I recently attended a fascinating panel discussion at the
MIT Communications Forum, on the representation of women in politics in popular culture. One of the speakers, Ellen Emerson White, noted that 1984 book
The President's Daughter, was one of the first to feature a woman in the role of U. S. Commander in Chief. She also noted that since that book's publication in 1984, other authors featured women presidents, but that most often those women had come to political power not by running for office, but as a result of the death of a spouse, death of the elected president, or some other catastrophic situation.
The Atlantic notes the same trend in television depictions: while there have been six American TV shows to feature female presidents, all have either been VPs who got the job after the death of a President, or women who gained the role largely by dint of being part of a political family dynasty.
During the discussion that followed, an audience member made the offhand comment that popular culture tends to lead, rather than simply mirror reality, hence it has far more female presidents than the actual United States has. This statement didn't strike me as entirely true, not only because of the caveats White and
The Atlantic note regarding presidential depictions, but because I've read so much lit crit on romance that points out the conservative, rather than the progressive, aspects of the genre.
But recently I read two different hetero romances with mother as president subplots. And this week, a lesbian romance with a Formula One race car driver protagonist, breaking new records for her sex. And it made me wonder—have I been selling romance too short? I've seen many a romance novel that encourages women to think of romance and family before career, but have I overlooked ones that depict women doing more, professionally, than they have in real life?
What other romances have you read that depict women breaking professional glass ceilings?
