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Not sure if you guys were aware of it, but PW recently released a list of what they consider to be the best books of 2009 and not a single one was written by a woman. Now I could have a few choice words about that, but Lizzie Skurnick at Politics Daily wrote such a great reply that I think I'm just going to steal her words:
"I got a glimmer of an answer last year as I sat in a board room hashing out the winners for one of the awards for which I am a judge. Our short list was pretty much split evenly along gender lines. But as we went through each category, a pattern emerged. Some books, it seemed, were "ambitious." Others were well-wrought, but somehow . . . "small." "Domestic." "Unam --" what's the word? "-- bititous."
...
But, incredulous, again and again, I watched as we pushed aside works that everyone acknowledged were more finely wrought, were, in fact, competently wrought, for books that had shot high but fallen short. And every time the book that won was a man's.
...
The conservatives are right: affirmative action is huge blemish on the face of our nation. And until we stop giving awards to men who don't deserve them over women who do, we're sunk. Because our default is to somehow feel like Philip Roth's output is impressive while Joyce Carol Oates' is a punchline. Our default is to call John Updike a genius on the basis of four very wonderful books and many truly weird ones, while Margaret Atwood, with the same track record, is simply beloved. Our default is to title Ayelet Waldman's book, "Bad Mother," while her husband's is "Manhood for Amateurs." Our default is that women are small, men are universal. Well, I know men get sensitive if you call them small. But gentlemen, sometimes you are."
Read her full response here.
Personally I am of the opinion that there still is a gender bias in publishing. I'm not the only one. Since I wrote it myself, I am going to quote myself and my sources from my blog:
This disparity between the genders seems to exist in every genre. Agent Kristin Nelson wrote in her blog post entitled Dad Wisdom & Publishing:
"From my personal experience (and I really can only speak from that perspective), I truly believe that for literary fiction, it’s much easier to sell boy writers than gals. I know. Who can possibly make such a general statement but I have to say that I’ve encountered several worthy manuscripts that I’m rather convinced that if the writer had been male, the novel would have sold."
She also wrote another very interesting blog entry about the genders entitled PW Survey Says about the differences between genders within the publishing industry itself (an industry, one will note, that is heavily female).
So I am one of those people who will look at a list of top 10 books without a single female on it and get suspicious. I am also the sort of person, who while waiting in the queue at the bookstore will pick up one of those impulse buy novelty books entitled "100 Books Men Must Read" and flip to the index where it is revealed but ONE female author is worthy of their attention.
And then I see comments like for the post of Ms. Skurnick's article that say that for women "to pretend they write as well as men is absurd" and I just have to go take a breath of fresh air.
So what do you guys see? Do we see this gender divide? More importantly, what can we do about it? Personally as a female author my goal is to simply be an "author" not anything attributed to my gender. But I have to say, it kind of makes me sad that I am seriously contemplating changing my name to either a male pseudonym or initials should my next work ever sell - just so that it isn't utterly distasteful to male readers (and especially as it is centred around a male protagonist and deals heavily with themes such as the father/son dynamic).
Thoughts?
"I got a glimmer of an answer last year as I sat in a board room hashing out the winners for one of the awards for which I am a judge. Our short list was pretty much split evenly along gender lines. But as we went through each category, a pattern emerged. Some books, it seemed, were "ambitious." Others were well-wrought, but somehow . . . "small." "Domestic." "Unam --" what's the word? "-- bititous."
...
But, incredulous, again and again, I watched as we pushed aside works that everyone acknowledged were more finely wrought, were, in fact, competently wrought, for books that had shot high but fallen short. And every time the book that won was a man's.
...
The conservatives are right: affirmative action is huge blemish on the face of our nation. And until we stop giving awards to men who don't deserve them over women who do, we're sunk. Because our default is to somehow feel like Philip Roth's output is impressive while Joyce Carol Oates' is a punchline. Our default is to call John Updike a genius on the basis of four very wonderful books and many truly weird ones, while Margaret Atwood, with the same track record, is simply beloved. Our default is to title Ayelet Waldman's book, "Bad Mother," while her husband's is "Manhood for Amateurs." Our default is that women are small, men are universal. Well, I know men get sensitive if you call them small. But gentlemen, sometimes you are."
Read her full response here.
Personally I am of the opinion that there still is a gender bias in publishing. I'm not the only one. Since I wrote it myself, I am going to quote myself and my sources from my blog:
This disparity between the genders seems to exist in every genre. Agent Kristin Nelson wrote in her blog post entitled Dad Wisdom & Publishing:
"From my personal experience (and I really can only speak from that perspective), I truly believe that for literary fiction, it’s much easier to sell boy writers than gals. I know. Who can possibly make such a general statement but I have to say that I’ve encountered several worthy manuscripts that I’m rather convinced that if the writer had been male, the novel would have sold."
She also wrote another very interesting blog entry about the genders entitled PW Survey Says about the differences between genders within the publishing industry itself (an industry, one will note, that is heavily female).
So I am one of those people who will look at a list of top 10 books without a single female on it and get suspicious. I am also the sort of person, who while waiting in the queue at the bookstore will pick up one of those impulse buy novelty books entitled "100 Books Men Must Read" and flip to the index where it is revealed but ONE female author is worthy of their attention.
And then I see comments like for the post of Ms. Skurnick's article that say that for women "to pretend they write as well as men is absurd" and I just have to go take a breath of fresh air.
So what do you guys see? Do we see this gender divide? More importantly, what can we do about it? Personally as a female author my goal is to simply be an "author" not anything attributed to my gender. But I have to say, it kind of makes me sad that I am seriously contemplating changing my name to either a male pseudonym or initials should my next work ever sell - just so that it isn't utterly distasteful to male readers (and especially as it is centred around a male protagonist and deals heavily with themes such as the father/son dynamic).
Thoughts?
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But it's not a girly story at all. I don't like incredibly macho stories and understand men not liking incredibly girly stories... but note 'incredibly'. It's flat-out wrong for PW to think male stories are the only ones that can be good.
