Are Mills & Boon novels really, secretly, feminist texts? On Wednesday it was reported that the academic Val Derbyshire has written a paper – to be presented at Sheffield University’s Festival of the Mind next month – that contends they should be reread from a feminist perspective.
Derbyshire’s argument, as described so far, includes a variety of points: that the male hero is often forced to acknowledge his sexism and change his ways as a result of falling in love with the heroine; that the series has challenged the blaming of female rape victims within the criminal justice system (using the 1985 novel Time Fuse to back up this point); and that these books are primarily by women, for women. “Why would [Mills & Boon writers] set out to insult their target audience?” asks Derbyshire.
I am sympathetic to some further points Derbyshire makes about snobbery. I read and enjoy crime novels that are badly written and formulaic, and hate being judged by those who brag that they read Ulysses with their spinach smoothie.
Derbyshire argues that women should read Mills & Boon with pride rather than guilty embarrassment, and I agree that no one should feel ashamed of reading pulp fiction. But what has this got to do with feminism? In her paper Derbyshire goes so far as to call the books “the literature of protest rather than mere escapism”.
My thoughts on this subject are on record. In 2007, to mark 100 years of the Mills & Boon novel, I wrote in the Guardian that these books are “full of patriarchal propaganda”, and derided them for perpetuating the myth that women crave to be swept away by overpowering, macho men.
I have, however, softened towards Mills & Boon a little since then. Because we now have Fifty Shades of Grey, a brand that is considerably more insidious and misogynistic. The first Fifty Shades novel was published in 2011, and the book and its sequels are a celebration and sanitisation of domestic abuse and sexual sadism.
Despite this softening, I still cannot see how anyone could make a robust argument that Mills & Boon novels are feminist, unless we follow the line trotted out by some “fun feminists” that anything can be labelled as such – up to and including Margaret Thatcher.
Like other social justice movements, feminism has a set of aims and objectives. One of them is to challenge the lie that women enjoy being forced into sex. Most of the older (and some recent) Mills & Boon novels are based on “forced seduction” because in the bad old days, nice girls could not actively choose to have rampant sex and still be considered decent. This extract from The Innocent’s Surrender, published in 2010, illustrates my point:
“Her taut muscles shocked into resistance, she wanted to cry out to him that he was hurting her, and beg him to stop. To give her unaccustomed body at least a little time to adjust to the stark reality of his penetration of her. Yet she did nothing, said nothing, determined not to grant him the satisfaction of knowing that anything he did could affect her in any way – pleasure or pain.”
If that is not rape, I am not sure what is. Yet she falls for the rapist. And, presumably, they go on to live happily ever after.
In a blog post Derbyshire writes: “I, myself, find that I tend to pick up a Mills & Boon romance to read when I’m feeling in need of cheering up. They’re quick, easy to read, and yet – no matter how ridiculous the plot – strangely satisfying.”
I perfectly understand this, and feel exactly the same way about some of the books I read. Derbyshire has every right to rail against the snobbery of her critics – but none, I would argue, to say that Mills & Boon novels are even remotely feminist.
