Why Are Books So Embarrassing?
an exploration into the shame of reading romance novels
The Hamilton Public Library has been recovering from a cyber security attack for a few months now. I don’t know about you, but hearing this news when the attack first happened was terrifying. For one, I had an audiobook I was very excited to listen to ready for me to check out on the library’s app that I couldn’t access. I had another book I wanted to renew but couldn’t because I was unable to log into my account. And, worst of all, the self-checkout kiosks at my local branch (and across the city) were not in use. So, that meant I had to check out my books…
*shudder*
face to face.
I’m not normally one to shy away from day-to-day human interactions. In fact, I find the odd stranger chat quite amusing and interesting. But there is something so embarrassing about checking out books from the library.
When I went to my branch to check out some books, I didn’t realize that the kiosks were out of service. With my chosen books already in hand, I eyed the check-out counter and the woman working it with a bit of anxiety. I glanced down at my romance novels with cartoon drawings of the main characters on the front cover and my palms started sweating.
As I handed my books to the librarian, I thought to myself, “Why am I so embarrassed to be reading these books? They are just books!”
Flash forward a few weeks later and I am eating breakfast while listening/watching a video essay titled “booktok & the hotgirlification of reading”
(P.s. I am sorry to every reader who is perhaps not as chronically online as I am and that title makes absolutely no sense. In simpler language, that title is: “Books/book aesthetics trending on tiktok & why reading has become a symbol of being cool”…. or something like that… you get it)
In this video essay, creator Mina Le mentions how women’s literature was initially (and can still be today) viewed as “trashy” or less intellectual than literature aimed at male readers. This, in part, had to do with the mass consumption and popularity of Harlequin/romance novels.
This and the rest of her video (which is quite interesting and I recommend watching it) led me to consider the interaction between books and women and perhaps look for an answer to my question of why my romance books feel so embarrassing to read.
Women and The Book Industry
Romance novels have been around for years and years, with the first known romance novel, Pamela, Or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson, being published in 1740. While Samuel Richardson is a male author, “historically, romance novels separate themselves from other genres by being primarily written by women, for women, and about women.”
When women started writing, there was an initial hesitancy to hold female authors to the same standard as men. Books written for women were seen as laughable, watered down, and less important than the novels or works written by men.
In fact, writer Nathaniel Hawthorne had this to say about women’s literature:
America is now wholly given over to a d[amne]d mob of scribbling women, and I should have no chance of success while the public is occupied with their trash.… Generally, women write like emasculated men, and are only to be distinguished from male authors by greater feebleness and folly.
This same sentiment has lingered in our culture even though there has been a move to female authors being seen as equal to male authors. Still today, there seems to be a sort of assumption about women’s literature and how it compares to male literature.
In my research for this exploration, I discovered that women author more than 50% of books published in the U.S. every year, AND that the average female author sells more books than the average male author.
Mary Ann Sieghart, in an excerpt from her book The Authority Gap: Why Women Are Still Taken Less Seriously Than Men, and What We Can Do About It, quotes a study from Lisa Jardine and Annie Watkins:
“Men who read fiction tend to read fiction by men, while women read fiction by both women and men. Consequently, fiction by women remains ‘special interest,’ while fiction by men still sets the standard for quality, narrative and style.' If you think about the “great American novel,” I bet you immediately associate it with Mark Twain, John Steinbeck, Philip Roth or Jonathan Franzen. But what about Toni Morrison, anyone? Harper Lee? Alice Walker? Donna Tartt?”
Sieghart continues:
Mary Beard [an English classicist] told me how she was once on a book prize panel, “and it was absolutely clear to me that the men picked really lengthy books. They would pick them up and say, ‘This is a really weighty contribution’ and what they meant was, ‘This is a very male contribution.’ Then one of the other judges said in the end, ‘We’re going to have some short books.’ It’s not that the contributions of men and women are colossally different, but the affirmative adjectives that are used to make us think that we can all agree about this candidate rather than the other one tend to be heavily correlated with male candidates. Women don’t do ‘weighty’ things. These are words that are not so glaringly correlated with gender, but they’re a code for gender. The men who use those words are as unaware as anybody of that.” We all know instinctively that “heavyweight” is code for “male.”
While there is a much bigger conversation here about women’s voices in male-dominated industries, statistics and quotes like this lead me to ask,
If we know women have great writing abilities and are continuing to rise in popularity in the book industry, why do books written specifically for women get looked down at? Why are they labeled “trash” (according to Nathaniel Hawthorne) and laughed at by the public? Why am I self-conscious about my cutesy rom-com, but dignified in my male-penned historical fiction?
To extend the question even further, why are romance books in general, whether it be authored by newbie Emily Henry or beloved Nicholas Sparks, treated this way?
It does seem that the author is not the issue, but rather the reader and the content itself.
Polling My Audience
I actually put this line of questioning to the test and polled a portion of my female followers on Instagram the other day (There were roughly 75 respondents, so nothing of statistical significance, so to speak, but I was excited about this response nonetheless!). I asked them the following questions:
Do you/ Have you read romance novels of any kind?
If yes, have you ever been embarrassed to read romance novels?
If yes, what was the reason?
If you don’t read romance novels, is there a specific reason?
I found the results of my small study to be interesting and insightful with 66% of pollers actively reading romance books and, of that group, 68% said that they felt some sort of embarrassment because of romance novels, whether it be the cover (20%), title (2%), the content itself (47%), or “the pure fact that it was a romance novel” (31%).
Another small thing I found interesting was that, of the respondents that voted “no” to reading romance novels in general, the main reason for this decision does not seem to be the content, but rather a lack of interest or because they did not read a lot in general.
It was great to hear from a few people on their experience with this topic. Many of them shared similar frustrations or feelings and it validated me in my questioning of this reality. The responses from this brief and very informal survey excite me to explore more deeply this subject of female authorship, reading, and the imbalanced reactions or views towards books written by women, for women, and about women.
(P.s. If you maybe want to support me in exploring these topics, feel free to share my substack with others, or become a paid supporter 😊)
Reading is FUN!
As a pre-teen, there were mornings before school when I’d race to get my breakfast ready, lunch packed, and uniform on just so I could have an extra 10 minutes to read another chapter of my book. Knowing I’d get so engrossed in the book that I’d lose track of time, I’d set an alarm for the exact number of minutes I had before I would leave for the bus.
When I chose English as my major in university, I felt an immediate change in my view towards reading. In my own eyes, I felt that, because I threw the phrase '“I’m an English major” around so easily, I needed to read like an English major. No longer could I spend sleepless nights scrolling through Wattpad, reading YA dystopian novels, or giggling my way through a romance. Instead, I needed to read high-brow novels like War and Peace, A Tale of Two Cities, Crime and Punishment, and 1984. While those books might be beneficial to read (and I’m sure I’ll get around to at least some of these someday), they weren't what I wanted to read.
This, and because of the amount of reading I had to do for school, reading as a hobby went away altogether.
After I graduated and had a bit more free time, I wanted to pick up reading again. I can remember walking into my local library for the first time and feeling like I had the whole world ahead of me. There was just so much to choose from. And, while my head may have been telling me to reach for the Literary fiction section, my heart pulled me to the romance and mystery shelves. I left that day with an armful of rom-coms and whodunnits.
And guess what?
I read like no tomorrow.
My love for reading came back when the books I was reading were fun and entertaining. When I picked up genres that interested me, I read more books than I had in years and read more often. Then, as I continued to read and get older, my reading interests spread to essay collections, short stories, creative non-fiction, and more.
In other words, it was the love of rom-coms and mysteries that enabled me to branch out and explore new genres.
If I had not revitalized my love for reading romance books, I may never have picked up some of my favourite books I’ve ever read, many of which do not even fall into the romance genre (These include: Such a Fun Age, Writers & Lovers, This Time Tomorrow, and Stay With Me - all of which are 5 star reads for me).
A Final Thought
So, instead of judging a book by its cover…or author, or genre…what would it look like to read the books we want to read instead of just the books that we are told we should read? What if we checked our biases or assumptions at the door and opened ourselves up to reading great stories of all kinds from great writers of all kinds.
I challenge you, reader, to pick up the book you’ve been dying to read. Even if it feels a little embarrassing to be seen reading.
Perhaps it will lead you to a new “off-screen” hobby or finding your new favourite book.