Why do I write “unlikeable” heroines?
When women are still denied autonomy and equality in 2022, the last thing I want to do is write women who prioritize being liked.
Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.
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It seems like such an easy explanation, doesn't it?
The real world America we're currently living in elected a president who said he grabbed women “by the pussy” and it was excused as locker-room talk. Our right to determine whether we grow a person in our bodies is about to be taken away. And there continues to be a massive pay gap between women and men.
So we all agree, with the continued uphill struggle for women, that likeability is really low on the priority list, don’t we?
No.
The romance genre is stretching beyond the binary, with all genders of people writing and reading romance about all genders of people. But our heroines are still trapped in "likeable" vs. "unlikeable."
Early reviews are already coming in for After Hours in Milagro Street, my high heat, Latinx, small-town romance about a bad ass Latina bartender who comes home to claim the family bar and finds a head-in-the-clouds-but-hot East Coast professor standing in her way. It’s not uncommon for me to get a review like this:
It took me a while to like Alex, she was just so abrasive.
And this was a review that ended with: I love it when I think a book is just a simple romance and it turns out to be more! ... It was a good read!
They liked the book. They didn't like Alex.
Understanding the cold hard facts of the world we face doesn't free real-world women, or their romance counterparts, of the straightjacket of likability and the limited possibilities that straightjacket brings.
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“Straightjacket” seems a little harsh, you might say.
Let me give you an example of how this emphasis on women being likeable plays out in the real world: There was a fascinating Twitter thread awhile ago about a woman who got a job offer, tried to negotiate compensation, and had the offer rescinded. Many women on the thread complained about having job offers evaporate if they tried to ask for more money; men on the thread said they'd never heard of that happening to men.
Data backs up this concern that women can appear "less likable" if they're assertive this way -- a Harvard Business School survey found that "women who felt empowered at the negotiation table were more likely to reach worse deals or no deal at all."
There are real world consequences for society’s preference that a woman prioritize being liked over looking out for her own best interests.
When I wrote my first “unlikeable” heroine, self-made Mexican-American billionaire Roxanne Medina from Lush Money, I didn’t set out to make her hard to like. I – like Roxanne – didn’t think about her likeability at all. Instead, I focused on how a woman who had the brains, will, and resources to build a successful company that supported 40,000 people would move in the world.
She went for what she wanted and didn’t apologize for it.
I was shocked how many reviewers said this made her unlikeable. I thought it made her admirable.
My heroines have been called:
ice-cold queen
heartless female
nasty bulldog
emotionally stunted
high-handed
And my particular favorite: “What type of mother is she going to be?”
Do you think this question has once ever been asked about a powerful male hero?
I’ve come to understand that the double standard that exists in the real world also exists in the books we write. Men are bestowed with the right to demand and take and have. Women are not. The myth of the ideal woman is that she's accommodating. She constantly considers others and makes way for them. We've all absorbed this myth, it's been the rhythm and beat of almost every story we've heard. If we see a different step, hear a new note, it feels jarring.
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Alex “Alejandra” Torres, my bad ass bartender in After Hours on Milagro Street, comes home angry.
She’s had a quit-or-be-fired moment at a Chicago speakeasy that she helped put on the map, and now the only way she can salvage her reputation is to claim and restore the family bar, even if coming back to her hometown of Freedom, Kansas is something she never wanted to do. When she discovers that an East Coast professor also has plans for her grandmother's bar, she's immediately suspicious of his intentions and protective of the family she loves, even if her loves comes off a bit...prickly. The instant physical attraction she has with the professor just makes a hard situation harder.
Heh.
I digress.
If you read through the reviews, no one says they don't understand why Alex is angry and single-minded. They never say it doesn’t make sense.
They just say they don’t like it.
This blog is not to decry my negative reviews. I am grateful, whether I agree with them or not, for each and every person who’s taken the time to write a review of one of my books.
What I want to underline is that I've never set out to write an "unlikeable" heroine. What I've focused on is writing heroines that are ambitious, powerful, proud of their minds and bodies, self assured, confident in their abilities, single-minded, and goal focused.
We've been drinking the tea that those attributes, in a woman, are unlikeable.
Don't believe me?
Read this sentence: I write heroes that are ambitious, powerful, proud of their minds and bodies, self assured, confident in their abilities, single-minded, and goal focused.
Does your spine itch then? Does that make him unlikeable?
In romance, we are writing fantasies.
But we're also showing a way that women can carry themselves in the real world. Our heroines can portray how a woman can center her own needs, preferences, and desires; fearlessly behave as her true self (even if she's a little grumpy), and go after what she wants. Our heroine's love interests can admire and desire her ferocity, pride, and drive. And the world we create can respect her, can be a better place than one that seeks to grab her and control her.
The simple answer to why I write "unlikeable" heroines?
I don't.