Abstract:
Romantic fiction has long had a bad press: either dismissed as trivial or condemned as an ideological tool perpetuating women’s subordination. But despite such harsh criticism, millions of women continue to read romantic stories. This persistent popularity may be not the result of pernicious cultural conditioning, but a reflection of evolved female sexual psychology. I propose an evolutionary-feminist reading of popular romantic narratives, with a special focus on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and the hit television series Sex and the City, and suggest that far from promoting mindless escapism or passive submission to the patriarchal order or to male desire, such fiction focuses on the importance and complexities of female choice. It posits female characters as proactive decision makers and strategists. It gives audiences opportunities to consider different mating strategies and to vicariously experience highly positive, as well as problematic, solutions to the mate selection process. Being able to identify and attract an appropriate mate is vitally important for evolutionary, cultural and personal reasons: it determines our reproductive success and our individual satisfaction. Insofar as romantic narratives provide low-cost, low-risk training for audiences’ emotional, social and mating intelligence, it may be beneficial for women to be interested in such stories.