I started reading romance novels in junior secondary (middle school). Thrifted Silhouette, Harlequin and Mills & Boons paperbacks that us girls in boarding school would swap with one another.
It's a habit that's been a part of my life for the past 20+ years; I've read thousands of romance books to date. When I started reading them, I wanted the white dress and 2.5 kids every girl is socialised to want. Now, I know I'm going to be a childless, single lady till I die—while fabulously rich, I hope! My politics mark me as a liberal, even if I don't live in a country where such identifiers are used. In truth, virtually everyone here has conservative values.
I'm a feminist to boot, maybe even a misandrist, and I'm not embarrassed to admit my love for the romance genre. But I often think to myself that the delight I find in reading romance novels is anomalous with my values.
I don't think I have to explain why the romance genre upholds conservative views on gender and marriage. Sure, there are romance novels with feminist heroines that I love (not enough of them in my books), but the romance genre, with its many tropes and themes, is fundamentally a conservative one that perpetuates the patriarchy.
Despite being an avowed feminist with no plans to marry and have kids, I'll still read the Billionaire romance, the Cowboy romance, the Mafia romance, the Motorcycle Club romance ... basically, all the traditional romance archetypes with their usual trappings, and ENJOY it.
I have never been able to reconcile these two parts of myself, and I wonder if anyone else has the same existential dilemma, and how they live with the incongruence of romance's conservative core against their own liberal values.