If it is difficult to convince students that gender stereotyping is alive and well in the 1990s, it is even more difficult to convince them that gender stereotypes function not just as static images but as guiding models by which women and men are judged as worthy members of their sex. [...] As a supplement to the textbook material, for the past 10 years I have used a two-part writing and group discussion project that has been enduringly popular with students and very successful in helping them discover for themselves the content and functions of stereotypical images of women and men. The project is to read a romance novel critically and discuss a set of questions about it with others who have read similar novels. (151)