Women in Literary Arts
It reaches to the Fence -
It wraps it Rail by Rail
– Dickinson, “It sifts from Leaden Sieves”
[...] VIDA: Women in Literary Arts have released a report entitled “Vida Count 2012″ revealing that male writers still outnumbered female writers in a number of major literary publications last year. Follow this link to see a three-year comparison. [...]
[...] VIDA: Women in Literary Arts have released a report entitled “Vida Count 2012″ revealing that male writers still outnumbered female writers in a number of major literary publications last year. Follow this link to see a three-year comparison. [...]
[...] the VIDA count, examining gender bias in publishing, is out for it’s third year. Sadly it doesn’t make [...]
[...] results of the annual VIDA Women in Literary Arts survey, which compares the number of female and male [...]
[...] seen the latest raw numbers, in which male reviewers far outnumber female reviewers, and this should make a woman’s blood [...]
[...] VIDA released the results of their annual Women in Literary Arts survey. To put it bluntly, most major publishers strongly favor male over female authors. [...]
[...] charted the number of male-versus-female book reviewers and authors reviewed—and it doesn’t look good. [...]
[...] results of the annual VIDA Women in Literary Arts survey, which compares the number of female and male [...]
[...] to VIDA’s byline counts, women’s representation in national literary publications like The Paris Review and The New [...]
[...] compares the last three years of female writer representation in major journals and newspapers. Spoiler alert: it ain’t [...]
[...] a complete look at the VIDA count, check out the charts here. Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:Like Loading… This entry was posted in Books, Reading, The [...]
[...] biggest takeaway from the 2012 report is that the thought leader publications–like the New Yorker, The [...]
[...] This GalleyCat editor discussed the report that revealed that male writers still outnumbered female writers in a number of major literary publications last year. Follow this link to see a three-year comparison. [...]
[...] results of the annual VIDA Women in Literary Arts survey, which compares the number of female and male [...]
[...] Three Years: To Stump, and Stack – and Stem – [...]
[...] – Mannlige forfattere får fortsatt mer oppmerksomhet i media enn kvinner. [...]
[...] treatment of women – and how far it still needs to go. That is why, in a world where women are underrepresented in the world of literature, among other fields, it is important to remember those who made a mark in even more tenuous [...]
[...] can go here to check the three-year trend in each publication for [...]
[...] Publishing loves men, hates women, and we all already knew that. It’s not fair, but unfairness is no excuse to blame lack of individual success on the industry. Let’s us women bear that in mind, shall we? [...]
[...] For a complete look at the VIDA count, check out the charts here. [...]
[...] Then yesterday I came across this compilation of the representation of women in a variety of top literary forums: http://www.vidaweb.org/three-years-to-stump-and-stack-and-stem [...]
[...] also female in a terrible profession for women: according to the latest VIDA count, I should statistically be landing one pitch for every three or four that my male counterparts [...]
[...] Then yesterday I came across this compilation of the representation of women in a variety of top literary forums: http://www.vidaweb.org/three-years-to-stump-and-stack-and-stem [...]
[...] VIDA numbers, if you remember, were only for literary review magazines. They exhibit a range of female content [...]
[...] for women writers, is still a fraught journey. (I can’t help but link the recent VIDA count here, as [...]
[...] falls under the minority of women authors who are published, reviewed, promoted and read. Figures here from Vida, a women’s literary organization, make it self evident. And this is from the alleged cream of [...]
[...] the most recent issue, 12 were women, which is an encouraging number after the most recent study by VIDA: Women in Literary Arts. Their annual survey, which was published in March, revealed that, by the numbers, not much has [...]
[...] VIDA count for 2012 is in. Three year comparison here. Analysis [...]
[...] writers. I chose the latter route over five years ago and I am sticking to it in the face of reports from VIDA about the invisibility of women writers in the canon.There was the 100% men issue of The New Yorker [...]
[...] Innocent? Far from! The VIDA, an American women’s literary organisation, has shown with charts and numbers that a shamefully small proportion of the books reviewed in mainstream [...]
[...] books that are reviewed (more books authored by men than women are reviewed). The count is here: http://www.vidaweb.org/three-years-to-stump-and-stack-and-stem and has not changed much over the 3 years VIDA has been gathering the data. A look at some of the [...]
I started my poetry blog almost five years ago. It is niche , it has a women poet’s index. People visit because they are looking for poetry and poetic prose by women writers. The fact that women’s visibility is an issue in almost all the above publications would point to the fact that the editors of said publications do not weight women’s writing, intellect or use of symbol.
That might be unutterably sad , but also it creates potential to build up good literary reviews based on SEO, first-line terms and the works of women. I say go for it. The more people remove themselves from the traditionals , the more the editors will realise that their market is wavering , giving them a choice really : increase women’s writing visibility or disappear to part of your ‘market’.
We have to start providing alternatives based in excellence.
Best,
C. Murray
This is pretty disturbing…Some years ago Jonathan Franzen threw a hissy fit after Oprah picked The Corrections for her book club. The gist was something like book reviewing and recommendation should be left to the “experts.” I suppose he was referring to the wanktards at Harper’s and the Times Literary Supplement. He should be thankful that he has a penis, and that a pop icon like Oprah is far more balanced than the “experts.”
So depressing!
@Christine, I love your index of women poets! What a great resource. I understand what you’re saying about providing alternatives, but I also wonder what happens when women writers open some of the magazines VIDA is looking at and see that there’s not a place for them. What happens when monetary awards and jobs are tied to publishing in these journals? When women don’t submit, they can always say that they’re just not getting submissions from women and that will be the excuse. I think it will matter more if if women and men who care about this issue stop buying journals that don’t publish a fair share of women.
@Erin
The fact remains that when I started I was getting for two years less than 11,000 hits per annum. The blog is personal and not based wholly in the index but what it is doing is providing a searchable resource for poetry by women writers. I think that there is room to resource, fund and archive the writing of women in a simple and searchable manner , so that we can increase the visibility of women’s arts.
My SEO points to active searches of first lines, translators, women poet’s names. It appears to be based in people searching for remembered lines. I am not a publisher but a working writer who shares the things I like and I think people approach it in a similar manner : curiosity and interest. I don’t have a submissions system- the blog is wholly based on finding and sharing interesting work.
Why is only “Briefly noted” included for the New Yorker but the Atlantic gets cover-to-cover?
I am new to Vida so please forgive if you already track this, but I am constantly checking publications–in particular the New York Times Book Review–not only for the number of women authors and reviewers, but, the percentage of male critics who review books written by women.. The percentage is astonishingly low–around 1% of female authors are reviewed by male critics–,while the percentage of male authors who are reviewed by female critics is somewhat higher–around 20%. These particular statistics may in themselves be less important than the sheer number of women authors and reviewers who are published; even so, it does bolster the assumption is that while male authors are mainstream enough to appeal to both genders, books written by women are to be read and enjoyed only by other women.
To be fair, this analysis should also take into account the overall ration of men to women writers/authors in the industry. I have n o idea what that is or how one would calculate such a figure, but it could really change the conclusions drawn (or further reinforce the picture of imbalance here).
These numbers are disappointing BUT next year maybe include http://www.bookoxygen.com in your stats. At bookoxygen, we are committed to correcting the gender imbalance in reviewing and the books reviewed. If you want to read reviews of (mainly) women’s books written (mainly) by women, then come and take a look.
I have subscribed to Harper’s for thirty years. Yesterday, I cancelled my subscription, citing the VIDA numbers as proof of something I had noticed on my own. Despite its reputation as a progressive, intellectual magazine, women’s voices are absent from its pages. While it has made Zadie Smith its book review editor, it has failed to increase the number of women it publishes–in fact, the numbers have gotten worse.
I’ll miss Harper’s, but I won’t miss my anger every month when I see how few women are included in its pages.
@Josef… Brielfy Noted and Cover to Cover are the “Microreviews” for their respective journals. A subset of The Count.
“While it has made Zadie Smith its book review editor, it has failed to increase the number of women it publishes–in fact, the numbers have gotten worse.”
What does that tell you. It tells me that not enough women submit their work. And it’s their own fault. If you don’t submit you don’t get accepted. And btw. I edit a fairly well-known magazine so I know the gender figures that come in and I get pretty tired of the blame being placed at the feet of patriarchal editors. Seriously, do you really think we choose work based on gender. “Oh this one’s good!!! Let’s take it!!, Wait a minute…oh..shit…it’s by a woman. Ok bin it.”
Get real.
It is on the editors. My tiny magazine only publishes book reviews of poetry and literary fiction. I make it a top priority to find women reviewers and to review women. In 2012 with the total number of reviews being 73, GRL’s Count was
Book Reviewers: 58% Female, 42% Male
Male: 31
Female: 42
Authors Reviewed: 45% Female, 55% Male
Male: 40
Female: 33
For this year, I have to focus on getting more women to review women while maintaining or improving the women reviewers number. That’s on me, not on those who submit but on me to go out and actively recruit.
Being an editor isn’t some passive activity; it’s conscious and deliberate decision making.
And if a tiny mag like mine can do, ones that actually bring in money can do it
Maybe the statistics are like this because women reviewers aren’t as good as men?
Interesting stats… Yes, they can be misinterpreted without submission numbers and numbers of submittals/sex. But I have two thoughts on the overall picture: 1) Some of the comments included remarks that perhaps men were “better” writers or reviewers than women. “Better” is a value judgement clearly affected by gender differences. 2) As long as there is roughly a 50-50 split of men to women in the world, it would be reasonable to expect that the number of publishable women writers might be equal to men. I also would like to know what are the number of readers/gender these publications cater to. Are they meeting their readers’ needs with their choices?
Whenever there’s an article like this, there’s always one or more men who will suggest that a possible reason women are under-represented is because we live in a perfect meritocracy and men are just naturally better than women. And so there could not possibly be any discrimination at work.
Well of course, it’s like when African American men were kept out of baseball – the obvious reason was because white men were just that much better at baseball than black men. But suddenly black men became just as good at baseball as white men, and that’s why they were allowed in.
If women would only work harder at become as good at writing as men, then we’ll see some parity. Until then, we must bow before those manifestly superior masculine literary skills.