Statistics compiled by Vida, an American organisation for women in literary arts, has found there to be a gender imbalance in every one of the literary magazines they reviewed, including high profile publications such as the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Review of Books.
Some of the results they uncovered were as follows:
- The London Review of Books reviewed 68 books by women and 195 by men in 2010, with men taking up 74% of the attention, and 78% of the reviews written by men.
- 75% of the books reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement were written by men (1,036 compared to 330) with 72% of its reviewers also being male.
- The New York Review of Books demonstrated an even stronger bias. Among authors reviewed, 83% are men, and the same statistic is true of reviewers (200 men, 39 women).
- The New York Times Book Review fares better, with only 60% of their reviewers male (438 compared to 295 women). Of the authors with books reviewed, 65% were by men (524 compared to 283 by women).
Vida states, "The truth is, these numbers don't lie. But that is just the beginning of this story. What, then, are they really telling us? We know women write. We know women read. It's time to begin asking why the 2010 numbers don't reflect those facts with any equity."
What are your thoughts on the matter?Interested in the written word? So are we! :-)
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