How Bridget Jones's Diary Explores Societal Expectations of Women through Romance

Ah the romance! Always a classic, the romance novel has a long tradition of telling stories about love and relationships. But as any woman can tell you, the idea that female characters are dependent upon men to have a place in the narrative (whether fictional or historical) is wrong. Here's the thing: the genre traces its roots back to the early days of the novel, sometime around the 18th century, when women in society had absolutely no legal status apart from their connection to husbands and fathers. So the fact that these tales are all about loving relationships that end in marriage means that people were aware of the fact that women were expected to marry, but were increasingly intrigued by the idea of marrying for love rather than necessity. Jane Austen, Helen Fielding's inspiration, wrote many such novels.
Yet in the mid-'90s, when the columns were first being published, things were very different from the Gregorian days of yore. Feminist movements had been on the rise for at least a decade, and it was clear that marriage was no longer necessary for a woman to have any kind of status and success. And yet, the romance format has changed very little, even today. Somehow, society continues to place heavy expectations on women, especially women in the work place.
We expect that women should want to be wives and mothers, and yet we scorn the ones who dare to balance a job with a family. (I must interject here to say that the last two decades have done marvelous things for changing society's understanding of the woman's role, but these ridiculous standards have certainly not disappeared.) We exclaim that we do not need men to complete us, but we still feel like there is something wrong when we can't get a boyfriend. Well, not everyone, and not always. But the point is that certain expectations are still placed on women in Western society. And this book parodies that.
This is chick lit. Bridget Jones's Diary cleverly uses humour to question why women are held to certain standards of beauty and expectations concerning age, relationships, and careers. Bridget documents her attempts to lose weight, although she frequently caves and we see the numbers fluctuate as she changes her mind about whether she should have to lose weight for the sake of attracting a partner. She rants about the fact that her mother and relatives think she is too old to not be settling down, and her old-fashioned family and friends feel that she only makes her career her top priority because she is masking her disappointment with being single.
The romance genre gets flipped on its head because of this. The dreamy boss that she dates turns out to be a cheating jerk who clearly wants sex more than a relationship. He's a player who only admits his problem once he has done too much damage and burned all his bridges. The real love interest sees her at her worst, but learns to love her anyways. One might say that the romance genre reaches its limit here, because Helen Fielding doesn't leave Bridget in a state of contented singleness, feeling like she has grown into a more mature, strong, and independent woman. As romances so often end with a happy couple, this novel does too. No, they are not married. In fact they have only just started dating by the end of the book, and it is made clear that the relationship may not lead to marriage, but for now Bridget is happy. Why can't she be happy without a man? Because, after all, it is a romance story. The satire is well used, but the expectations are still somehow fulfilled. Then again, maybe that's the point because, no matter how far things had come by 1996, that expectation really was still there and Fielding wanted us to be aware of that.