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Watched a historical drama last night, one based on a play, with a cross-class relationship of sorts, and there’s (not-great) sex, the woman is slut-shamed by her lover, and then she dies. Of suicide. At the man’s suggestion. All in one night.
I looked up the play.
Wiki: “the play’s theme is class struggle”
Me: “It’s about hating women.”
Wiki: “the author was making a statement about social Darwinism”
Me: “the author hated women and punished them for their sexuality via drama”
Wiki: “some call it feminist!”
Me:
Wiki: “the play’s theme is class struggle”
Me: “It’s about hating women.”
Wiki: “the author was making a statement about social Darwinism”
Me: “the author hated women and punished them for their sexuality via drama”
Wiki: “some call it feminist!”
Me:
There was, admittedly, much dialogue about class struggle. But is a story about class struggle even real if a woman doesn’t have sex and then die for it? 
I cleansed my palate with a rewatch of Pride and Prejudice. Which is also preoccupied with boundaries of class and the relationships testing them! And yet, none of the women die. NOT EVEN THE ONE WHO HAS PREMARITAL SEX. Lydia gets exactly what she wanted, with few consequences.
This is why romance, as a genre, is so necessary. Women deserve books where we don’t have to watch ourselves get killed for having sex. Or for wanting to have sex. Or for men wanting to have sex with us.
Sometimes women get what they want, in bed and out of it, and *that* is the terrifying reality much of the literary canon exists to deny.
Because what would we do with that knowledge? What indeed.
Because what would we do with that knowledge? What indeed.
