, anyone?). No wonder men don’t like to read the romance genre—who could possibly live up to that standard?

I can see why the author doesn’t really decide if romance is pro- or anti-feminist. I’m a feminist, but after decades of ignoring the romance genre, I find that I’m enjoying it again. I’ve never married and I don’t expect to. I don’t expect romance in my own life—my own relationship is a pretty pragmatic one. And yet I really do enjoy reading a good romance. I’ve read Ilona Andrews’ Burn for Me at least 3 times since January (and it really, really fits the Victorian pattern above) and I’m waiting on tenterhooks for the sequel White Hot. Does this make me a bad feminist? I don’t think so.

The author covers a lot of ground: Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Jane Austen, D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Disney princesses, The Bachelor/Bachelorette, Harlequin romances, and internet dating sites, among other topics. Do we need to smash the Glass Slipper the way we need to break the Glass Ceiling? Or can we hang onto it for playing dress-up?

[Bry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truth be told I did not read this entire book. It is extremely dense and a bit difficult to read, but it is worth the effort. All of the portions that I did read were extremely interesting and provided great insight into romance in our modern world. It looks at the evolution of romance across the ages and genders and makes some interesting connections.

So while it can be difficult to read at times it is definitely worth it and I highly recommend it.



Some great quotes that I really just want to underline or highlight in the book itself, but sadly it's a library book though cause this book is hella expensive.:

"Pop psychology says that if you are 'emotionally available', romance will be your destiny, but which then slides into the implication that if you don't feel romantic love or have romance, it must be your fault, a character defect or neurosis." (Pg. 6)

"Though our contemporary concept of love insists that feeling must be completely mutual in a relationship, romance is particularly imbedded in women's identity as a powerful marker of value. For many, it is as much a negative marker of worth as it is a positive: in its absence, it shows who you are not." (Pg 13)

[Tricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Weisser writes with clarity and wit (sometimes hilarity, actually) on what turns out to be a very complicated subject. As it turns out (and as we all expected), love stories are not to women as porn is to men. Weisser had me hooked from the beginning with her treatment of C. Bronte's Jane Eyre, which is still one of my favorite books, romantic or otherwise, of all time. I would strongly recommend this book to pop culture scholars, especially those interested in gender and feminism, but I would also recommend this for non-scholars who just like romance and want to be in on an exciting conversation. This is an easy read.

[Holly Fairall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating read that has already made me differently view treatment of love and romance in our culture. Critical essay writing style, so not exactly a breeze in the park, but incredibly engaging, really interesting use of sources ranging from Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte, to comparing classic fairy tales with their Disney remakes, all the way to discussing The Bachelor and modern "trashy" romance novels. Highly recommend for any woman to read and rethink how we've been raised to view/belief in love and romance.

[Kathleen Flynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting and well-written; although a scholarly work, it is written in a highly accessible style. It gave me a lot to think about in analyzing a genre that I have decidedly mixed feelings about. If my feelings are still mixed, the topic is more complex than I had previously given it credit for being.

[zenzeromante · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was written 10 years ago and is based on reports and data from the mid 2000s, and it shows. Many of the sources are from the 1990s and early 2000s, which obviously means that this book reads quite dated for the current state of romance. Some points are made, especially for what concerns the Victorian novel, but most of the other chapters appear to be lacking and/or are set on premises that I don't necessarily agree with.

Some of the things that bothered me:

I wonder how many buyers of romantic fiction have given a passing thought to the feminist scholarship written about it (and I don’t mean the tiny percentage of romance readers who are scholars themselves).

Like... as much as you can criticise romancelandia, you can't argue that this is a place where discussions about romance books, tropes and genres are extremely popular. There is literally not one (1) day that goes by without some sort of discussion regarding romance, how we write it, what we read, what we need to change in both the genre and our biases. And sure, ten years ago it might have not been as easy as it is now to find these types of communities, but I can list a whole lot of romance blogs that were and/or have been active since the early 2000s.

Then again, this book seems to confuse a lot of things. First of all, “romance” here appears to embrace literally anything that has sex and/or love in it, which means that romance books, books where there are romantic subplots, books written during the Romantic era (?) and even erotica (??) fall under the same umbrella. And so you have arguments that start by quoting Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther, then switch to Nicholas Sparks’s The Notebook, only to land on Herotica 2: A Collection of Women's Erotic Fiction.

This confusion doesn’t suprise me because the author made it clear that she didn’t know how to define the romance genre:

Pornography is notoriously hard to define (the Supreme Court has never come up with a very clear definition), but so is the genre of romance. It seems both narrow and crude to reduce them to their focus on sexual coupling and emotional bonding, respectively.

... even though the romance genre has been long definited by two main characteristics: 1) central love story, and 2) an happy/happy-for-now ending. Which is in no way restrictive, because you can still write books with romantic subplots and happy ending—you simply wouldn’t market it as a romance book.

The other thing that annoyed me so much is that this book argues that:

Love stories are not timeless or universal. To the contrary, pace Shakespeare, love is a story that alters when it alteration finds. Romance is often treated as generic narrative because we all know the popular mythic stories of love such as Cinderella. But historical and social conditions change the stories’ meanings for us, and not infrequently their themes as well.

and one would agree with this premise, if the book didn’t actually contradict itself so many times. First of all, in the chapter about African American romance novels, the author takes some of the most popular titles from Harlequin imprints (which are the most mainstream places where to find romance books) and draws universal conclusions about the African American romance genre as a whole, without ever checking in with self- or indie-published African American novels first.

One might say: but that the time of writing this essay there weren’t many self- or indie-published romance novels! But that arguments falls apart when the author actively avoids talking about queer romances for... feminist reasons, apparently:

Men in love, as well as gay and lesbian romance, are all important. But the difficult questions for feminists have always concerned the relations between men and women: Is inequality built into heterosexual romantic relationships, or is love itself the answer to inequality? Why do women still seem to value romance more than men do (romantic movies, magazine articles, and mass fiction, not to mention the wedding industry, are all aimed at consumption by women, not men)? Is women’s purported greater desire for romance oppressive or a difference to be celebrated? Because of this one-sidedness, I propose to narrow my subject to romance between a woman and a man.

and we know for a fact that queer romance was starting to get pretty popular in the mid 2000s.

What’s funniest about all of this is that somehow the author manages to make universal assumptions about women in love only by looking at the cishet female experience. The focus is only on (cis)heterosexual relationships and stories, so much so that it ends up falling into the usual trap of the cishet woman being used as a stand-in for both cishet and queer women alike.

So at the end, I found many of the chapters lacking because an analysis of romance that does not take into consideration the writers and the content that come from the margins—outside of the mainstream, and which focuses on queer identities and experiences too—is not a complete analysis, in my opinion.

[Nut Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was thoroughly enjoyable, but I wouldn't call it an easy read. Weisser stops just short of being overly academic, but it's still dense reading for such a short book. Chapter 5 (Romancing the other) was my personal favorite and will probably appeal to any fan of fairytale analysis as she discusses the Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Twilight (I promise it makes sense in context). However, I think chapter 9 (Is Female to Romance as Male is to Porn?) is one of the most thought provoking in the whole book, especially when she contrasts the two in terms of power dynamics. I for one will never forget this gem: "If romance is the dream language of the dominated, porn is that of the dominator wishing for the slave to be happy, or at least on call."

That being said, while she always makes wonderful points about modern romances debt to Victorian ideas on the subject, Weisser often fails to make her arguments stick. For example, though she makes bold claims about underlying similarities between Austen's Persuasion and Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, the chapter ended with me still scratching my head. Additionally, I felt that her chapter on romance in film largely wasted a wonderful opportunity by using very poor examples for her discussion (one Sex and the City movie I could understand, but two was totally unnecessary).

Still, for all it's flaws, this was highly intelligent and enjoyable. I would recommend to anyone with an interest in feminist analysis of literature.

[dejah_thoris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in a conversational style that gave me much to think about at the time most of which I cannot remember a week later. I have learned how to distinguish between Austin and Bronte, however, and have a greater appreciation for the challenges inherent in writing formula romances. Unfortunately, I am appalled to read how some white writers reinforce systemic racism through black female characters' choices and fantasies. (Disclaimer: I am assuming the writers are white because I have a hard time believing a black woman would imagine herself as an antebellum plantation owner.) Hopefully, the pulp paperback market (or e-quivalent) will become more diverse as the long tail of small presses offer additional options.

[CharlotteReads · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of academic analysis of romance and love stories. Some of the most surprising comparisons were most illuminating - a few pounded away densely in semiotics - some asked why women read romances. A question I'd like answered after having read 90 in three months. (yes, I work full time and have a happy marriage) and I'm pretty certain with multiple academic qualifications that I was not brainwashed by 19th century ideas of marriage and power dynamics despite what some feminist literary critics may assert. Informative and illuminating and at time amusing.

[janie]

this is a super interesting (if, at times lacking focus) collection of chapters exploring the idea of romance and women in contemporary society.

[Mills College Library]

809.385 W433 2013