So far, so interesting. Eleven books made all three lists, which Amazon calls "a sort of consensus on the most-admired fiction and nonfiction of the year."That made me ecstatic, since COLUMBINE was one of them. But then, the tricky part. No women. Pub Weekly caused a controversy a few weeks ago by including no women in their top ten.
This time, I don't know. You can't blame any individual or even group, since this list is combining three, all of them with lots of women.
Not enough women? I went through the Times list and counted about 33 women's names--I wasn't sure about a few, but it's very close to one-third of the list, give or take. That's not ridiculously low--like say, the US Senate or Supreme Court--but two to one men still seems pretty lopsided and unlikely fair. There does seem to be a male-bias--perhaps in favor of the subjects men are writing about, or the male style.
(FYI, Amazon included two women in its top ten. The Times releases its top ten Wednesday. It will be interesting to see what they do. I wonder if they were affected by the PW flap. They probably won't tell us.)
It's disturbing. I know a lot of women writers and I'd be irked at the situation if I were among them.
I'm no expert on it, though. Unfortunately, I find myself reading a lot more dead guys and women, so I don't have my finger on the pulse of who is writing what at the moment, or how damn good they are.
It would be nice if we could start giving women their due, though. I'm not sure how to go about it. Ideas?
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One of my jobs is doing part-time educational theatre at the university level. Our main topic is the underrepresentation of women, particularly in the sciences.
After two years of hashing the issue out before audiences of faculty and grad students, I can say the main thing to do is just raise awareness, especially through group discussion. This helps people to be better students of themselves. Beyond that, I honestly feel change can't be forced...except of course choosing to change our personal habits and perceptions based on what we learn. That is where magic can happen.
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