Multiculturalism, Sex, and Powerful Women: The New Romance Novel as the Voice of Neofeminism

Over the past decade romance novels have continued to grow in popularity creating the need for updated research into the genre. To date many of the critical pieces relating to genre romance have focused on the universality, predictability, and continuity of the work rather than its sociocultural impact on change. Women's depictions in social roles have been in flux, as well as their relationships with, and relation to, men. This thesis will be an attempt to document the larger cultural changes as a result of and as reflected in this fiction. Furthermore, it will attempt to discuss how genre romance, through reader involvement in its content, has and is changing the manner by which women in American culture become, and identify as, liberated---to be precise, twenty-first-century neofeminists. Additionally, it will address romance novel's actual multiculturalism, opinions about sex, and gender roles, as well as an effort to delve into the dominant social viewpoints of modern American women as a result of romance novel consumption.