The Romance of Patriarchy: Ideology, Subjectivity, and Postmodern Feminist Cultural Theory

ontemporary popular romance narratives are among the most significant narrative modes in advanced industrial societies. They They are primary sites for the ideological construction of individuals as gendered subjects, especially female ones, in male-dominated heterosexual couples. By producing the female subject as complemented and completed by her relation to a male partner, patriarchy naturalizes sexual identity, masking the cultural construction of the feminine, thereby continually reproducing women in a subordinate position. Only by interrogating the ideological production and circulation of gender is it possible to begin to change the social, economic, and power relations among individuals and in society. Patriarchy is the organization and division of all practices and signification in culture in terms of gender and the privileging of one gender over the other, giving males control over female sexuality, fertility, and labor. While seemingly universal, the particular structure of patriarchy at any given moment is always historically determined since it is formed