From The Irish Times:
I have experienced sexism at the loveliest parties. At a reading or a launch, during a perfectly nice chat with very respectable people, I’ll suddenly find that my blood is boiling. It’s always a shock to witness actual, articulated sexism, so it takes me a while to process the fact that I have just been told by the guy I’m talking to that he doesn’t read female writers. He doesn’t see why he should. Likewise, it took me a while to regroup after my business partner Lisa Coen and I were told that publishing a literary novel written by a woman, with three female protagonists, would be very difficult.
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Every year a literary arts organisation called Vida conducts a simple count of the gender of the authors whose books are reviewed in major publications (including the Times Literary Supplement, the New Yorker, The Paris Review, Harper’s, the London Review of Books and so on). The numbers are really worth checking out, but the bottom line is that the large majority of literary fiction reviewed is written by men. The Vida count shows that reviewers too are more likely to be male.
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Meanwhile, a study published by novelist Nicola Griffith concerning literary prizes found that books with male perspectives by male writers are more likely to win awards. The more prestigious the award in question, the likelier it is that the protagonist and the author will be male.
Just a few days ago, writer Joanna Harris talked about her experiences of sexism in the industry in a series of tweets. Her experiences seem depressingly familiar: being marginalised by male reviewers: being told by a group of men at a party that they don’t read female writers. Harris has also been assured that there isn’t a problem with sexism in publishing, by a man who doesn’t work in publishing – unfortunately there’s plenty more where that came from in the comments section.
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Last week Tramp Press received its 1,000th submission. Over the last couple of years Lisa and I have read more than a thousand pitches, a thousand cover letters. With a number this large, certain patterns become obvious. On our submissions guidelines on the Tramp website Lisa and I ask writers to talk about their influences: it’s always interesting to see what people are reading and being informed by, and where a particular writer would place their work in terms of style or theme.
Inspired by the other counters – the people working at Vida; Nicola Griffith – I conducted a tally of my own. Out of the last 100 submissions, 148 influences have been referenced. Only 33 of the writers listed as influences are female. 33 out of 148. I read letter after letter from well-meaning, perfectly nice men and women who list reams of writers they admire, without apparently noticing that the writers they are listing are all of one gender.
This hapless exclusion of the writing and experiences of women is really disheartening. If a writer lists two influences and they both happen to male – well, fair enough. They never both happen to be female, though, and receiving list after list of five, seven, 10 or more male influences is disturbing. It points again to the larger issue in the industry: our habitual, unchecked dismissal of the experiences, viewpoints and brilliant work of women.
Link to the rest at The Irish Times and thanks to Meryl for the tip.
PG says the computers that host Kindle Direct Publishing don’t care about your gender. If you want to avoid sexism, stay away from traditional publishing.