AWP and SXSW have come and gone (or maybe FXFU for the antiestablishment types). The expense reports have been turned in, the hangovers have passed but the headaches remain. I am speaking of course about the ongoing underrepresentation of women writers. I first covered the blog-war between Teddy Wayne and Jennifer Weiner on my own blog back in January. Since then Wayne seems to have backed down (presumably because the evidence is not on his side) but Weiner is keeping up the good fight with her most recent blog post wherein she gives a nod to 2011 count. At the onset of the discussion between her and Wayne the 2010 numbers were all we had to go by to point out the disparity between men and women writers. Unfortunately for us all, the 2011 numbers indicate basically no change. There is no need to continue to proselytize on the subject; I think it is fair to say that Wayne’s silence says a great deal. Let’s not see the following as another cudgel to the horse corpse but rather the purging of cobwebs from yet another dank corner of the room.

For those not familiar with the Wayne/Weiner story, a brief synopsis: Weiner pointed out that the New York Times doesn’t review very many women writers (a point which VIDA can reaffirm). Wayne says this is okay because women get better placement in non-print places such as book clubs and book store shelves. I laughed…and then cried a little and then proved Wayne wrong by going to the very chain store he called out and counted the most prominently placed books. Tada! Men win again.

Of course, there are always caveats. I counted the local B&N in Staten Island, a borough of NYC that is, well, not necessarily known as a particularly literary place.

(Think wild turkeys and of course GTL)

So I went to the “real” New York for some hopefully better news.

St. Mark’s Bookshop in the Cooper Square area of the Lower East Side was opened in 1977 and has played match maker to numerous writers’ friendships and collaborations from Susan Sontag and Annie Liebovitz to Allen Ginsburg and William Burroughs. Like so many other legends of the NYC’s literary era, St. Mark’s had fallen victim to the rising rents accompanying the gentrification of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Petitions and fundraisers have since put St. Mark’s on more stable ground much to the neighborhood’s and the city’s benefit.

At the Staten Island Barnes and Noble I counted the shelves on the first floor which had the books shelved with all their covers facing the customers as opposed to the spines. The most comparable representation at the considerably smaller St. Marks’s was the windows. One would expect a place with such a storied background to and such a debt to so many members of the community to have a fairly forward thinking presentation of writers. I expected as much. Unfortunately, the numbers below indicate that is not the case. As with all things VIDA, this is not meant to be confrontational; merely it is a reminder of the work yet to be done and that even in our favorite places the gender representations are not equal. Despite being a VIDA insider, I have not been perfect in my own literary endeavors to provide equal representation which goes to show that almost everyone has room for improvement. Danielle Pafunda did an excellent job of dispelling the myth that submissions numbers have anything to do with the disparities in published work and that logic applies even more so here. Certainly there are enough books at St. Mark’s to have at least half the window space go to women. 

Whenever VIDA publishes a Count, or shares its pie charts, readers observe that men and women submit to magazines, journals, and publishing houses at different rates, and that this might inform the gender ratios we observe. While it makes sense to wonder about what’s going on behind the scenes, I’d like to offer a few notes on why submissions numbers don’t actually hold the answers we’re all looking for.

 

1. Some editors seem quite pleased when the ratio of women to men published turns out to reflect the gender stats in their submission pool. Why? In these numbers conversations, we often cite the importance of editorial free reign. We aren’t interested in quotas or outside review boards, and we haven’t gotten on the peer review bandwagon with our academic counterparts, so why would we want editors want to bind themselves so tightly to the demographics of their submissions piles? This suggests that an editor is a fairly passive machine, an inbox that receives and selects writing, but doesn’t actively seek out good writing.

I’m an editor myself, and I know we’re anything but passive. I’ve worked with a lot of literary journals over the past decade, large outfits and small indies, poetry publications and mixed genre mags. I’ve never worked for one that published solely from the slush pile. Some publications have staff writers, and all publications solicit. Of course, solicitations have their own numbers trouble. Editors anecdotally note that men are more likely than women to respond to solicitations, and some say this ties their hands with regard to the publication ratios. Here’s an easy fix for that pickle: we editors might increase the number of women we solicit. For every ten men, solicit twenty women, and we’d find our books balancing. Historically, an editor’s job has been to actively engage writers, to search out the new, bring the under-acknowledged into the light, remind us of those talented souls who’ve fallen off the radar, and discover the next big thing. It’s one of the perks, it’s fun. 

Beyond our ability to craft an issue via solicitation, editors have a great deal of influence over who submits cold to our publications. We write the submissions guidelines and bits of advice that go into the CLMP reference guide, the Writer’s Market, and other such resources. We give interviews and panel presentations, write the About pages of our publications’ websites, make the rounds at AWP, and (most importantly) publish work that sets a standard for what we’d like writers to send us. Should we find ourselves disappointed by our numbers, or by the range of work in our publications, should we want to change what or who we publish, we’re going to have to make that clear. We cannot expect writers to do the legwork for us.

 

2. When we suggest that the submission ratio is important, we assume that the quality of each gender’s submissions will be identical. Few writers have strong backgrounds in quantitative methods, but when it’s time to crunch numbers, we know where to turn for help. Social scientists, for instance. I married one, I teach alongside a bevy of them in an interdisciplinary program, and I’ve noticed they’re delightfully careful with numbers. VIDA’s been in touch with other social scientists and methods experts because, like so many of you, we want to conduct our research precisely. We want our data to be informative and useful to everyone who cares about literature. A colleague of mine recently brought her methods class VIDA’s 2010 Count as an example of how they might apply the skills they were learning to an issue they felt invested in. We’re proud of that.

As a member of VIDA, an editor, and a woman writer, I appreciate the call for accuracy, but let’s be sure we know what we’re asking for when we request more information, and that we know how to read the data we’re collecting. Say we’re a group of anthropologists trying to figure out what the submissions numbers mean. Tallying them quantitatively the way we do contributors’ numbers would give us blunt and unwieldy data. Unlike contributions, there are no agreed upon standards work must meet to become part of the slush pile. With all those outliers, we’d have no sense of what we were asking editors to tend to. To make the data mean, to determine its relevance to the final product, we’d have to establish a qualitative framework through which to read that quantitative data. We might, for instance, create a rubric for evaluating the quality of each individual work submitted, create a system for applying that rubric, and determine the ratio of publishable-to-unpublishable work in each gender’s submission pile. There’d be a lot of math involved, margins of error, etc. We’d apply for a nice fat grant to conduct this study, get paid to count stuff, and perhaps feel less grouchy about the time it takes. We’d still be left with gray areas and contradictions! We’d also have to remember that submissions data is proprietary, and not every publication would be willing to share.

I’d be quite surprised if my hypothetical study found the quality of men’s and women’s submission piles to be equal. In my experience—which amounts to: 11 years, 5 journals from micro to major, online and hardcopy, across the aesthetic spectrum, plus a few book/poetry contests and some anthology assistance, amounting to let’s say a fair grand total estimate of 25,000 submissions read—in my experience, then, I find women submit more consistently publishable work with regard to quality and appropriateness for the given venue. Men are more likely to submit unfinished work and work that doesn’t suit the publication for which I’m reading. All editors complain of having to wade through distinctly subpar and inappropriate submissions. We certainly don’t want to punish women for following the guidelines that explicitly ask writers to be familiar with the publication before submitting.

Here’s a word problem:  I’ve got a stack of 100 submissions from women, and 40 of them are publishable. I’ve also got a stack of 200 submissions from men, and 40 of those are also publishable. The journal has room for 20 contributors. How should I choose which pieces make it into the issue?

 

3. This brings us to overconfidence. Any number of sociological studies demonstrate masculine overconfidence. We know that our culture initially rewards that overconfidence. Teachers reward boys for shouting out the answers in class, and coaches reward them for taking risks on the field. Men are more likely to ask for raises (and to receive them when they ask). Men are more likely to take primary credit for collaborative work. Men and women both overrate men’s contributions, in quantity and quality, at work and at home. If it sounds like I’m saying men are jerks, please listen closely: I’m saying we teach men to do this. Culturally, we’re the jerks who tell them time and again, make sure everyone knows you’re the best. When I look at my own dear little boy, I think, what a brutal task we’ve set you. How can each guy be the best guy? So, while in some respects overconfidence can work to men’s advantage, it’s ultimately prone to hurt them, and not just financially.

 

4. No one reads gender-blind. Though most editors claim to read for the quality of the work, not the gender, we know that we code the subject of a text feminine or masculine (domestic or important, for instance), and that the language itself can scan gendered. Though most of us will fail to determine the author’s gender from just a paragraph, as VS Naipaul claimed he could, with a bit more text we will often make correct assumptions about whether we’re reading work by a man or a woman.

Whether or not we acknowledge our reading biases, demonstrating that our publication ratios reflect our submission ratios accurately suggests that we are indeed reading gender. Either consciously or unconsciously, we’ve always already divided out our submissions into those by men and women. As an editor who relishes the creative control she has over a publication, I’ve got to ask: why not own and direct that tendency, rather than trying unsuccessfully to suppress it? Are we just too embarrassed to do so? Are we afraid of what our publications will become if we cast off some of our biases? Let’s be brave, friends!

 

5. The suggestion that it’s fair and reasonable to publish work in the ratio that you receive work baffles me. Why? There aren’t any laws about this. The very editors who cry no quotas when the pie charts boldly declare the disparity then insist they’re tied to a quota system determined by their own slush piles. Look: if you’re an editor who’s happy publishing 80% men, 20% women, fine. Own it! You make the decisions, and the rest of us are welcome to critique or celebrate those decisions. Call you a badass rebel, call you a tool of the patriarchy, subscribe to your journal, or cancel a subscription. If you’re on the other hand disappointed by your ratio, blaming the submissions pool isn’t likely to improve the situation in any immediate, effective way. Unchain yourself from those submissions numbers, and you might find a more vital mode of editing.

 

6. Whether you work for a major journal that receives 20,000 submissions a year or a small one that receives 2,000, you are likely receiving more good work than you can publish. Just a hunch: in the women’s pile alone, there’s probably enough good work for a fabulous issue—and we needn’t even call it our Special Edition on Lady Business. Between cold submissions and solicitations, most publications can easily find themselves rolling in riches. Unless one feels bizarrely beholden to run a conceptual journal whose primary mission is reflecting the demographics of its submission pile, this slush-pile-ratio point becomes a rather dull distraction from the real issues (and possibilities!) at hand.

 

7. When the group in power puts the onus back on the marginalized group, it always leads to bad feelings. Frankly, it’s rude. Instead of telling less powerful, less privileged others how they can fix the problem that we editors have had the largest hand in creating, let’s ante up. Let’s tell readers and writers what we’re going to do to change the numbers and lead by example. And since we’re all quite embedded in a system that bakes the same stale pies every time, editors, let’s support and hold each other to it.

An earlier version of this piece originally appeared on Montevidayo.

Our most recent count examines the contents of the Best American anthologies in poetry, fiction, and essays. When we released our 2010 Count back in February, a common response from our readers was a request for more information about the data behind our pie charts. With that in mind, we have expanded our presentation to include the tables shown below, which are based on the spreadsheets we use to generate our Count pie charts. We think these tables better represent the data, and reveal more of the complex set of questions and issues raised by it.
[Read more...]

“Numbers don’t lie.” “What counts is the bottom line.”

Such sayings sound definitive, like the dead-end of a boring story. But as these facts come to light–no longer imagined or guessed at–so does the truth of publishing disparities, the unfortunate footing from which we can begin to change the face of publishing. We are no longer guessing if the world is flat or round; we are wondering how to get from point A to B now that the rules of navigation are public and much clearer. Questions long denied will lead us to new awareness, to challenge current publishing practices, and to query the merits of selection on the level of individual publications and review journals alike. [Read more...]

After Publishers Weekly’s 2009 Top Ten list included 0 women and their top 100 books included only 29 women and 71 men, the editors have declared this year that “the women are back!”   When so many amazing books appeared in 2009 by the likes of Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt, Rita Dove, Mavis Gallant, Heather McHugh, Lorrie Moore, Alice Munro and Alicia Ostriker, VIDA continues to wonder, “Where did the women go?” and “Why weren’t any of their books worthy of a slot in last year’s top 10?”

Though we don’t concede that we ever went away, we’re quite pleased to see that women authors “are back” in the top 10 PW picks, but what has changed about the criteria? This is no tongue-in-cheek query nor are we simply interrogating the past.  In light of the 2010 picks, we feel compelled to ask what it was about those 2009 books, as opposed to the ones that did rate top 10 status, that eliminated them during the annual “slugfest.”  Was there more conventional “domestic” subject matter in last year’s books?  Did the female authors attend less serious content or write in a less-than-exciting style than those on the top ten list?   If so, how did the 5 women whose books made the top 10 list this year meet those criteria?  In short:  what has changed and brought the women back, PW?

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY’S “TOP TEN BEST BOOKS OF 2010″

5 Men / 5 Women

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY’S “100 BEST BOOKS OF 2010″ (Total Books = 101)

Fiction – 15 Men / 6 Women

Nonfiction – 15 Men ; 8 Women

Poetry —  3 Men / 2 Women

Mystery – 5 Men / 1 Woman

Romance – 0 Men / 5 Women

Sci-Fi / Fantasy / Horror – 1 Man / 4 Women

Comics – 6 Men / 1 Woman ; 1 book co-authored by a Man and Women; 2 books co-edited by two men

Religion – 6 Men / 2 Women;  1 book co-authored by two Men;  1 book co-authored by a Man and a Woman

Lifestyle – 1 Man / 4 Women;  1 book co-authored by 3 Men

While we were pleased to find a number of the Academy prizes reflected a gender-balance in distribution, the few that reflected what should be the “old” balance, presented new questions to consider:

1.) In select venues, gender balance seems to be appearing more often via “smaller” awards, but the “big” prizes (i.e. late career recognition) continue to be awarded primarily to men.  The number of Academy prizes, of early and mid-career level, reflect an appreciation of the works by women and men alike.  But the standout award, the Wallace Stevens, which carries a prize of $100,000 and national note, has been issued to 12 men and only 4 women.

Why is the Academy reflecting an appreciation for women poets via the  early career prizes, but when it comes to recognition of life’s work, the imbalance remains?  Does bias carry on when it comes to selecting the most noteworthy poets of all—the “greats”?

2.) The Raiziss / de Palchi Translation Award and Harold Morton Langdon Translation Award both make it seem few women are translating and few women poets are being translated.  This imbalance suggests additional queries when it comes to the valuable work of sharing poetry beyond one’s borders.

To what extent does this imbalance actually reflect the number of women’s works translated by women?   What does this tell us about which international writers are deemed to warrant translation?

1. Wallace Stevens Award: $100,000.00

“Given annually to recognize outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry.”

• 12 Men
• 4 Women

__________________________________________________________

Breakdown:

2010: Galway Kinnell (Male)

Judges:

• 7 Men
• 8 Women

2009: Jean Valentine (Female)

Judges:

• 8 Men
• 7 Women

2008: Louise Gluck (Female)

Judges:

• 8 Men
• 6 Women

2007: Charles Simic (Male)

Judges:

• 10 Men
• 6 Women

2006: Michael Palmer (Male)

Judges:

• 3 Men
• 2 Women

2005: Gerald Stern (Male)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 3 Women

2004: Mark Strand (Male)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 3 Women

2003: Richard Wilbur (Male)

Judges:

• 3 Men
• 2 Women

2002: Ruth Stone (Female)

Judges:

• 3 Men
• 2 Women

2001: John Ashbery (Male)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 3 Women

2000: Frank Bidart (Male)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 3 Women

1999: Jackson Mac Low (Male)

Judges:

• 3 Men
• 2 Women

1998: A.R. Ammons (Male)

Judges:

• 3 Men
• 2 Women

1997: Anthony Hecht (Male)

Judges:

• 3 Men
• 2 Women

1996: Adrienne Rich (Female)

Judges:

• 3 Men
• 2 Women

1995: James Tate (Male)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Woman

2. Academy Fellowship: $25,000.00

“Since 1946, The Academy of American Poets has regularly awarded Fellowships to American poets for distinguished poetic achievement.”

• 7 Men
• 9 Women

NO JUDGES LISTED.

3. Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize: $25,000.00

“[R]ecognizes the most outstanding book of poetry published in the United States in the previous year.”

• 8 Men
• 8 Women

__________________________________________________________

Breakdown:

2010: John Koethe (Male)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Woman

2009: Linda Gregg (Female)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Woman

2008: Henri Cole (Male)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Woman

2007: Alice Notley (Female)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Woman

2006: Eleanor Lerman (Female)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Woman

2005: Ann Winters (Female)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Woman

2004: Donald Revell (Male)

Judges:

• 1 Man
• 2 Women

2003: Eamon Grennan (Male)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Women

2002: Madeline DeFrees (Female)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Women

2001: Fanny Howe (Female)

Judges:

• 1 Man
• 2 Women

2000: David Ferry (Male)

Judges:

• 1 Man
• 2 Women

1999: Wanda Coleman (Female)

Judges:

• 1 Man
• 2 Women

1998: Mark Jarman (Male)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Woman

1997: Robert Pinsky (Male)

Judges:

• 1 Man
• 2 Women

1996: Charles Wright (Male)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Woman

1995: Marilyn Hacker (Female)

Judges:

• 1 Man
• 2 Women

4. James Laughlin Award: $5,000.00

“[G]iven to recognize and support a poet’s second book.”

• 6 Men
• 8 Women

__________________________________________________________

Breakdown:

2010: Michael Dickman (Male)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Woman

2009: Jennifer K. Sweeney (Female)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Woman

2008: Rusty Morrison (Feale)

Judges:

• 1 Man
• 2 Women

2007: Brenda Shaughnessy (Female)

Judges:

• 1 Man
• 2 Women

2006: Tracy K. Smith (Female)

Judges:

• 1 Man
• 2 Women

2005: Barbara Jane Reyes (Female)

Judges:

• 1 Man
• 2 Women

2004: Jeff Clark (Male)

Judges:

• 3 Women

2003: Vijay Sheshadri (Male)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Women

2002: Karen Volkman (Female)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Women

2001: Peter Johnson (Male)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Woman

2000: Liz Waldner (Female)

Judges:

• 1 Man
• 2 Women

1999: Tory Dent (Female)

Judges:

• 1 Man
• 2 Women

1998: Sandra Alcosser (Female)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Woman

1997: Tony Hoagland (Male)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Woman

1996: David Rivard (Male)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Woman

1995: Ralph Angel (Male)

Judges:

• 2 Men
• 1 Woman

5. Walt Whitman Award: $5,000.00, one-month residency at Vermont Studio Center, and Publication

Awarded to “an American who has never before published a book of poetry.”

• 7 Men
• 9 Women

Judges:

• 8 Men
• 8 Women

6. Raiziss / de Palchi Translation Awards: $5,000.00 – $25,000.00

“This award recognizes outstanding translations into English of modern Italian poetry through a $5,000 book prize and a $25,000 fellowship, given in alternating years.”

Translators

• 11 Men
• 2 Women
• 1 Male/Female

Authors Translated

• 12 Men
• 2 Women (same author, different works)

Judges:

2010: 2 Men / 1 Woman

2009: 2 Men / 1 Woman

2008: 3 Men

2007: 3 Men

2006: 3 Men

2005: 2 Men / 1 Woman

2004: 2 Women

2003: 2 Men / 1 Woman

2002: 3 Men

2001: 3 Men

2000: 3 Men

1999: 3 Men

1998: 3 Men

1997: 2 Men / 1 Woman

1996: 2 Men / 1 Woman

7. Harold Morton Langdon Translation Award: $1,000.00

“Recognizes a published translation of poetry from any language into English.”

Translators

• 15 Men
• 2 Woman
• 1 Male/Female

Authors Translated

• 18 Men
• 0 Women
• 3 Anthologies

JUDGES:

• 10 Men
• 6 Women

This month, we counted the number of books reviewed by authors’ gender in the 2010 issues of Publishers Weekly (through the August 23 issue). We hope you’ll join us in wondering aloud what these numbers can tell us about current publishing trends.

We heartily welcome answers to a few questions inspired by the charts below:

1.)  Fiction books are reviewed in close to equal numbers, which may indicate women are writing as much or more fiction than men.  However when we look to see who is receiving the prizes, grants, and awards for fiction, the numbers tell a very different story:  male authors receive the majority of prizes.  Consider the “Best of 2009” lists (here) selected by the L.A. Times, Library Journal, Salon, Washington Post, as well as historical awards for fiction such as the L.A. Times Book Prize (23 Men / 6 Women), the National Book Awards (18 Men / 8 Women), THE PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction (24 Men / 5 Women), the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (40 Men / 16 Women), and the list goes on (click here for the “Historical Count“).  If women are equally reviewed for their work in fiction, why doesn’t the distribution of prizes reflect that balance?

2.)  Nonfiction reviews are overwhelmingly dominated by men, but women’s nonfiction seems often to be funneled into subcategories such as “Lifestyle” which contains Parenting, Gardening, Cooking, and Health.  Are these subcategories indicative of the balkanization of nonfiction written by women?  Is “Lifestyle” nonfiction-lite?  Which subject matter defines the general category of nonfiction?

3.)  Though fiction written by women is reviewed equally with men’s, the leap from book to audio is made largely by male-authored titles.  Does the selection of books to audio reflect prize-worthy picks or are the audio books simply targeted towards a male audience?

4.) Poetry is one genre where women seem to be well received these days, and yet, the reviews evidence a primary interest in poetry written by men.  Is the attention women poets seem to be receiving merely reflective of an increase in awareness of women’s poetry but not in equal measure?

5.) Are more men defining and interpreting religion in books than women?   Or are female-friendly religions like Wicca and neo-paganism only coming into their own and making their way from the New Age niche onto Christianity-dominated Religion lists?

6.)  In conversation with women who write Children’s Literature, I’ve learned that the genre is considered, by some, a warm up for writing adult fiction and should not be noted on resumes or in conversation in lieu of more “serious, adult” work.   Does this prejudice reflect the fact that these books are predominantly authored by women?  Are fewer men writing children’s books because the work of rearing children still presumably falls within the female sphere?

TOTALS
Reviewed books tallied by author’s / co-authors’ genders