This Honors Project Thesis seeks to explore the consistent popularity of romance novels written by women within a female readership. While these novels primarily function as escapism, they also simultaneously reinforce and subvert gender expectations through the physical and emotional performance of the masculine hero. This paper focuses specifically on how masculinity is viewed through a female heterosexual lens, and the female gaze. It will pay especial regard to male emotional vulnerability, and how the male protagonist performs or subverts concepts of masculinity, stays in or extrudes gender constructs, and shapes himself into the vision exerted on him by the female gaze. Since the study of male body theory and the female gaze is a still developing scholarly area, and because romance novels are a rich area of discussion around gender that is largely overlooked, this project will address an important research gap in the study of feminism and critical gender theory in relation to stereotypes of male bodies within literature and popular culture.
The final section is on "The Appeal of the Mafia Man: Why Heroes Cry in Contemporary Romance".
Here's the abstract:
The final section is on "The Appeal of the Mafia Man: Why Heroes Cry in Contemporary Romance".