tinhuvielartanis | **mutter**

At work, one of the ladies taking her break slid in the booth I commandeer every day beside me and piped up, cheerily saying, "Ooh, what good romance are you reading?" referring to the book in front of me.

"There's no romance in this book," I replied. "It's Hannibal."

I think she was fairly horrified. But so was I. Why is it that people assume a woman holding a book has to be reading a romance novel? I have to admit that I do find Hannibal to be kind of romantic. It's the closest thing to romance I can tolerate, I guess. That and Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. My concept of romance is a little different from the conventional understanding and it irks me when it's just a "given" that, since I'm female, I have to be reading some brainless, gooey romantic potboiler. Blagh. Not for me. NOT.FOR.ME.

What bothers me even more is that this misconception wouldn't be thrust upon me if so many women in our society encouraged such a stereotype by placing themselves firmly in that category. There's more to life than romance. There's horror and tragedy, and dreams of conquest, and vast theories that reach beyond the prisons of the average human mind. There are languages yet to be born and philosophies long buried, desperate to be resurrected and committed to paper. Women are more than capable of reading and/or writing any number of these, yet we're relegated to the realm of romance and we allow ourselves to be, brainless bubbleheads that we seemingly are.