Forum / VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, The Count 2010
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Julie InnisFeb 03, 05:32pmInteresting. And by 'interesting,' I mean completely disheartening and utterly unacceptable.
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Joani ReeseFeb 03, 08:48pmNot surprised Poetry Magazine is the only publication anywhere close to equitable gender distribution in works accepted. I read the New York Review of Books every week and already knew they were heavily male-dominated. I brought this problem up at an editorial meeting recently, but I have no good answers or solutions. If women begin publishing in new venues set up only for women, we still undermine our right to equal acceptance in the larger print and online worlds. Women writers do need to be more supportive of one another, as we all have a stake in changing the way female writers are perceived as somehow "less than." I have always submitted under my initials in a weak attempt to equal the playing field, but all an editor has to do is read my Bio., and he'll (pronoun intentionally used)know I am a woman writer. I am fortunate in that I write mostly poetry, and I have found the hill not quite as steep as it seems to be for fiction writers. This is an interesting and slightly depressing article, Julie, but thanks for sharing it. I look forward to reading other comments about this issue.
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Ann BogleFeb 04, 01:22pm1.) Bitch Magazine - http://bitchmagazine.org/post/women-in-publishing
2.) The Hairpin -
http://thehairpin.com/2011/02/women-get-published-and-reviewed-less-than-men-in-big-magazines-say-red-and-blue-pie-charts/3.) Jezebel -
http://jezebel.com/5750239/the-sorry-state-of-women-at-top-magazines4.) Poetry Foundation -
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2011/02/the-vida-count-for-20105.) The Rumpus - http://therumpus.net/2011/02/women-in-publishing/
6.) Double X -
http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/why-it-matters-fewer-women-are-published-literary-magazines7.) Slate - http://www.slate.com/id/2283605/
8.) Women and Hollywood -
http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenandhollywood/archives/the_numbers_speak_for_themselves/ -
Ann BogleFeb 04, 01:30pm
Here is the comment I wrote at Amy King's link on Facebook to Meghan O'Rourke's response in Slate:
"I'm a little reluctant to get into this here, but I'll tell you, it was Meghan O'Rourke who filed the last turn down I got from the NYer -- back in the late 90s. She called the short story I wrote 'ambitious.' (Later I read in Ben Marcus'article in Harper's about experimental fiction that 'ambitious' is not to be taken as a compliment in the pub'g world.) That my turn down came from her, and she is going on record in Slate opposed to the trend of the numbers VIDA turned out, suggests a lack of gender bias in my case and the soul of what people must be hoping for: objective appraisal of work. I read most of the pub's included in VIDA's study and until yesterday it didn't occur to me there might have been gender discrimination against me as a submitter. I read those pub's but don't submit there (anymore).
"One line (two) in O'Rourke's commentary bothered me:
" 'After all, writing isn't theoretical physics; women in the United States have long had pens in hand ... '
"I mean, women are physicists, too; my aunt was one at Oak Ridge and had worked on the Apollo Project. Another commenter said discrimination would make sense if it were based on physical strength -- there are more strong men -- but I disagree with that as well. Ability is the measure. If a woman can do something, she can. The question is and will be related to recognition."
Amy King replied:
"I don't know O'Rourke nor am I going to be able to speak to the specific situation of the rejection of your work, but my work has been called ambitious in a variety of contexts, including workshops & reviews, and it didn't seem negative - to me. Seemed to be more of an encouragement - like the vision is there but polish the execution. But again, that's how I read it. I sure hope it's not some coded insult; if so, I've been duped many times.
"As for the excerpt, I think she's touching on the notion that the sciences are dominated by men, not that no women are physicists. I do see what you're getting at though: if we don't talk about these divisions in this way, as though they are certain, then perhaps they can change."
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Jane HammonsFeb 04, 04:26pmThanks for those links, Ann. I read a few of the articles yesterday, but hadn't seen all of them. I have so much I'd like to say about this that if I start I won't know where to stop. So I'll just say that I find the call for more information before accepting the percentages very telling. I'm not a statistician, so I have no idea what the margin of error for something like this might be, but the need to resist the findings is insulting and outrageous. I admire Stephen Elliot's work as a writer and an editor. I'm a big fan of The Rumpus. But, really, we have to track all submissions, count all the books on all the shelves before we can accept what the numbers suggest (if "prove" is too forceful, maybe "suggest" will do)? The tired old dog of a line about making the atmosphere more welcoming for women makes me ill. I don't need Daddy's hand to lead me to the post office or the send button.
I am amazed that people--men and women alike-- were so ready to dismiss the work of an organization like VIDA. Stick to baking pies, women; leave the pie charts to Daddy.
Now I must go to work!
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Ann BogleFeb 04, 11:25pm
At FB again, I wrote (also connected to a thread started by Amy King):
"I like Jessica Smith's idea that women writers take this opportunity to increase their submissions to the magazines included in VIDA's count. I, too, would not boycott the publications as a reader -- I enjoy reading the publications too much, for one thing, but also I remember what it was like sending to magazines I didn't even read at the time out of some idea of "anxiety of influence," and don't wish to return to that practice. I received, invariably, 'encouraging' turn down letters without acceptances then. I remember writing toward certain editors, and while I wouldn't want to return to that practice either, it might be interesting -- even surprising -- if one of them decided to publish something I wrote. The VIDA count has made me feel my own complacence in not trying to get published unless an editor on the internet solicits work from me. I learned today that I may lack sufficient 'print' publications in either fiction or nonfiction to apply for an NEA grant this year: 'print' has to equal 50% or more of the total over seven years -- a reason to persist rather than to shy off."
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Ann BogleFeb 07, 01:45pm
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Ann BogleFeb 07, 02:26pm
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Phoebe WilcoxFeb 08, 12:50amTaking the laziest route possible, maybe I should just adopt a masculine pen name. Phoebus Wilcox. ;)
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Ann BogleFeb 09, 02:03pm
Bitches be trippin'. Roxane Gay's is my favorite response to the VIDA count so far:
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David AckleyFeb 09, 05:12pmThis is the most important discussion I've yet seen on the Forum, affecting half of us or more. Every action to overcome this clear, ubiquitous inequity has my support.
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Joani ReeseFeb 09, 05:36pm
@Phoebe: Seemed to work okay for George Eliot, George Sand, A.M. Barnard,and Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, not to mention H.D., but it is unacceptable that female writers today should even need to consider a male pen name or initials--shows how far we have yet to travel. Pack your bags; let's hit the trail. Perhaps we''ll make it half-way by nightfall.
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Linda Simoni-WastilaFeb 10, 12:43amJust catching up and reading all this -- thanks for posting, Julie, and the well-rounded comments and links from all others.
I think I'll go check out the stats at my mag. I DO know I read far more submissions from men then women.
I felt the testosterone edge at AWP, but kind of shrugged it off. Maybe I should have listened better to my gut.
As for statistics, there is no such thing as perfection, which is why fooling with numbers is such a useful distraction from arguments. I know. I ran six different multivariable regression models today estimating the influence of depression of outcomes in older adults with respiratory illness. In each equation, I changed the way I measured one variable, and got six wildly different answers. I had a sample of 150,000. Hmmm...
So the best you can really do with statistics is look for patterns, for trends. And boy, there really is no getting around the pattern in VIDA. Peace...
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Ann BogleFeb 10, 07:11am
Linda, I want to be able to set a little check mark meaning "like" next to the paragraph you wrote above about statistics. You're on the inside of that pattern. As for men dominating at the AWP, I felt when I attended (four times since 2007) that men had greater job security and standing (including men with whom I studied); women from a previous wave of graduates (my wave included) weren't there at all. Younger women (especially in poetry) were there, but if you extrapolate, they could be replaced by younger women of a next wave.
On male pen names. I feel, deep down, as if "Ann" were already a vaguely masculine or neutral name, even though it can only be a female name and isn't gender ambiguous in a way, say, that "Chris" or "Terry" are. It flavors existence and probably relates to what is written (passively) by Ann.
Jane, do you think women in general are more sensitive to rejection by magazines and publishers? That seems to be one of the speculations, but you're saying, oh, there they go again, petting our knee over it.
David, do you think so? So glad you said so.
Julie just sort of set the cherry bomb on the desk and left!
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Sam RasnakeFeb 10, 01:27pmAppreciated Amy's article when I first read it on Facebook. Also, thanks to Julie for posting the link here.
White dead guys still haunt us.
A coup is needed. Or, a stake and hammer.
Speaking for my part in all this - and I have to since I've spent more than a decade as an editor in one spot, and more two decades as an associate ed. in another - I have to question myself. And I need to question myself daily. Macbeth didn’t, you know how that story turned out. Do I want to be part of the problem or the cure?
Maybe Rimbaud was right. Some days, and this is one of them, I want to hold the stake, if I could get somebody else to hold the hammer. Can't do both at the same time.
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David AckleyFeb 10, 02:26pm
Ann,
I do think there is a bias toward men, though I don't know how it works in the individual case, editor by editor. What are they thinking? I subscribe to the NYRB one of the most liberal journals on the planet. The latest issue there were 17 reviews by men, 1 by a woman. So maybe its a fluke. Nope. Checked another issue(earlier)14 by men 4 by women. They even seem to be regressing.
I'll butt out now, but I read Roxanne Gay's "Bitches be Trippin,"and thought it was dead-on.
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David AckleyFeb 10, 03:42pm
Sorry, that should have read " a bias in favor of men.."
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Ann BogleFeb 10, 05:15pm
Just finished editing creative nonfiction and book reviews for the brand new issue of Mad Hatters' Review (12): 2 reviews of books by men; 2 reviews of books by women; 2 women reviewers; 1 man reviewer; 1 essay by a woman, 1 by a man. This says nothing about aesthetic concerns, something we highlight in general at MHR. Initially, we were to have eight reviews, but three reviewers (all women of books written by women) dropped out (that reviews are unpaid may make it a little easier not to commit), and one man wrote a review the publisher felt we couldn't use since it panned the book. We feature contributors' books. I hear in general at MHR, but I don't have stat's for it, more men submit, more men in the pages, and more men as editors and musical composers, but I know the publisher is cognizant. I was just appointed woman poetry co-editor to help tip the scales.
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Ann BogleFeb 10, 06:13pm
Sam, are you sure?
David, I'm so looking forward to diving into the paper version of NYRB, something I've been reading online as possible, something I didn't do for years because of NYRB's reputation as "conservative." I missed so much, heeding that advice, if advice it was. Best reviewing. Most depth. There are other good reviews, Rain Taxi, for one. I met Catherine Tice, the associate publisher of NYRB, last summer in Montreal -- very natural-seeming, approachable -- but it will be years (maybe not, I'm hoping) before I can write reviews of the caliber I read in NYRB; even if I could/do, I don't have the book-publishing track record they're probably looking for to go with it. And that is a subject addressed in the tnr link (above): ratio of books by men to women.
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Pamela J. ParkerFeb 11, 04:29amNot sure who caught the Tin House blog today on the continuing discussion: http://networkedblogs.com/e8iay. One thing T.H. brings out that I've wondered about is the number of submissions of women vs. men. Here on Fictionaut we probably get women more open to submitting, but I know plenty of strong women writers who get paralyzed when it comes to submitting. I blogged to them today: http://pamparker.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/rejections-cant-kill-you-fear-something-that-can/
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Pamela J. ParkerFeb 11, 06:14pm
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Sam RasnakeFeb 11, 09:30pm
I'm sure Ann.
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Pamela J. ParkerFeb 11, 09:34pm
Oops , Ms weighs in above, not ways. Ugh.
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Julie InnisFeb 12, 02:00am
thank you all - despite my silence, I've been following this thread closely (I'm turning into one of those 'lurkers'!) and truly appreciate the contributions everyone has made as well as the links.
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Sam RasnakeFeb 12, 12:42pm
You're never silent, Julie - even when you're silent.
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Jane HammonsFeb 12, 04:26pm
I like this response to the VIDA numbers very much--especially the "create a context" point. It's something like I was trying to say when I responded initially. Who we are as readers matters.
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Pamela J. ParkerFeb 12, 05:01pm
Thanks for that link Jane - and I agree with you on the context point - again, thanks for sharing. I had missed this one.
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Ann BogleFeb 14, 11:34pm
Poet Eileen Myles:
http://www.theawl.com/2011/02/being-female#more-71928
Also visit Slate to read Katha Pollitt's essay.
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