Discussions on gender bias
These links trace the gender bias discussions over the past year. Most have appeared in the Australian Women Writers Facebook page. Articles appear in chronological order so you can follow the development of the debate. The most recent statistics detailing the gender bias in the representation of women in literary magazines in 2011 can be found at the VIDA count 2011.
Most recent:
Wessely, Tehani Croft. A Look at the Aurealis Awards (11 April 2012): a look at gender statistics for Australian SciFi, Fantasy, Speculative Fiction and Horror writing.
McNeill, Dougal. You don’t read women authors, do you? Overland Journal (21 March 2012)
Lhuede, Elizabeth. Sentimentality and women of fortitude: reflections on gender-based violence, genre and International Women's Day. (11 March 2012)
Tranter, Kirsten. Why Women Writers Get a Smaller Slice of Pie. The Wheeler Centre: Books, writing ideas blog. (8 March 2012)
Brady, M.D. Gender and Writing. (8 March 2012)
Whitfield, Sophia. Gender bias in the Australian literary pages #AWW2012 (3 March 2012)
Tierney, James. The Stories We're Told. (3 March 2012)
Discussion and debate in Australia since the publication of VIDA count 2010:
February 2011:
Who's Writing Literary Reviews? ABC Podcast (22 Feb, 2011)
March 2011:
Tranter, Kirsten. Why are women missing from the literary pages? Wheeler Centre Blog (March, 2011)
Roil, Amy. A snippet of Girl Power on International Women's Day. (From Bookwitch blog, 8 Mar, 2011)
Case, Jo. Women in Print: An International Women's Day Discussion. Kill Your Darling's editorial, Killings. (March, 2011)
April 2011
Case, Jo. Who Likes Short Shortlists. (On the Sausagefest problem.) Kill Your Darlings. (April 2011)
Croggan, Alison. Is it a Man's World, literally? (20 April, 2011)
May 2011
Sanders, Zora. New Australian Fiction Prize for Women. Zora Sanders and Sophie Cunningham discuss the importance of genre bias when considering gender bias.
Meyer, Angela. Let's Read writing by women. Literary Minded, Crikey blog (May, 2011).
- Meyer comments on the previous post and contemplates a writing project for 2012 where she reads 20 books by women.
T. Sue. Whispering Gums blog: Monday Musing on Australian Literature: Where are our women writers?(30 May, 2011)
- Mentions a few classics as well as the current debate.
Cunningham, Sophie. 4 May, 2011 Australian "Orange Prize" to promote Women Writers' Status.
June 2011
Mayer, Peta. Women's writing and the literary Prize. (16
June, 2011) Academic article on the discursive formation of "Anita
Brookner" as a "women's writer", giving a context for Brookner's
rejection of special prizes for women's writing.
July 2011
Cunningham, Sophie. A Prize of One's Own: Flares, Cockforests and Dreams of a Common Language. Kill Your Darlings, Issue 6. July 2011. Or Why We Still Need Femininism. Video link. July 2011.
Gupta, Vani. When Genres Attack 2: Attack of the 50ft Heroine. When Genres Attack. (23 July 2011)
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Account of an event chaired by Mark Harding of Shearers' bookshop with
authors Kirsten Tranter, PM Newton, Mardi McConnochie and Georgia Blain.
Panellists advocated "a more textured, layered approach to the
portrayal of women in fiction".
August 2011
Case, Jo. Aborigines, Sharks and Australian Accents: On Australian Writing.Verity La. (1 Aug 2011)
-
links the gender bias debates to notions of "Australianness", literary
prize giving, and sense of place; the dominance of the "bush vs beach"
setting in much literature typically associated with traditional notions
of "Australianness".
September 2011
Flint, Nicole. Do Australian women need a literary leg-up? (22 September, 2011)
- "Women today could do much by following [Dame Enid Lyon's] example and living by her
words, justifying themselves not as women, but as citizens, capable of
engaging in the field of literary endeavour not as a '…special class of
underachievers" but as equals'."
October 2011
Blacklock, Diane. The Chick Lit debate continues. (10 October, 2011)
Moss, Tara. Are Our Sisters in Crime Still Fighting a Male-dominated Literary World. (11 Oct, 2011)
-
This was the blog which attracted the comments by Cameron Woodhead,
reviewer for The Age, that complaints of gender bias were "privileged
whinging", and inspired the creation of the Australian Women Writers
website and Facebook page.
Moss, Tara. Literary Gender Bias: the After blog. (16 Oct, 2011)
- Includes a summary of the blogs that Woodhead's comments generated (includes posts by Australian novelists Kate Forster, Kate Gordon, Lindy Cameron, Angela Savage, Crikey's report on the furore, US author Diane Gaston on literary bias and romance).
Cunningham, Sophie. "The kind of privileged whining that annoyrs the crap out of me." Stella Prize panellist comments on the aftermath of Tara Moss's blog. (21 Oct, 2011)
November 2011
Lhuede, Elizabeth. Kids, Cooks, Brothels & TV: Gender Bias in Australian Publishers' Promotions? (3 Nov, 2011)
Lhuede, Elizabeth. Stella Who? The Pink Elephant in the AusLit living room. Links questions of genre bias to the "gender bias" debate. (5 Nov, 2011)
Readings revised list of Top 10 best crime fiction for 2011, created by 2011 Scarlet Stiletto Award winner Angela Savage, which featured 7/10 Australian women crime writers.
Readings' Bookstores list of "The Best Crime Fiction of 2011" which 9/10 books by men.
-
When analysed, Readings' track record of reviews in 2011 of crime
fiction on their "Dead Write" page was 16/72 books by women (another
appeared in the New Fiction page). Only 2 of these 72 books were written
by Australian women writers. The Dead Write page was compiled by Fiona
Hardy. Surprisingly, another of the compilers of the final list was Stella Prize
committee member Jo Case, author of the "Sausagefest problem" article
that appeared earlier in the year. The number of Australian women crime
authors who published this year was at least 19, as shown in this list.
December 2011
Myer, Angela. Literary Minded blog: Guest Post: Jack Heath spent a year reading books by women. (2 Dec 2011)
Lhuede, Elizabeth. "Because I was invited; Or why looking for a kangaroo isn’t going to cut it for Australian Women’s Writing." Rationale Behind Australian Women Writers 2012 Challenge, guest blog at Sisters in Crime. (8 Dec 2011)
Kakmi, Dmitri. Ladies Who Write. "The Australian Women Writers 2012 Book Reading and Reviewing Challenge is on and you are invited to take part — especially if you’re a man." [Emphasis added] (15 Dec 2011)
Adventures of a Bookonaut. "A Response to Dmetri Kakmi." (20 Dec 2011)
January 2012
Hogan, Ron. More Thoughts on Gender Bias and Book reviews. (31 January 2012)
Sullivan, Jane. "A Woman's Place: Sexism in Literature." (13 January 2012)
March 2012
Tierney, James. The Stories We're Told. (3 March 2012)
Australian History:
Lamond, Julieanne. A history of the struggle for Australian women writers to be taken seriously. Stella vs Miles: Women Writers and Literary Value in Australia (Oct, 2011).
The Stella Prize
International discussions
The Count 2011: Statistics on the genre bias in American publishing 2011, posted by Vida: Women in literary arts.
The Count 2010: Statistics on the genre bias in American publishing 2010, posted by Vida: Women in literary arts.
Shriver, Lionel. I Write A Nasty Book. And they want to put a girl cover on it. Guardian, 2 September 2010
- Discusses the fight one well-known author has had trying to get content-appropriate covers for her book (and more).
Crispin, Jessica & Michael Schaub, Bookslut blog editors discuss their review policies. (8-9 Feb, 2011)
Craig, Amanda. The lack of women reviewers: A perspective from the UK (comments generated are particularly interesting). 26 Oct, 2011.
The Rejectionist, Special Guest Post: Meg Clark on Jonathan Franzen. Discusses Franzen's discussion of Edith Wharton.
VS Naipaul finds no woman writer his literary match – not even Jane Austen. The Guardian 2 June, 2011.
The Naipaul test: Can you tell an author's sex? The Guardian 2 June, 2011.
You Write Like a Woman - VS Naipaul's Sexist Remarks on Gender and Writing, The Guardian 3 June, 2011.
Prose, Francine. On Women Writers and V. S. Naipaul. Harper's Magazine, 9 June, 2011.
Other posts of interest
Rudd, Jessica, Jessica Rudd Celebrates Feminism, Vogue Online, 17 January, 2012.
