Are Feminism & Romance Novels Mutually Exclusive?
A Quickie with Kay Mussell (November 1997) Kay Mussell is a scholar at American University. She is a long-time reader of my column, but first came to my attention when I read Jayne Ann Krentz’s Dangerous Men & Adventurous Women, which is a series of essays written by romance novelists about the genre. It is an excellent book and if you haven’t read it, I suggest you do so – it was reissued in paperback by Harper last year. ‘); document.write(”); // –> Support our sponsors In DMAW Kay is footnoted several times, and the impression I had was that she was a critic of the genre, albeit less staunch than some other scholars. But based on some of our earlier discussions, I sensed her views had changed. So when I read some posts to AARList requesting books to recommend to a feminist friend, I immediately thought of Kay. I wrote her and asked: “I am someone who is a life-long feminist. I studied it in college, wrote papers on it, and when I worked outside the home, was a strident liver of fe
