I was reading DAJane’s review of Alpha Instinct, Katie Reus debut, and got increasingly annoyed as I read on.

(Please note I’m not talking about the novel, as I’ve not read it)

Jane uses ALL CAPS to note that the females in the story cannot provide for themselves.

Just a few lines later, she reiterates, “They can’t even financially support themselves, you guys.”

Keeping to the pattern, the review last line is,  “the depiction of these poor little she wolves who couldn’t even financially care for themselves was depressing.”

But the last straw was the very first comment. LG says, in part,

I wonder what these ladies do when they have males around. Just have sex, look pretty, and bear children? They certainly can’t be working, if they can’t even provide for themselves financially.

Seriously?

So, women like me, who make just a few cents more than the minimum wage and work over forty hours a week, yet still barely scrape together enough money to pay our bills, we are…what?

A myth? non-people? don’t exist?

Or it’s simply that we are even weaker than the female characters in the story in question?

Yeah, this hits way too close to home, so you may want to skip it.

Look, haven’t we often complained how the heroes in many a romance have to be financially successful to be considered heroic?

Haven’t we asked for more realistic characterization? (aka, “How many English Dukes can you fit at Almacks?”)

Then why in the fuck would women struggling financially be automatically weak?