The Feminist Orchestra Bookclub discussion

So this is our first time reading a romance novel in the book club - something a little bit different.

I'm really excited to discuss this one for a multitude of reasons.

I think as a feminist book club it's also important to consider the way genres are judged according to their association with women. Books have historically and contemporarily been dismissed as frivolous or niche because they are about women and by women and romance is a prime example of this.

This romance novel specifically deals with a protagonist who is a suffragette and I am really interested to see how the author weaves historical politics with a fun romance plot. I do think it's possible for romance to be subversive and feminist so I'm hoping this one lives up to that aha (and that it's just enjoyable).

Can't wait to chat about it! (I'm starting this week.)

The blurb sounds interesting! Definitely joining in

I’m on chapter 4 - so far loving it - great choice 😀

I read it, really loved the romp, and can't wait to see a video on it ;)

I just gave up on this book at 63%. Skimmed a few more chapters and saw that our characters who have already twice broken up for understandable reasons consummate their desire anyway. Returned the ebook at that point. This is NOT a feminist book, in my opinion. I did write a full Goodreads review on it. Here is a lengthy chunk from my review:

Having your main character work with a suffragist group does not a feminist romance make.
—She’s working for them because she’s beholden to their scholarship money. As presented in the book, she becomes a believer only after she receives the scholarship and works with the group for a time. She does not feel she can say no to any demand they make of her. Intersectional feminism this is not.
—The heroine and hero have parted ways because there is no way for them to be physically together without her becoming his mistress, which she rightly refuses to do. I do think she should have been more angry at his proposition. In Chapter 21, however, he corners her (literally) and demands to know what man she is friends with and kisses her and propositions her again. Jealousy is abuse. Him getting in the way of her moving on with her life is abuse. I would actually respect this book more if the author abandoned the Duke as the hero part way through when it’s clear it won’t work out, and allows our heroine to look around at other interesting men. She’s at a university almost entirely composed of men, so her odds are quite good. Wouldn’t it be more true to most women’s experience if our heroine had a crush that didn’t work out but finds true love in someone else?
—I wanted to see a true novel here, in which our main character navigates being among the first class of women at Oxford, develops friendships with the other women, and grows into her own through the formative experience of living on her own and expanding her mind. Instead she almost never talks with other women, we don’t really know what she’s studying (we’re told she writes lots of essays but we’re almost never told what about), and instead of maturing, she backslides. She’s made it quite clear that she let her teenage hormones get her in trouble, but now at 25 she goes right back into letting her arousal do her thinking for her. Sheesh.
—Petty portrayal of Queen Victoria, a monarch who at the time ruled an empire so global the sun never set upon her domain. We deserved a characterization that showed the strong woman under the crown. (No, I’m not endorsing colonialism. Just criticizing the mean-spirited portrayal of one of the only women with power in this book.)

A more serious issue is the author’s characterization of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. She has the male love interest continually think nasty thoughts about Disraeli, wondering how he could have “weaseled” his way into power. Disraeli had been a national politician for forty years by 1878, longer than the fictional Duke was even alive. The nasty language smacks of antisemitism against Disraeli’s Jewish birth. Is British antisemitism really the one thing this author wants to go with when she couldn’t be bothered to get her age numbers accurate?

I read this book in one sitting so obviously it was terrible, but really I thought it was a fun romp and I liked the unique setting of suffragette's and women's early days in college. That said I do feel like I agree with a lot of what Amy said, Anabelle's sort of forced feminism combined with a lack of trust in any female characters made her feel really disingenuous and I felt like the Duke went through more growth than she did in terms of political views. I am just starting to read romance so I think a lot of what I dislike are things that are common tropes in the genre, I think I would have loved this book if it were non-romance novel and we got to explore the setting more instead of just the very aggressive romantic scenes.

I also agree with Amy here.
It started off as quite promising but never delivered the feminism that was promised.I mean the heroine just gave in anyway...what the hell?
Also talking about feminism and have a group of 4 women keeping secrets from one another.Where's the girl's power?They should be friends supporting and encouraging each other.
The author ought to have done way better than than,or at least not pass it as a feminist's book :/

I partially agree with Amy as well. However, I do not think that the way in which our main character became a feminist or came in contact with the movement is terrible and/or discredits the feminist portion of the book. I have two main reasons for this: first, very few of us are borne as feminists. All of us have become feminists and that involved some development, exposure etc etc. I don't think there is a right or wrong way of how one becomes a feminist and the scenario in which our main character first gets in touch with the movement was historically plausable and also, dare I say it?, good writing as well as good research? To personally profit from smth is what can first bind us to smth and thus influence us. Our main character comes from a very different but at the time dominating mindset/class setting etc. She is sponsored by the suffragette movement and formes a connection through it. Why should that be bad? I liked how the author portrait the struggle of going to the streets and chat up men to win them over for their support of the women's vote. It's also what got the whole romance going and it shows that one does not have to be borne the bravest social feminisz forefront fighter, but can become one. Gradually. Secondly, this is just one characters journey. The next book in the series will feature a much more "advanced" figure of the movement and someone who has been involved and putting the movement forward for a long time. I believe it will showcase a different "type of feminist"/story and I am looking forward to it.

Is Anabelle a perfect feminist or character in general? No. Of course not. Perfect characters, like real people, are an illusion and would be boring. Yes, this is not a literal feminist fest of a book, but in trying to combine two genres that have so far almost exclusively opposed one another (namely, a kind of regency romance and a feminist agenda), I think it did a well enough job.

I have read about real suffragists and their sympathetic husbands, fathers, brothers and family members, it wasn't just women fighting, there were men too, but in fictionland in 2020 we have reached so far backwards that the audience would find that unsatisfactory. Now if you want to sell your book? have the "hero" dehumanize the heroine.
Sebastian could have been a misogynist who changes during the story, you know someone who just thinks less of women, meets this one woman and gets close and finds out they are just as human as he himself is. His misogyny is not the problematic part for me, creating this picture of her for others as a woman who sells her body for money...that's the problem, it's about him and Annabelle not women's rights and how class worked in Britain at the time, it's about his view about Annabelle. You don't have to have read countless studies on feminism to understand another human being you are supposedly close to, female or male. If author was a feminist there should have been another character showing up at this point who gives Annabelle some agency and wins her over. "Be my sex slave" is dehumanizing and not "heroic".

Thank you for joining the discussion and complementing my critiques. I think you raise a really good point about a common fault in some women’s literature: that once the libido kicks in, all common sense goes out the window. This is not the only book I’ve read in which we’re supposed to believe that a woman is so horny she will risk being pregnant in the years when women routinely died in childbirth or were literally shunned for being unwed mothers —ie risk her life—in order to have sex with someone who doesn’t respect her enough not to put her at risk. I am all for a steamy sex scene on occasion; I’m not saying women shouldn’t play out sexual fantasies in literature. But it’s really hard to see something as sexy that is degrading or dangerous for the woman involved. It’s uncomfortably close to the idea that women are irrational creatures controlled by their emotions, which as feminists we would love to move beyond.