Navigating inconvenient truths as a feminist: An analysis of Mills and Boon

What happens when science doesn’t meet your worldview?

It’s a long-running joke in my social circle that we will all meet handsome millionaires, marry well and have an easy life where our biggest stressor is whether to sit Einaudi next to Lin Manuel Miranda at a dinner party. Of course, we don’t actually want that. Do we?

I’m one of those awful, awful women who will actually answer that question. At length. With a lengthy analysis of sex selection and human behaviour. And colourful anecdotes. And theory (Dunbar:2010) (Harari: 2007,2014). I’m about as impartial on this topic as Steve Bannon discussing the Clinton Foundation, so please click away if you hate rhetoric. I warned you.

Anyway. Can I be a feminist and admit that most evidence suggests that women would actually quite like a very wealthy, handsome boyfriend?

Oh great, give me the penniless record salesman and let me dream of Gable

Let me start this essay with a short, interesting story. A hundred years ago, almost to the day, two British publishers hit a goldmine of an idea. Of course, women had a sexual appetite as much as the blokes buying the…