Why Can't The Women Be Billionaires Too?

You know, we constantly harp on about romance being all about fantasies etc, but somehow, when it comes to giving the heroines we read about, brilliant, exciting jobs/careers, a lot of romance authors seem to take a backward step.

If I read about one more heroine who works in a flower shop or is a struggling P.A, I'll gnaw my own arm off.

Every other HP (that would be Harlequin Presents, not Harry Potter) that I look at has the word 'billionaire' in the title somewhere, and they're usually referring to the bloke.

Why can't the billionaire in the title be the heroine? Now wouldn't that be a novel idea?

I sometimes get irritated by the way some authors use particular jobs to stereo-type the heroine. Case in point, how many librarians have you come across in romance books that have fun exciting lives, go out with their friends, and party like it's 1999? Not very effing many.

Most of the librarians that I've come across in books, have either, never had sex, or perhaps had bad sex in the back of a car with some bloke named Bobby Joe, ten million years ago, so decided that sex wasn't for them. Or else they go home to their cats, and the highlight of their night is when they have to water their Chrysanthemums.

Every now and then, you get the heroine who's an accountant, or a lawyer, but more often than not, as with librarians, this just seems to be a way for the author to demonstrate how dull, boring, and over-worked she is.

Case in point, the heroine in Cindy Kirk's When She Was Bad.

The heroine, Jenny Carman, hasn't had sex in six years because she was too busy working her way up the ladder as an accountant in a big firm. (Does this mean that accountants don't have sex?). When she doesn't get the job that she's coveted for ages, she decides to ditch her goody-two-shoes image, and act like the bad girl, slut-ho she secretly wants to be.

Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying the book, but I do find myself getting irritated by the implication that you can't be an accountant and lead an exciting life.

Why can't heroines have great jobs too? If we're going all out on the fantasy angle, would it be asking too much to give the heroine a half interesting career, without turning her into an uptight mare, who thinks that sex was invented just to stop her from achieving her goals?

Just once, I'd love to read about a heroine who was the billionairess, without the money being inherited from her wealthy daddy. I know that in real life, it's not that common an occurrence, but it does happen every now and then.

I'd also like to read about a heroine who's the president of a company, rather than the personal assistant.

I'd like to see more books with the heroine as a soldier. I've mostly given up reading s.e.a.l/military based romantic suspense books, but I'd probably give them another go, if it was the heroine who was the soldier, not the guy.

Do you ever wish that women in romance books, were on more of an equal footing to the guys, with regards tro their financial status? Also, what jobs would you like to see heroines in romance books given?