Gender Disparity in Publishing

[ysabetwordsmith]

Here's a good discussion of gender disparity in publishing. More books by men get published and reviewed, compared to women.

If you want to change that, you need to figure out why it's happening ...


Do reviewers ignore books by women out of prejudice? Then you need more open-minded reviewers. Do reviewers just not like women's books as much? Check the topics and quality. In both cases, more women reviewers might help.

Are there fewer books by women getting published? In most publishers, yes. Is that because of editorial prejudice? Change editors. You might also try stripping off the names while reading the manuscripts. Is it because of quality/quantity in the manuscripts? Hustle for more and better submissions from female authors. More women editors might help too.

Do fewer women write and submit things? Do they have lower quality than manuscripts by men? These may be symptoms of systematic oppression which undermines women's confidence, restricts their opportuniies for person growth, and limits the time they have to pursue activities such as writing. For fundamental problems like this, you need a widespread effort to improve women's confidence and opportunities.

In today's changing publication field, however, there is a lot more that individuals can do. Want more stuff by women (or any other disadvantaged group) to exist and get attention? Review it yourself. Sponsor or promote crowdfunding projects. Encourage writers. Connect with other folks who share your interests so you can build up a pool of titles. Watch for small presses that specialize in your area of interest.

Comments

[rhodielady-47.livejournal.com]

You still got the better end of the deal. We were bored out of our skulls in those 7th-12th grade English classes. We'd all had two YEARS of sentence parts and sentence structure by the time we got to seventh grade. If in two years' time you can't learn what verbs, nouns, articles and etc. are, you just aren't capable of learning it. Writing and the thinking skills needed to make what you write both efficient and intelligent are far harder to master.

Four YEARS of a foreign language....on HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL!
Now I'm really upset. All I got was a year of Spanish and a year of Latin. By the time I'd reached my student teaching section, the county public school I went to had FIRED my old Latin professor because it was annexed by the city and the city didn't want to allow only that one school to offer Latin while the rest of its schools went without. He was a good teacher and he didn't deserve to be fired for a BS reason.
:\

[lb-lee.livejournal.com]

I can only imagine.

Four YEARS of a foreign language....on HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL!

Yes! That I did like, especially since my high school I think may have been the only one in the area to have a Japanese teacher. Definitely kindled my love for the language, that's for sure. No German, though; our languages offered were often limited by what teachers were available.

--Rogan