Lucas Parrish

A Reflection on Janice Radway’s, “The Readers and Their Romances”

In the text, literary and cultural scholar Janice Radway underlines the condition

romance fantasy stories have on women. How novels create a condition of bond and

romance between characters that sets the bar on what loving someone truly is. These

relationship myths present themselves as ideal and something to dream of that can be

distracting to the real world. Radway claims that this fiction creates a dependence on

men and allocates acceptance in repressive ideology to stereotypical gender roles.

This romance media promotes desires for women pervading modern life in

America. Radway analyzes a midwestern community called Smithton to get an in-depth

look at single-family homes. Women of this community fall victim to novel publishing

industries nearly thousands of miles away in New York City. These novelists master

formulating this genre, offering emotional sustenance the people of this community

crave. Burdened with loneliness, Smithton women cope by excessively reading the

books that allow them to create an identity of their own. Further, the text explains

“Consequently, it must be kept in mind that the people who read romance novels are

not attending to stories they themselves have created to interpret their own

experiences” (Radway, 2012, p.285). Markets of any kind strive on our consumption

and will fill our holes in order to fill their pockets. They need loyal followers and the

Smithton group just so happens to be another target for these industries to capitalize

on.
Lucas Parrish

To dive a little deeper, these books have altered the common system in shaping

women into applying unconscious fantasies to their individual lifestyles. Radway

argues that messages like these tolerate male actions of sexual violence and assault on

women. Toleration like this does not help men either; sexualizing women on their

accord to it becoming okay and common. Novels like this can harm men in becoming

romanticized and being set unrealistic standards for future relationships. This

phenomenon is embedded in the structure of white supremacy in how relationships

ought to function to benefit one side (your side) over anyone else. From this standpoint,

”the hope is that desires for ‘primitive’ or fantasies about the Other can be continually

exploited and that such exploitation will occur in a manner that reinscribes and

maintains the status quo” (Radway, 2012, p.308). Rooted in the longing for pleasure,

that women need men for pleasure; enabling critical reassurance.

Radway hopes to bring light to this issue by showing the public this knowledge

to advocate for social change. That there needs to be reconstruction of society in order

to move women away from this patriarchal complex. Personally, I see her view on the

romance genre can apply outside of just books. Music, television and the media all

simultaneously promote this romanticization or sexualization of relationships. To the

point where people I date fall victim to these norms and make excuses on my behalf. I

never really noticed the implications that novels can have on the mass majority, even

though I become influenced by the stories I find interesting.