Sexist? Mills & Boon novels are feminist, says academic

THEY have been accused of being lightweight, belittling women and resorting to stereotypes.

But now a literary expert has claimed that Mills and Boon romance novels are, in fact, great works of feminism.

Val Derbyshire, of Sheffield University, claimed they ‘have literary value’ and ‘foreground the female’ in their stories – but have been shunned because of snobbery.

She said: ‘They are definitely not anti-feminist.

‘These are novels written primarily by women, for women – why would they set out to insult their target audience? It doesn’t make any sense.

‘There is a huge amount of snobbery. It exists not just in academia and literature circles but generally. Some people do not feel comfortable sitting on a bus reading a Mills and Boon and that is a shame. If you have never read one, how can you know?’

About 120 Mills and Boon novels are published each month along similar romantic themes.

The doctoral researcher, who is studying 18th-century poet and novelist Charlotte Turner Smith, told The Guardian: ‘It is such a shame that they have been so vilified, and that people treat them as trash and the black sheep of the literary family. There really is literary value in them, which is why I continue to read them.’