Relatable Yet Romantically Dependent–How Contemporary Female Protagonists Still Pine for Mr. Right
By Taylor Donovan (2025)
Should the contemporary woman embrace singleness or pioneer the hunt for true love? This report will analyze the works of three different authors spanning the 20th and 21st centuries within the comedic romance subgenre: Erica Jong, a bestseller in the 1970s due to her novel Fear of Flying, Helen Fielding, who contributed to the chick lit genre of the 1990s with her book to screen Bridget Jones series, and Sophie Kinsella, who has written chick lit and romance novels well into the 2020s but is primarily known for her Confessions of a Shopaholic series. Upon analyzing a number of primary sources involving the written works of these three female authors, it is apparent that although these authors portray the contemporary woman as relatable, flawed, and empowered, their female characters ultimately give in to patriarchal standards when navigating the romantic world. In terms of how these three authors portray femininity, their female characters draw praise from readers for being sex positive and imperfect, but they ultimately overshadow their escapades with their desire to find true love. Various book reviews, interviews, and studies support that these authors have created an accessible definition of femininity to readers but ultimately may succumb to the criticism they face for their portrayals of female liberation within their novels.
All three female authors prioritized writing a sexually liberated heroine within their novels. In an interview, Erica Jong mentions that she did not initially mean to publish her novel Fear of Flying: “I always told myself it would never be published…It was for my desk drawer, for myself when I was 80.”[1] She later reflects on the irony of this intent, saying, “I think it’s so funny when people ask if it was a calculated best-seller.”[2] According to the same interviewer, “Jong describes (explicitly and in intimate detail) the sexual exploits of her heroine, including a good many scatalogical references.”[3] Jong made her novel incredibly personal and private–she loosely based her heroine, Isadora, on herself[4]–and yet, Jong identified a gap that existed within romance literature at the time and sought to fill that gap.
In 2013, to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Fear of Flying, Jong reflected on the existing literature of the time and how she sought to write something different. First, she notes the changing political climate at the time her novel was published: “Primitivism was the rage. So was magic. So was feminism. So were sex, open marriage, ethnic equality.”[5] Although Jong found the culture surrounding her exciting, the books she read did not align with the fads of the time. To contrast with the “victimized heroine”[6] portrayed by various male authors of the time, Jong wanted to write “a woman who loved men but craved independence, a woman who was both a mind and a body, who didn’t give up her goals for marriage and then bitterly resent her husband.”[7] Thus, Jong sought to publish her private novel in order to show women that love and freedom did not have to be mutually exclusive. Seeking publication for this novel proved challenging: Jong mentions the prudish industry and her struggle to advertise her work.[8] But Jong did not give up on this search because she “believed [women] could do both: love and be intellectually free,”[9] and she wanted to exemplify that within her writing. Once she published her novel, she immediately found success: by its 40th anniversary, the book had sold 27 million copies in over 40 different languages.[10] Jong’s novel became infamous for its idea of the “zipless f–ck,” which Jong defined as “totally detached sex with a stranger”[11] in a 1978 interview. Jong describes the concept as a fantasy that lacked representation in pre-existing literature: “‘I wrote those sections about the zipless f— because I wanted to chronicle a female fantasy I had never seen described in any other book.’”[12] Jong noted that many other women besides herself share that fantasy and deserve to be represented: “‘I think women have a right to fantasies and to writing books in which we chronicle our fantasies–just as men have always done.’”[13] In this interview, Jong clarifies that she writes about fantasies other women may have so that they are able to see their fantasies represented in the media they consume. Although Jong felt terrified to bring such a private book to a public-facing audience and received much backlash because of this, she ultimately succeeded in bringing various female erotic fantasies to life within her writing, which is reflected in the immediate and widespread success of her first novel.
Jong’s comfortability in representing female fantasies extends beyond her work in the romance industry; before Jong became a novelist, she was a poet. In fact, she describes herself as “a poet who fell into the bad habit of writing novels.”[14] An interviewer uses an analogy to describe her impression of Jong, writing, “There was always one girl in high school or college who kind of orchestrated the sex talks…She loved to lead the endless rounds of risque speculation in the middle of the night, behind locked doors, smoking illegal cigarettes, about what it would really be like.”[15] The interviewer clarifies that this girl was not necessarily more experienced than other girls her age, rather, she simply felt comfortable conversing about sex: “And it wasn’t really that she knew that much more, or was, or would be better at it than anyone else. She just talked about it.”[16] In the interviewer’s eyes, “That is the way Erica Jong strikes you. Only now she writes about it.”[17] Jong exhibits this openness throughout all of her work: her poetry book Loveroot (1975)depicts a woman in the “zoo-prison of marriage” whose husband sleeps through her “noisy nights of poetry.” She writes of menstruation, orgasms, conception, pregnancy, and the “blockage” that can only be cured by love.[18] Throughout her work, Jong is consistently willing to be vulnerable, as seen in her candid explorations of topics such as desire, marriage, and the female body. Both her poetry and prose reflect the same transparency that interviewers have noted in her personality, ultimately bringing private female experiences into public conversation.
Numerous book reviews of Fielding’s iconic heroine, Bridget Jones, praise the character for her high degree of sexual freedom. In June 1999’s edition of Cosmopolitan Magazine, a Bridget Jones book review is titled “Why Single Girls Have More Fun: The author of Bridget Jones’s Diary hypes the benefits of being an unmarried babe.”[19] The author writes, “Slow down. The fact is, marriage may be great, but your premarriage days can be the best of your life. When else can you sleep with whomever you want, however you want, and only when you want without having to answer to anyone?”[20] Throughout the article, the author makes it clear that for women, singleness may feel crippling but is actually freeing. She disapproves of Jones’s obsessive man-tracking diary throughout the novel and mentions that “a single girl owes it to herself to have a good time while it lasts.”[21] According to this book review, Fielding has taught some of her readers that singleness is not necessarily a bad thing, rather, it gives one the freedom to explore their sexual desires without anything holding them back. Jong’s concept of the “zipless f—”[22] is a fantasy that many women still grapple with 20 years later, as this 1999 Cosmopolitan issue illustrates by using Jones’s sexual promiscuity as an example for single women everywhere.
Book reviewers have used Jones’s sexual escapades as examples for how to enjoy singleness, but Fielding’s character has many other qualities that her readers find relatable. A 1998 New York Times book review of Bridget Jones’s Diary reads, “Her name, Bridget Jones, has become shorthand for the compulsive conduct of young women braving continually collapsing bridges to self-improvement yet trying to maintain an amused perspective on that fraught space between bounding hope and tumbling defeat.”[23] According to Hoge, Jones became popular among British and American women because she struggles to reach the perfect balance when it comes to her femininity. Another book review supports this idea when describing Jones’s character portrayal: “Bridget works in publishing, has a ton of friends and looks like dynamite in a micro-miniskirt.”[24] Despite Jones’s strengths, the reviewer notes, “she is in a constant state of regretful and amusing panic over her weight, her slovenly ways and her lack of a man.”[25] The review then quotes Jones’s journal entry, where she resolves to “‘not sulk about having no boyfriend, but develop inner poise and authority and sense of self as woman of substance, complete without boyfriend, as best way to obtain boyfriend.’”[26] Readers recognize that Bridget Jones is an empowered woman in many aspects of her life–she’s attractive, sexually liberated, well-liked, and successful within her career. But where she succeeds, she also faces extreme insecurity. She struggles with her weight, obsessively tracks the encounters she has with men, craves validation, and devotes most of her time with her female friends raging about how men are “emotional f*ckwits.”[27] Just as Jong laughs when asked if her first novel was a “calculated bestseller,”[28] Fielding was initially shocked that readers embraced a protagonist like Jones. She says in an interview, “I was really, really surprised at all the women who wrote in saying they identified with Bridget because a lot of her thoughts are very paranoid, and when you realize that so many women have the same thoughts, it’s massively reassuring but at the same time alarming.”[29] By writing a character who was paranoid, imperfect, and insecure, Fielding helped many readers see parts of themselves within her novels. Just as Jong gave a voice to women’s fantasies, Fielding was vulnerable about women’s insecurities surrounding femininity.
Sophie Kinsella’s novels also emphasized how women can be feminine and desirable while simultaneously having flaws and insecurities. Kinsella’s protagonist in her popular Confessions of a Shopaholic series epitomizes this idea of contradictory and complex female characters: Becky Bloomwood is a financial journalist who is terrible with her own money.[30] Decca Aitkenhead from The Guardian specifically questioned why highly educated women such as Kinsella–Oxford graduate and former financial journalist–write chick lit, specifically novels where the female heroine’s thoughts don’t go far beyond “fashionable handbags and romantic fantasies.”[31] Kinsella defends these character choices by explaining that “You can be highly intelligent, and also ditzy and klutzy.”[32] Kinsella believes she’s portraying a realistic woman: “You can be unable to cook, you can like lipstick. And I think it’s more realistic to represent women having all these facets…To have someone who never makes a mistake, never finds her personal life in disarray, never worries about work-life balance? I think that would be unreal.”[33] In her view, “What I’m writing is real.”[34] Clearly, Kinsella recognizes that there is no such thing as the perfect woman and that her readers don’t relate to that ideal. Although readers such as Aitkenhead may believe that the chick lit genre portrays women as airheads, Kinsella defends her characters as real, genuine, relatable women. In fact, a 2022 research study that analyzed how Kinsella’s linguistic choices communicate her general worldview argues that her female characters show confidence and empowerment despite their flaws. The researchers note that Kinsella’s female characters constantly spout profanities. Although some may interpret this crude language as another flaw within Kinsella’s female characters, the researchers conclude that Kinsella makes her protagonists comfortable with vulgarity because it gives her characters the right to be heard. The researchers observe, “She does not portray them as airy and pretty dolls who always look stunning and behave in an exceptionally cultured and mannered way. This embodies a new era of post-feminism in the writing field.”[35] Kinsella herself is a multifaceted woman; her personal website boasts her prolific writing career and features pictures and videos of Kinsella attending glamorous press photoshoots alongside videos updating fans on her difficult battle with brain cancer.[36] Her website and her personal journey reflect her female characters: to Kinsella, women aren’t real without struggles and flaws. So, although critics such as Aitkenhead believe that chick lit lacks intellectual substance, chick lit authors Fielding and Kinsella write their characters with intent so that real women can relate to them.
All three authors craft the way they portray their female characters with great care, however, societal conventions often constrict the outcomes or desires of these female characters and their respective authors. Kinsella, for one, fails to convince her interviewer of the credibility of feminism within the chick lit genre. The interviewer criticizes Kinsella’s plotline: “Bloomwood saves the personal shopping department she now works for by helping wives to deceive their husbands, and conceal how much they’re spending on clothes–confirming every cliche men like to level at women…her version of femininity excludes an awful lot of the women I know.”[37] This raises the question: how do those who do not relate to tropes in chick lit novels perceive the genre? The same issue arises in critics’ reviews of Bridget Jones. Although her constant obsession with her weight, her appearance, and the men she’s slept with may be relatable to her audience, she ultimately operates the way she does in accordance with the male gaze: “…for Bridget and her crowd, despite all the feminist cheerleading of the past 20 years, society still puts out the message that you are nothing without a man and until you get one, it should be your primary focus. Bridget may lament this, but she still succumbs to it.”[38] To Timson, Fielding reverses any feminist advances her character may make because her ultimate goal is to find her perfect man. Sometimes, these societal standards bleed into how an author perceives her own work. Jong admits that despite being a feminist herself, she ultimately writes for the traditional woman: “Our society is patriarchal. Women are in conflict. They long to be free, but they are not yet fully free. Their heads are in the twenty-first century, but their hearts are in the nineteenth century. This is the world that I perceive–and so I set it down with all its contradictions.”[39] Clearly, these three female authors attempt to break molds through their writing, but each author portrays heroines who ultimately make choices that align with traditional romantic expectations. This suggests that societal norms continue to shape how female protagonists are written, even in narratives that explore female empowerment. Although the contemporary woman in each of these novelist’s works may find liberation through her flaws, she ultimately conforms to society’s expectations.
Jong is feminist in that she has no shame in fulfilling a woman’s fantasies through her writing. She identified a gap in literature and filled that gap, but she was surprised that her work landed and recognizes that despite the liberation her characters may feel, she writes to appeal to women and the outdated standards they follow. Contrastingly, Fielding and Kinsella write female protagonists who are empowered, successful, and appealing yet fundamentally ditzy and flawed. Flaws and all, these characters crave male attention and companionship, and although they may criticize how men operate within the dating world, their ultimate goal is to find a man who chooses them. Authors have turned this ditzy, klutzy character into a trope within chick lit novels, and critics fail to recognize how such airheaded characters can also be multifaceted. This poses a difficult question: as authors continue to write about the nuances of the contemporary woman, will their characters develop beyond the male gaze?
End Notes
[1] Sally Quinn, “Erica Jong: Learning to Cope with Her ‘Fear of Flying’: Erica Jong: Coping with ‘Fear,’” The Washington Post, January 12, 1975, https://login.proxy.lib.duke.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/erica-jong-learning-cope-with-her-fear-flying/docview/146233761/se-2.
[2] Quinn, “Erica Jong: Learning to Cope.”
[3] Quinn, “Erica Jong: Learning to Cope.”
[4] Quinn, “Erica Jong: Learning to Cope.”
[5] Erica Jong, “Unzipped,” The New York Times Book Review, October 6, 2013, 17(L), Gale Literature Resource Center (accessed April 7, 2025), https://link-gale-com.proxy.lib.duke.edu/apps/doc/A344847498/LitRC?u=duke_perkins&sid=bookmark-LitRC&xid=de9ea6ca.
[6] Jong, “Unzipped.”
[7] Jong, “Unzipped.”
[8] Jong, “Unzipped.”
[9] Jong, “Unzipped.”
[10] Jong, “Unzipped.”
[11] Erica Jong, “Erica Jong on Erica Jong,” Cosmopolitan, May 1978, 258–262, https://login.proxy.lib.duke.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/erica-jong-on/docview/1826452453/se-2.
[12] Jong, “Erica Jong on Erica Jong.”
[13] Jong, “Erica Jong on Erica Jong.”
[14] Jong, “Unzipped.”
[15] Quinn, “Erica Jong: Learning to Cope.”
[16] Quinn, “Erica Jong: Learning to Cope.”
[17] Quinn, “Erica Jong: Learning to Cope.”
[18] Erica Jong, Loveroot (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1975).
[19] R.K. Barrett, “Why Single Girls Have More Fun,” Cosmopolitan, June 1999, https://login.proxy.lib.duke.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/why-single-girls-have-more-fun/docview/2029554351/se-2.
[20] Barrett, “Why Single Girls.”
[21] Barrett, “Why Single Girls.”
[22] Jong, “Erica Jong on Erica Jong.”
[23] Warren Hoge, “Bridget Jones? She’s Any (Single) Woman, Anywhere,” New York Times, February 17, 1998, https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/books/021798britain-bridget.html.
[24] Judith Timson, “The Single Life: Lone Women Are Living it Up. So Why Do Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones Still Pine for Mr. Right?” Chatelaine, November 1998, 36, https://login.proxy.lib.duke.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/single-life/docview/1715595166/se-2.
[25] Timson, “The Single Life.”
[26] Timson, “The Single Life.”
[27] Timson, “The Single Life.”
[28] Quinn, “Erica Jong: Learning to Cope.”
[29] Hoge, “Bridget Jones?”
[30] Confessions of a Shopaholic, directed by P.J. Hogan (Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2009), DVD and Blu-Ray Disc.
[31] Decca Aitkenhead, “Sophie Kinsella: ‘You Can Be Highly Intelligent – and Also Ditzy and Klutzy,’” The Guardian, November 25, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/feb/12/sophie-kinsella-highly-intelligent-ditzy-klutzy.
[32] Aitkenhead, “Sophie Kinsella.”
[33] Aitkenhead, “Sophie Kinsella.”
[34] Aitkenhead, “Sophie Kinsella.”
[35] D.E. Tsymbulova and N.A. Kurakina, “The Manifestation of Sophie Kinsella’s Conceptual Profile in the Post-Feminine Era,” Directory of Open Access Journals, June 1, 2022, https://doi.org/10.18454/rulb.2022.30.28.
[36] Sophie Kinsella, “About Sophie – Sophie Kinsella,” Penguin Random House, April 8, 2021, https://www.sophiekinsella.co.uk/aboutsophie/.
[37] Aitkenhead, “Sophie Kinsella.”
[38] Timson, “The Single Life.”
[39] Jong, “Erica Jong on Erica Jong.”
Bibliography
Aitkenhead, Decca. “Sophie Kinsella: ‘You Can Be Highly Intelligent – and Also Ditzy and Klutzy.’” The Guardian, November 25, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/feb/12/sophie-kinsella-highly-intelligent-ditzy-klutzy.
Barrett, R.K. “Why Single Girls have More Fun.” Cosmopolitan, June 1999. https://login.proxy.lib.duke.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/why-single-girls-have-more-fun/docview/2029554351/se-2.
Dick, Penny. “Bridget Jones’s Diary.” Personnel Psychology 52, no. 2 (Summer, 1999): 485-488. https://login.proxy.lib.duke.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/bridget-joness-diary/docview/220146337/se-2.
Hogan, P.J., dir. Confessions of a Shopaholic. 2009; Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, 2009. DVD and Blu-Ray Disc.
Hoge, Warren. “Bridget Jones? She’s Any (Single) Woman, Anywhere,” New York Times, February 17, 1998. https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/books/021798britain-bridget.html.
Jong, Erica. “Erica Jong on Erica Jong.” Cosmopolitan, 05, 1978, 258-262, https://login.proxy.lib.duke.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/erica-jong-on/docview/1826452453/se-2.
Jong, Erica. Loveroot. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1975.
Jong, Erica. “Unzipped.” The New York Times Book Review, October 6, 2013. 17(L). Gale Literature Resource Center (accessed April 7, 2025). https://link-gale-com.proxy.lib.duke.edu/apps/doc/A344847498/LitRC?u=duke_perkins&sid=bookmark-LitRC&xid=de9ea6ca.
Kinsella, Sophie. “About Sophie – Sophie Kinsella.” Penguin Random House, April 8, 2021. https://www.sophiekinsella.co.uk/aboutsophie/.
Quinn, Sally. “Erica Jong: Learning to Cope with Her ‘Fear of Flying’: Erica Jong: Coping with ‘Fear.'” The Washington Post (1974-), January 12, 1975. https://login.proxy.lib.duke.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/erica-jong-learning-cope-with-her-fear-flying/docview/146233761/se-2.
Timson, Judith. “The Single Life: Lone Women are Living it Up. so Why do Ally McBeal and Bridget Jones Still Pine for Mr. Right?” Chatelaine, 11, 1998, 36, https://login.proxy.lib.duke.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/magazines/single-life/docview/1715595166/se-2.
Tsymbulova, D.E. and Kurakina, N.A. “The Manifestation of Sophie Kinsella’s Conceptual Profile in the Post-Feminine Era.” Directory of Open Access Journals, June 1, 2022. https://doi.org/10.18454/rulb.2022.30.28.
