When it became clear that ebooks would, indeed, be getting off the ground, I was very excited. I loved the thought of having more variety… in everything, really. Sexuality, settings, periods, characters, stories: I loved the idea of the envelope being pushed in all those areas.
A few years later, it seems clear that there has been a lot of envelope pushing. Sexuality is probably the best example. Remember the fuss that was made about the backdoor action in one of Robin Schone’s books? That book is positively tame compared to some of what’s being published today as a matter of course. These days, whatever it is that appeals to you, no matter how non-traditional, you can probably find plenty of books featuring it.
But there’s one area in which the envelope has stayed disappointingly still, and that’s the subject of gender roles. Or maybe I should say “relative gender roles”, because yes, women are now allowed to assume roles considered in the past to be masculine, and they are allowed to do so not just in ebooks, but in print books, too. The thing is, what almost always happens is that if the heroine is portrayed as, say, tough, powerful or aggressive, the hero is portrayed as even tougher, even more powerful and even more aggressive.
So the heroine’s a tough bodyguard who’s supposed to protect the hero? Odds are, the hero will turn out to be able to take care of himself just fine without a bodyguard. He might even end up actually saving his bodyguard (props to Beverly Jenkins, who didn’t do this in her Sexy/Dangerous, pretty much the only book I’ve read so far in which this doesn’t happen). The heroine’s a tough, powerful executive? Odds are, the hero will be her boss, or the CEO of a rival company, which will probably end up taking over hers, for good measure (and she’ll probably cry in public at some point in the book, too). In relative terms, therefore, the heroine will always end up in a role less traditionally masculine than that of the hero.
As for the hero having a traditionally more female role? Forget about it. For instance, when it comes to professions, he can’t be a nurse or an elementary school teacher, and God forbid he stay at home taking care of the children while his wife works outside the house.
It bothers me that romance novels are so behind the times in this respect. Even here, in the wilds of South America, I know a not insignificant number of couples in which the woman makes much more money than the man, and even a few in which the man stays at home with the kids, while the mother is the principal breadwinner.
I guess most readers prefer to see a more traditional conception of manliness and femininity in their books, and that’s fine; I’m not advocating that all books change in this direction. But surely there are enough of us out there for at least some books to be published that push the envelope, even a little bit?
I hope so. In the meantime, I’ll be here, waiting for the book about the SEAL heroine and her Stay-At-Home-Dad husband.
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I always found the alpha male, non-alpha female relationship not very realistic (fantasy land). As an alpha myself, its been my observation that alphas tend to hang with other alphas. We’re way too pushy and aggressive to form lasting relationships with anyone else.
But that said alphas are found in just about every career choice. I personally don’t read stories about sahm’s or sahd’s or teachers or…because those worlds doesn’t spark my imagination.
Darn it! I wanted Simbara, my WIP — which will someday be bought and published by a major house — to be heralded as innovative, exciting and ground breaking. Now the response is going to be: “*yawn* He got that idea from Rosario’s column on RtB.” Darn it! Darn it!
Ahem.
Okay, now that that’s out of my system — good point.
There have been no end of studies about what women find attractive (because guys spend a lot of time trying to figure that out) which document that the majority of women classify dangerous looking men as “sexy” and safer looking men as “good partner/father.” Anybody who has survived high school dating already knows this, of course. The girls say they want a guy who’s caring and sensitive, but it’s the football players who cut a swath through the coeds while the poets sit home on Saturday nights with their composition books and acne cream..
Since romance novels are usually more about exciting sex than stable parenting, the slightly pudgy former teacher turned writer — to chose an example completely at random — is not likely to sweep the professional career woman frequently mistaken for a super model off her feet. Nor is he likely to quicken the pulse of — well, anyone.
So while the guy’s a stay-at-home he has to be devilishly handsome and wealthy enough to stay at home without government assistance so he can work on whatever great project consumes him. (Unless, of course, the heroine’s love brings him out of some tragic depression so that he can resume the quest.)
I really hope there’s a market out there for a tough-as-nails female bodyguard protecting a nice but hapless guy who probably wouldn’t survive without her. (Seven or eight months from now, I’m going to be sweating bullets trying to find an editor who shares my hope.) But it’s scary. I mean, sure, women talk about wanting some honest role reversals, but how many manuscripts about CNAs, accountants, homeless shelter volunteers, elementary school teachers, and guys living on welfare so they can stay home and take care of their aged parents are collecting dust on editorial intern’s shelves– or frequent flier miles bouncing from prospective agent to prospective agent — while the CEO/surgeon/SEALs cut a swath through the market?
Rosario, this is my number one problem with romance. It’s a huge source of frustration for me. I love reading about two alphas but you’re right, the hero always HAS to be better. I also absolutely LOVE beta heroes paired with alpha heroines, but I don’t think many other romance readers do. Every time I mention this kind of pairing I get responses from other readers saying that they prefer REAL men. I get the same responses when I say that I also prefer femdom to male dom in BDSM erotic romances.
I find that most romance readers and writers are VERY adamant that the man must always be MORE. More everything that’s considered traditionally masculine. It reminds me of those category romance guidelines from decades ago. We laugh at them but in my opinion most romance writers today still follow those guidelines in many ways. I don’t think most readers would have it any other way.
Love the column, Rosario.
A few years ago, as a writer checking out new lines which wanted kickass heroines, the demand there was to have a hero who was just as kickass/alpha/”strong”. (I have a few issues with the word strong when it comes to character development. In that there is more than one way to be strong. Anyway…)
My werewolf hero, out in June, is an elementary school teacher
there’s one area in which the envelope has stayed disappointingly still, and that’s the subject of gender roles
This is one of the things I liked about Anne Bronte’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. The heroine saves herself and is the hero’s superior socially and financially. I’ve read a few historical romances which are about lady rakes who need to be saved by the love of a good man and there are some stay-at-home-father heroes out there. The hero of Ally Blake’s Meant-To-Be-Mother is one. He works from home so he can care for his son and it’s the heroine who’s literally a high-flyer with a career (that’s in the Harlequin/Mills & Boon ‘romance’ line). Vicki Lewis Thompson’s Nerd in Shining Armor has a hero who, while he has got brains, isn’t very knowlegeable about survival techniques and needs a lot of help from the heroine.
So there are some romances out there that don’t conform to the traditional gender roles but you’re right, there aren’t very large numbers of them and I don’t think the differences between these heroes and heroines are ever as pronounced as the gap between the huge alpha hero paired with a small, young, sweet virgin (but feisty!) heroine. I think that’s a good thing, though, because I wouldn’t want to read about a sweet doormat of either gender.
I owuld loooove to see the things that you are talking about. Certainly not every book needs to have the characters to which you refer but the inclusion of powerful women in romance would be welcome.
I enjoyed your topic, Rosario. You’re absolutely right!
I would like to read something different with a very strong female character and the guy being a stay-at-home dad.
In my book out next month, a couple has to make a decision who stays home when they gain guardianship of their best friends’ baby. I wanted it to be the hero and that was fine with my editor at Harlequin
I think this is one of those things that agents and editors are just not on board with. At least not right now. I tried to sell a role-reversal book (Alpha heroine who knocks the socks off strong/silent type hero who has to struggle to keep up with her and eventually accepts that it’s ok for her to be the stronger force). TRIED. Lots of praise for the writing. Lots of props for the strong heroine. An editor at Avon called her “fantastic and fascinating, like no heroine I’ve ever seen”, but then she said the hero was a wimp, “not man enough for such a strong woman.” *sigh* That was the general consensus of the publishing world: No wimp need apply.
I railed and fumed. Don’t they get it? How can they NOT get it?!! No I can’t just “make him stronger”. Her strength is the whole bloody point of the book. Learning to deal with it, to admire and love it, is his journey. Argh!
Besides, he wasn’t a “wimp”. He was the strong, silent type. Man enough to not be intimidated by a woman who just might be stronger than her was. I loved him . . .
The perception in Romance Novel Land seems to be that the readers read the books for the heroes. That the heroines really don’t “matter” – just make her non-threatening so the reader can “relate” to her. This sort of thing tends to get my feminist panties in a wad. It’s like saying, “Just throw some beefcake at those desperate lonely women and they’ll shut up.”
Barbara – I adore Beta heroes. Love them to bits! For me, the more interesting heroes are the ones that, on the surface, you wouldn’t suspect to be heroes. They change, grow and discover how hero-worthy they are over the course of the story. That said, I’m drawing a blank on romances that pair Alpha heroines with Beta heroes at the moment. Are there any?
I happen to agree wholeheartedly, but I know the majority of romance readers do not.
Even the strongest women readers I know prefer an alpha male. Myself, I love the beta male, I am certainly entranced with the pudgy teacher and the stay at home dad. But I think we’re the minority, sadly.
So when I write I strike a balance–my men aren’t exactly beta, but the women are never ever incapable. In one novel, the heroine is the one who wrests the gun away from the bad guy. They work together, the h/h, not “he saves her”. It’s the best I can do, LOL.
I’m always looking for ways to level the relationship and to give the heroine the main responsibility for herself while still nurturing the romance.
Anyway, thanks for saying I’m not the only one out there
Kalen, now I desperately want to read that book you can’t get published. It’s exactly what I’ve been looking for for years. I wish that there was a place for your book on the romance shelves. It’s really disheartening to me to realize I’ll probably never get to read the kind of stories I’ve craved since I first started reading romance back in the ’70s. I’ve never given up on romance but I can’t begin to express how tired I am of the gender rules. It’s why I rarely read romantic suspense anymore. There’s too much of the woman in peril who must be rescued for my tastes. I’m certainly no alpha but I’ve rejected gender stereotypes since my early teens.
Wendy, alpha heroines and beta heroes are pretty rare on the ground. The book that first introduced me to such a pairing was not a romance. It was science fiction story that I read back in the ’80s, Serpent’s Reach by C. J. Cherryh. It’s a great book that I still have and cherish today. I wish that there was an epublisher that catered to those of us who also like non-traditional gender roles. I certainly don’t expect to see such an innovation from the traditional romance publishers.
Great column Rosario.
I write kick-ass very strong heroines, and I do match them up with heroes that can keep up with them. In Hell Kat, Kat is so independent, strong, snarly, kick-ass that she needed a man that could match her. She had a lover that was beta, but she didnt’ respect him on that level.
I myself am a alpha woman, and I too desire a man that is alpha that can keep up with me, handle me. I’ve been involved with men that were too beta for me. I don’t want a man to let me walk all over them. I want a man that can stand up to me, match me.
Does that make sense?
But I do believe that there is room in romance land for beta heroes. The nice guy. The shy book worm that will treat a woman like a princess.
I prefer the quiet strength of the beta male. I like alphas too, just as long as they’re not too overbearing. In real life I don’t tolerate even a minute of b.s. and I like my romance heroines the same way. In romances with two alphas the author will invariably make the heroine a little less than as Rosario mentions. I’ll have to check out Hell Cat to see if the heroine remains entirely equal to the hero throughout the book. If so it’s a rare achievement on Vivi Anna’s part.
As far as real life, I want no part of what’s typically called an alpha male. I don’t tolerate
I’ve always written Betas, with a couple of Gammas thrown in for good measure, because I personally get off far more on the “strong, silent type” (as Kalen put it) than the real Alphas (although I’ve read a few — very few — that I’ve quite liked. Like Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s.
). And I’ve had plenty of heroes who work from home, at least part time, and heroines who work outside the home.
However, while my own readers love my guys, it’s all those arrogant Greek tycoons who fly off the shelves every month. MOST readers want the fantasy of Mr. Macho sweeping the heroine off her feet (and usually into bed). She can be shy and virginal, or completely in charge of her own destiny, but for the fantasy to work, he HAS to be dominant. Or they at least have to be equals. Otherwise, to most readers, the relationship seemed unbalanced. And yes, the hero comes off like a wimp.
So. Women say they want one thing in real life (the guy who pitches in 50 percent with kids and housework, maybe even one who’ll stay home while she builds her career), yet want something else entirely in their romance reading (women’s fiction is something else again, allowing stories that more closely mirror real life). But here’s something else: In an article I recently read, statistics indicate that couples in which the woman earns more than the guy (in the U.S.) are far more likely to fall apart than a more “traditional” arrangement. And in another article on SAHDs, many of them complained of feeling ostracized by society as a whole, as though their being home with the kids somehow indicated their lack of success in the business world. Of course SAHMs face the same bigotry, but it seemed even worse for the dads, perhaps because the phenomenon is still relatively new in the U.S.
Of course, some SAHDs, like many SAHMs, work from home, juggling deadlines and projects and childcare. Some SAHDs may, in fact, be still be the “breadwinners” even though their wives work outside the home. Every family is different. But what I took away from these articles is that publishing’s insistence on making sure the heroine doesn’t overpower the hero isn’t arbitrary, but based on the prevalent societal attitudes in this country.
Most women read romance to escape their reality — whether that’s a feeling that they already “do it all,” or their lovely, menschy hubbies — rather than relive it. And as long as that remains the case, the truly dominant heroine is going to be extremely rare.
Oops sorry. I meant to say that I don’t tolerate any male condescension or interference in my life. I guess I’ve never really met any alpha males. Just old-fashioned men who think they’re alphas.
Melissa — See, I had a completely different preconception about what “Marriage for Baby” meant.
Kalen — How long ago did you try? Not just bcause I’ll be trying something in the same vein next year, but because my own experience with interracial romances. I was pitching them fifteen or twenty years ago and couldn’t get anyone interested in the concept — much less reading the mss. Now they’re pretty common place. (However, comparing at the way I wrote 20 years ago with my storytelling now, it’s probably a good thing no one read those clunkers.) My point being, times — and markets — change.
While Captain Kirks are an enjoyable — even vital — part of fiction, due to my background in child protective services, Alphas in real life tend to put me in full combat mode. I’m rabidly Beta myself — you can’t counsel people if they perceive you as a threat — and when I see Alpha behavior I start checking domestic partners and dependents for injuries and looking for “tells” of emotional abuse. I think this prejudice influences my writing a bit.
And as for wage/gender roles: Valerie and I have traded places a few times over the last quarter century. However with her in medicine and I in education and social work, she’s usually done the heavy lifting when it comes to day job incomes. The years I’ve edged her out my writing put me over the top. Which one of us is bringing home what has never been a factor in our relationship.
“I myself am a alpha woman, and I too desire a man that is alpha that can keep up with me, handle me. I’ve been involved with men that were too beta for me. I don’t want a man to let me walk all over them. I want a man that can stand up to me, match me.”
Alphas of the world unite! LOL! I don’t write beta, I write gamma. I always thought I was writing beta (as I understood it), until I listened to a workshop on tape (wish I could remember who gave it) and realized that what the speaker was saying about her gamma heroes totally summed up my guys too. More intelligent and focused than a alpha. More willing to come at something sideways if that would get him what he wanted. Not at all threatened by a strong woman, and with no need to best her. A man who gets off on his woman being powerful and assured. Who enjoys and celebrates it.
So, Barbara, my debut book, LORD SIN, may not have the total “alpha heroine rules beta’s hero’s world”, but it does have “alpha heroine rules gamma hero’s world”. LOL! She’s a force of nature, and he gonna have to adapt if he wants to survive and thrive.
Kalen — How long ago did you try? Not just because I’ll be trying something in the same vein next year, but because my own experience with interracial romances. I was pitching them fifteen or twenty years ago and couldn’t get anyone interested in the concept — much less reading the mss.
This is recent. As in, in 2005 (I’m a newbie). I sold an alpha heroine/gamma hero, though. And honestly, I think she’s a little too much for him. *grin* But in a good way.
I think it’s true that we sometimes want radically different things from life than we do our entertainment. Have also, from time to time, been asked to “beef up” a male character, or change their name to sound more manly, or whatever. I spent a lot of years around academic men — you know, they can read, converse, think, share, discuss, observe (as I’m sure there are plenty of non-academic men who can as well), and they are sexy as hell. Yet, when I wrote one academic hero, I was asked to make him more “manly” — there are different kinds of manly in the world, but I think in romance you have to ferret around more to find them.
Although I don’t think the alpha thing applies only to heroes.
In Friction, my only real kick-ass heroine book, everyone loved Sarah, the heroine, but her strengths were also her weaknesses. To me, Sarah was strong and edgy, but she needed to soften or she would be a very unhappy person in life. She lived in defensive/offensive mode, and rarely relaxed — she would have been very annoying to me in real life, LOL I invented a hero who could soften her up. Still, readers loved her for her edge.
Now, in another book, Flirtation, I have a very nurturing, soft-hearted heroine who is not TSTL, but who’s strength is emotional, not physical. She’s strong and persevering in her own way, accepting but not submissive, and she’s kind of a flower-child and has a quiet strength that I really admire in people.
And yet so many women saw her as “too soft” too emotional” etc. They couldn’t deal with a heroine who wasn’t in their face.
I found this odd. I don’t know what to say about it, but FWIW.
Sam
Kevin, I think the income disparity thing (women being the breadwinners) becomes an issue when the woman is still expected to run the household, too — and unfortunately, from what I can tell, this is all too often the case. The guy might be “helping out” physically, but the woman still makes all the major household/childrearing decisions, on top of her professional responsibilities. After a while, that’s bound to spell doom in a relationship, or at the very least put a huge strain on it.
And that’s what why I think so many women in those situations want to at least occasionally fantasize, through their reading, about a totally take-charge guy. In real life, we may not really want some dude making decisions for us, but every once in a while it’s just nice to imagine what it would be like to dump it all on someone else.
That said, I certainly think there’s room for expanding the parameters. Me, I love the idea of being able to come home after a hard day kicking butt to a fabulous meal cooked by a sweet, sexy guy. It’s how to turn that scenario into a story that might be a trick. Still, say what one will, more publishing trends are driven by societal attitudes — which translates to reader preferences — than it might seem on the surface. And those of us who write Beta/Gammas know it’s an uphill battle trying to convince readers that heck, yeah, these are real men.
In mainstream (I mentioned Roland Merullo’s A LITTLE LOVE STORY in a post here last week — great example of a really heroic Beta guy), in women’s fiction — anything goes. In romance, which is traditionally predicated on fantasy, not so much.
Kalen: based on your explaination, I’m changing my self-description from “rabidly beta” to “rabidly gamma.”:smile:
Ah, the love of the gamma spreads . . . I just hope I’m using it right. LOL!
Add me to the gamma fans too, Kalen. Your description of gammas sounds like exactly what I mean when I think of beta heroes. Basically I’ve liked all kinds of heroes as long as they were crazy in love with the heroines.
Completely agree. I’d really like to see this envelope pushed too. It always bothers me when we’re introduced to a strong female heroine only to have the hero pop up and constantly over power her through the book. The book like this that pops up in my mind is “Lord of Scoundrels.” The heroine was kick-ass and had all these ambitions in the begining, but then they just got abandoned during the story and we never heard anything else about it. Even though that’s not the worse case, because she managed to still hold onto some power and wasn’t completely helpless. That book was just most well known one I thought of for an example. Anyway….
I’m not a big fan of alpha heroes. Most of the time they drive me insane, but it’s rare to find a good romance without the alpha hero. The books I like the best are ones with beta heroes or where the hero and heroine treat each other like equals.
Oh wow, looks like my opinion isn’t in agreement with the majority! I absolutely like/love it when the alpha hero paired with a non-alpha heroine. I’ve read many a alpha and kickass heroine and they are still a turn off! Pushing the envelope heroines and plots just don’t work for me.
I agree with the basic post. But it was when I read the “Sheikh books still sell out” comment that I knew I had to post. As a woman who earns a breadwinning type salary, I really wouldn’t mind hooking up with a surf bum or dreamy artist if he makes me happy. He has to bring something that keeps me interested, but I don’t think he has to be an alpha to be interesting.
I’m lucky to know a lot of non-traditional couples in real life. And what I see is that my friends respect each other regardless of gender. I met most of them at engineering college where most of the women who got there did so in part by ignoring traditional roles. And the men who wanted dates learned to love women who ignored traditional gender roles or imported them from all womens schools – and then they learned that those all womens’ schools taught women to really stand up for themselves.
The women I know from my college years not only ignored traditional feminine study/work rolls, but also ignore traditional sex roles as well. Not everyone, not equally because we’re all unique, but there were plenty of sexually dominant women. Even more, they were “out” about it. Some women got got better at pushing sexual boundaries. Some didn’t acknowledge the boundaries; I know several who kept multiple boyfriends concurrently. Most of us were at least able to say, “this is what I want, this is what I need, and I can have great sex on purpose.” And the men were good with that.
Which is where I *finally* come to my point. Women in our society are still not allowed to enjoy good sex or admit to it. There are thousands of little punishments for sexually, and otherwise, dominant women. How many romance heroines are still virgins, or only had one or two lovers who never got them off? It’s ok to have sex if you don’t enjoy it, you see. Or if you don’t choose it. So to get the sex of their dreams without being held accountable for it someone else, an alpha male, has to make it impossible for women to say no. The women reading alphas get the manly hero who forces pleasure on them (Sheikhs, for instance) for their own good. And in enjoying the fabulous dominant Sheikh sex, the woman can absolve herself of responsibility for enjoying great sex, and avoid all the societal punishments that come with it.
So the way I see it is if we want these beta heroes to materialize, we need, as a society, to insist that women and men have an equal right to desire, enjoy, study, and ask for sex. Without apology.
(sidebar: the guest author on the Colbert Report was just talking about how she has no interest in submission.
[...] There’s an interesting post and comments up by Rosario on Romancing the Blog that has me asking something that I’ve almost asked in response to posts from some other blogs recently. Really, it’s come up on so many lately that I thought I’d ask it here because it’s started to bother me. A lot. Where are all these millionaire stories being sold that show they’re what fly off the shelves because they’re what romance readers want to buy the most? [...]
I agree with Rosario. I’d like to see more variety in gender roles and personalities in my romances. I enjoy a hero who’s more of the boy next door or a heroine who’s worldly and “alpha” without being some brittle meanie. I don’t find these supposed “beta” guys wimpy just because the cop heroine can shoot a gun and they can’t or some crap like that. Or if she’s a wealthy CEO and he isn’t. Or even if the hero is more in touch with what comprises a healthy romantic relationship! I too would love to read Kalen’s book. There are so many personalities in this world, and it can be fascinating to see how all sorts of combinations find one another and work at getting along.
I have sold a few beta heroes who come out of their comfort zones to court the heroine. Of course, in the end the heroine loves his “real” persona, not just when he’s behaving more alphassly
. Another story I can remember, called “A Dad Like Daniel” (Sil Desire by Elizabeth Bevarly), is also sort of like this. I really enjoyed that shake-up and obviously it imprinted on me *heh*
[...] But back to The Raven Prince. I find it a bit of a relief if the hero really isn’t handsome. Don’t get me wrong, I love beautiful heroes, too, but you know, they’re pretty thick on the ground and variety is pretty nice. Which brings me to Rosario’s recent post at Romancing the Blog where she wants the envelope pushed further. In relative terms, therefore, the heroine will always end up in a role less traditionally masculine than that of the hero. As for the hero having a traditionally more female role? Forget about it. [...]
Rosario, I attempted something like this in my first novella (published in Red sage Secrets Volume 12.) My heroine owned her own international import company based in London, and my hero was an enviromental worker based on an isolated coastline. He was alpha in personality, but in no way equal to her in terms of status or earnings. In the end, she bought the house he’d always wanted, for them both.
No one seemed to even notice the role reversal, which to me was a large part of what I was attempting to do. Maybe I didn’t make a big enough “issue” out of it, or maybe I just didn’t do it right. It was an early effort and I learn all the time
Shiloh, you must have done it right if no one seemed to notice the role reversal. It shouldn’t be a big deal. I’ll have to see if I can find that book.