STEMinist Romance Novels
March 9, 2025 8:03 PM Subscribe
I found this article very difficult to read for some reason. I've thought a fair bit about this general topic as a woman-shaped person who's been in a STEM field for decades now, though, and who has read at least one of Ali Hazelwood's books. In fact, I read some of them when they were fanfictions.
I think the fact that she got her start in Star Wars modern AUs is pretty telling! At least a couple of her books were Reylo fanfictions before she filed off the serials to publish them, many of which deal heavily in the erotics of extreme power imbalance. When you go to write a Reylo modern AU, you're looking for an environment to set it where Kylo Ren is a guy who holds all the cards and Rey is a woman who holds exactly two: profound instinctive ability at an unusual skillset, and irrepressible moxie. Oh, plus she's extremely cute but doesn't know it. You throw them together, he insults her a bunch, she proves herself and surprises him, he feels threatened but intrigued, she feels annoyed but seen in a way few others have ever seen her, sparks fly, etc. Well, it's easy to set that kind of story in basically any STEM workplace. Because in every STEM workplace, a mean, tall white guy holds all the cards, and a woman from the wrong side of the tracks had better have impressive skills and moxie to spare, and it doesn't hurt if she's cute, either. Story basically writes itself. I can say this because I too have written modern AU about a STEM workplace in this exact same fandom.
So you've got these romance stories and they're very popular in fandom. There's nothing about them that's inherently Star Wars anyway, that's the joy of a modern AU, so why not change the names and some of the details and publish them? But I don't think there's anything especially feminist about their existence. A whole bunch of them are just, at the end of the day, Star Wars fanfiction. Just because the girl character is a chemistry graduate student or whatever doesn't make the book a feminist book. Under the hood they're still romances about the erotics of extreme power imbalance.
I guess maybe I'm out over my skis a bit because I haven't read ALL Ali Hazelwood's books. Maybe I'm wrong and I just happen to have read the one that was so obviously a Reylo that Rey and Kylo are on the cover. But to me, a STEM romance is just a romance novel that's found a savvy marketing hook because people can tell themselves they're making a feminist purchase because they're buying a book about a woman scientist. Good for her, I guess, glad it worked out.
posted by potrzebie at 10:33 PM on March 9 [13 favorites]
I think the fact that she got her start in Star Wars modern AUs is pretty telling! At least a couple of her books were Reylo fanfictions before she filed off the serials to publish them, many of which deal heavily in the erotics of extreme power imbalance. When you go to write a Reylo modern AU, you're looking for an environment to set it where Kylo Ren is a guy who holds all the cards and Rey is a woman who holds exactly two: profound instinctive ability at an unusual skillset, and irrepressible moxie. Oh, plus she's extremely cute but doesn't know it. You throw them together, he insults her a bunch, she proves herself and surprises him, he feels threatened but intrigued, she feels annoyed but seen in a way few others have ever seen her, sparks fly, etc. Well, it's easy to set that kind of story in basically any STEM workplace. Because in every STEM workplace, a mean, tall white guy holds all the cards, and a woman from the wrong side of the tracks had better have impressive skills and moxie to spare, and it doesn't hurt if she's cute, either. Story basically writes itself. I can say this because I too have written modern AU about a STEM workplace in this exact same fandom.
So you've got these romance stories and they're very popular in fandom. There's nothing about them that's inherently Star Wars anyway, that's the joy of a modern AU, so why not change the names and some of the details and publish them? But I don't think there's anything especially feminist about their existence. A whole bunch of them are just, at the end of the day, Star Wars fanfiction. Just because the girl character is a chemistry graduate student or whatever doesn't make the book a feminist book. Under the hood they're still romances about the erotics of extreme power imbalance.
I guess maybe I'm out over my skis a bit because I haven't read ALL Ali Hazelwood's books. Maybe I'm wrong and I just happen to have read the one that was so obviously a Reylo that Rey and Kylo are on the cover. But to me, a STEM romance is just a romance novel that's found a savvy marketing hook because people can tell themselves they're making a feminist purchase because they're buying a book about a woman scientist. Good for her, I guess, glad it worked out.
posted by potrzebie at 10:33 PM on March 9 [13 favorites]
oof, thanks for the... warning... potrzebie. I was still interested right up to the part where you said which Star Wars AU with the serial numbers filed off it was (unashamed Star Wars fanfic junkie on both sides of AO3 - writing and reading - so that was more a draw than anything) but Reylo is a super strong squick for me and 'grad school AU' playing with power imbalance in any fandom has never ever ever been my jam (even less so now that I'm in grad school again).
Now that I've RTFA -
"women in STEM may have difficulty establishing and maintaining long-term romantic relationships, as their career choices are incongruent with gender roles" buries the lede pretty deep - this is referencing research about heterosexual women specifically, and it's an indictment on the partners of heterosexual women rather than on the women or the STEM. In my experience there Are Just More queer women in STEM, and the women in long-term straight-appearing relationships tend to have male partners who are just... better people, frankly; usually in STEM themselves (or else artists of some kind), more chill about gender roles, super admiring and supportive of their brilliant woman-in-STEM partners, and actively working on being feminist allies.
This piece made me quite fighty and raised a lot of Stuff about being a woman-shaped engineer that I usually manage pretty successfully to keep out of my way, and as it doesn't read like the author has fully figured out their position, I don't think it's incumbent on me to do so either. I'm gonna go write the conops for a rocket test cell instead.
posted by ngaiotonga at 2:26 AM on March 10 [8 favorites]
Now that I've RTFA -
"women in STEM may have difficulty establishing and maintaining long-term romantic relationships, as their career choices are incongruent with gender roles" buries the lede pretty deep - this is referencing research about heterosexual women specifically, and it's an indictment on the partners of heterosexual women rather than on the women or the STEM. In my experience there Are Just More queer women in STEM, and the women in long-term straight-appearing relationships tend to have male partners who are just... better people, frankly; usually in STEM themselves (or else artists of some kind), more chill about gender roles, super admiring and supportive of their brilliant woman-in-STEM partners, and actively working on being feminist allies.
This piece made me quite fighty and raised a lot of Stuff about being a woman-shaped engineer that I usually manage pretty successfully to keep out of my way, and as it doesn't read like the author has fully figured out their position, I don't think it's incumbent on me to do so either. I'm gonna go write the conops for a rocket test cell instead.
posted by ngaiotonga at 2:26 AM on March 10 [8 favorites]
I’ve read a lot of these books - thank you so much for pointing out the fanfic origins, potrzebie - and they’re pretty good romance books. I feel like the reading given in the article is not bad but perhaps a bit uncharitable, considering the rest of the romance publishing industry is still trying to push some pretty backwards plots (like the old classic “accidentally pregnant and forced to marry the millionaire businessman”). These books aren’t brilliant, but compared to most romance books they are at least operating in this century’s idea of contemporary morals by providing a model of female characters with agency.
posted by The River Ivel at 2:33 AM on March 10 [1 favorite]
posted by The River Ivel at 2:33 AM on March 10 [1 favorite]
This thread reminds me to also mention a duo of romance novels I enjoyed that focus on a woman who's a research scientist: "How Not to Fall" and "How Not to Let Go" by Emily Foster (a pen name for sex researcher Emily Nagoski).
posted by brainwane at 3:33 AM on March 10 [3 favorites]
posted by brainwane at 3:33 AM on March 10 [3 favorites]
Everyone in every very demanding career likely needs a very supportive spouse, at least if they are to have a spouse at all, and I don't necessarily think (straight) women in STEM have it much harder than any other (straight) woman in a very demanding career at finding one, because (straight) men are often kind of fucking terrible and finding the ones that aren't is tricky. Performing femininity properly may make it easier for (straight) women to find partners, but not much easier for them to find the kind of supportive partner they need to help their careers because the kind of (straight) man who requires a (straight) woman to fall neatly into gender roles in order to like her is not going to support her demanding career anyway, regardless of whether her career is acceptably femme.
Having a supportive partner is better for your demanding career than having no partner which is better for your career than having a whiny man baby who expects you to cook him dinner, do the dishes, and fuck him before you finish that grant application for the funding that will keep your lab going for the next 2 years.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:10 AM on March 10 [4 favorites]
Having a supportive partner is better for your demanding career than having no partner which is better for your career than having a whiny man baby who expects you to cook him dinner, do the dishes, and fuck him before you finish that grant application for the funding that will keep your lab going for the next 2 years.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:10 AM on March 10 [4 favorites]
Lemkin, I found Fenwick's writing a little muddled. What did you find particularly noteworthy in her analysis?
What was noteworthy to me was the existence of the sub-genre, unknown to me until 12 hours ago. I have no qualifications to judge the analysis, other than it having been written by someone who seems meaningfully engaged with the subject, and coming in at a length long enough to be substantial but not so long as to be tedious.
The post started out about Vintage Nurse Romance Novels—which also have heroines butting heads with difficult men holding the cards—but it veered off at the end. I think of it as a pendant to my one about escapist men’s fiction.
posted by Lemkin at 6:35 AM on March 10 [1 favorite]
What was noteworthy to me was the existence of the sub-genre, unknown to me until 12 hours ago. I have no qualifications to judge the analysis, other than it having been written by someone who seems meaningfully engaged with the subject, and coming in at a length long enough to be substantial but not so long as to be tedious.
The post started out about Vintage Nurse Romance Novels—which also have heroines butting heads with difficult men holding the cards—but it veered off at the end. I think of it as a pendant to my one about escapist men’s fiction.
posted by Lemkin at 6:35 AM on March 10 [1 favorite]
Lemkin, thanks, I appreciate the context.
Quite a significant proportion of the romance novels I read center on STEM fields. The subgenre is not as populated as, say, fake-dating next-door-neighbor romances or billionaire romances, but it's there. Fenwick's analysis, to me, didn't make it clear whether she'd ever read any of the others.
When I choose "Archetype: STEM" and the Romance genre in the search-by-theme book finder at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books (SBTB is a great hub for researching the genre), the results come with a note: "We're only showing 150 books with your search criteria. (There are more than that, but we can't load that many on the page)." Quite a lot of them don't focus on a woman's STEM career and interests, but some do.
The Milan romances I mentioned do; The Countess Conspiracy, Hold Me, and The Devil Comes Courting (I'd forgotten to mention that last one) all address sexism against women in STEM, and the intricacies of het relationships in which men support those women in their scientific interests and work. Hold Me is particularly interesting as a novel in which a male scientist who thought he was a feminist comes to realize that he'd been discriminating against women who perform traditional femininity, and changes his ways. Milan's been writing these books for over a decade. I note this because Fenwick writes about Hazelwood (whose books are all from the last 4 years) and I would be interested in understanding her work in the context of the existing romance subgenre of STEM-focused feminist romance.
A few others I noticed via that search:
The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren pairs "Single mom Jess Davis ... a data and statistics wizard" with a "stuck-up, stubborn" scientist and startup founder. (2021)
Susannah Nix's Intermediate Thermodynamics is "the second in a series of standalone rom-coms featuring geeky heroines who work in STEM fields." (2018; renamed)
Fenwick asks, "would the public be as interested in these womens stories if there wasn’t the sellable romantic element?" One example: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, a novel that is not a romance and that focuses on a woman's difficult science career. Published in 2022, got significant sales and critical attention, adapted into an Apple TV+ miniseries in 2023.
posted by brainwane at 9:48 AM on March 10 [7 favorites]
Quite a significant proportion of the romance novels I read center on STEM fields. The subgenre is not as populated as, say, fake-dating next-door-neighbor romances or billionaire romances, but it's there. Fenwick's analysis, to me, didn't make it clear whether she'd ever read any of the others.
When I choose "Archetype: STEM" and the Romance genre in the search-by-theme book finder at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books (SBTB is a great hub for researching the genre), the results come with a note: "We're only showing 150 books with your search criteria. (There are more than that, but we can't load that many on the page)." Quite a lot of them don't focus on a woman's STEM career and interests, but some do.
The Milan romances I mentioned do; The Countess Conspiracy, Hold Me, and The Devil Comes Courting (I'd forgotten to mention that last one) all address sexism against women in STEM, and the intricacies of het relationships in which men support those women in their scientific interests and work. Hold Me is particularly interesting as a novel in which a male scientist who thought he was a feminist comes to realize that he'd been discriminating against women who perform traditional femininity, and changes his ways. Milan's been writing these books for over a decade. I note this because Fenwick writes about Hazelwood (whose books are all from the last 4 years) and I would be interested in understanding her work in the context of the existing romance subgenre of STEM-focused feminist romance.
A few others I noticed via that search:
The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren pairs "Single mom Jess Davis ... a data and statistics wizard" with a "stuck-up, stubborn" scientist and startup founder. (2021)
Susannah Nix's Intermediate Thermodynamics is "the second in a series of standalone rom-coms featuring geeky heroines who work in STEM fields." (2018; renamed)
Fenwick asks, "would the public be as interested in these womens stories if there wasn’t the sellable romantic element?" One example: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, a novel that is not a romance and that focuses on a woman's difficult science career. Published in 2022, got significant sales and critical attention, adapted into an Apple TV+ miniseries in 2023.
posted by brainwane at 9:48 AM on March 10 [7 favorites]
Theoretical physicist Angela Collier has a video about Hazelwood and her STEM romance series.
Collier seems pretty frustrated about the series.
I kinda agree with her.
I appreciate that a wider swath of the general public get exposed to this unique part of the world, that deserve a lot more interest.
But then it's frustrating when the author flubs fundamental aspects of their subject, or inserts weird cultural values that aren't germane to the story. It comes across as disrespectful.
posted by ishmael at 10:27 AM on March 10 [2 favorites]
Collier seems pretty frustrated about the series.
I kinda agree with her.
I appreciate that a wider swath of the general public get exposed to this unique part of the world, that deserve a lot more interest.
But then it's frustrating when the author flubs fundamental aspects of their subject, or inserts weird cultural values that aren't germane to the story. It comes across as disrespectful.
posted by ishmael at 10:27 AM on March 10 [2 favorites]
Theoretical physicist Angela Collier
Yeah okay I'll watch that.
I'm not really the target audience for... romance novels at all (The Courtship of Princess Leia is great but that's about my limit) but I still knew there's romance novels in pretty much any setting people have ever existed in ever and a few that they haven't (like the outer planets). I love how much diversity there is and that everyone can find something they want to read. Really enjoying the discussion on this thread from people who do know quite a bit about the genre, I'm learning a lot.
posted by ngaiotonga at 2:54 AM on March 12
Yeah okay I'll watch that.
I'm not really the target audience for... romance novels at all (The Courtship of Princess Leia is great but that's about my limit) but I still knew there's romance novels in pretty much any setting people have ever existed in ever and a few that they haven't (like the outer planets). I love how much diversity there is and that everyone can find something they want to read. Really enjoying the discussion on this thread from people who do know quite a bit about the genre, I'm learning a lot.
posted by ngaiotonga at 2:54 AM on March 12
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Lemkin, I found Fenwick's writing a little muddled. What did you find particularly noteworthy in her analysis? I think there's something interesting in the question of whether the genre conventions of romance necessarily undergird a message that a loving and supportive partner is a necessity for a woman succeeding in a nontraditional career, but if so, that's likely applicable to a lot of these kinds of romances beyond Hazelwood's.
posted by brainwane at 10:12 PM on March 9 [5 favorites]