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One of the most interesting discussions I saw at
the AWP conference was one sponsored by
VIDA, with editors and writers talking about the results of
VIDA's 2013 count of female and male writers in various publications. This year, they were able to offer a particularly revealing set of graphs showing
three year trends in book reviewing at major magazines and journals.
The only report of the discussion I've seen so far is that of VIDA volunteer
Erin Hoover at The Nervous Breakdown (although I'm sure it was covered by Twitter when it happened). Hoover gives a good overview of the panel and the issues. I took lots of notes, so will here add some more detail to try to show how the discussion went.
After introductory remarks by moderator Jennine Capó Crucet, the first responses were made alphabetically by last name, and so two men began:
Don Bogen, poetry editor of
The Cincinnati Review, and
Stephen Corey, editor of
The Georgia Review. Bogen noted that, inspired by VIDA, he'd done a count of the poetry published by CR during his 7-year tenure and discovered to, really, his surprise that he'd achieved parity between male and female writers (or at least male and female bylines). How had he managed to do this unconsciously, he wondered? The best hypothesis he had was that he seeks real diversity of experience and point of view in poetry and has eclectic taste — indeed, the only poems he said he's not particularly interested in are ones that reflect his own experience. He noted that certainly the idea of parity depends on where one is counting from, as particular issues of the magazine would go one way or the other, and he tends to organize blocks of poems in between other genres in each issue in ways that have sometimes been balanced but also sometimes been entirely female or entirely male. Many times, too, he said, he does his best to read blind, paying little to no attention to a byline, and has often discovered that material he thought was "male" or "female" had been written by someone of another gender. Thus, the magic of literature.
Of the panelists, Stephen Corey seemed perhaps least comfortable with the discussion. His initial statement was simply a set of questions. (I think I managed to write them all down, but may have missed something.) When we talk about gender balance, he asked, are we talking about balance in submissions? In page counts? (Does a 30-page story count the same as a 1-page poem?) Should reviews be counted the same as poems, essays, or stories? Do you want an editor to read your work with gender in mind? Should a publication put out a call for more work by males or females? Should a publication put out an anti-call against one gender? When you read, do you care if what you read is by a man or a woman [
audience: YES!], and should an editor care?
After Corey,
E.J. Graff said so many interesting things I had trouble taking notes. Here's what I wrote down:
- The count is an example of why all English majors should take a course in statistics. Graff: "I wish I had!"
- The submission gap is enormous. With opinion pieces, women editors solicit women and are often turned down or need more time, whereas men often say yes and offer to get the piece done very quickly (important for current events).
- Men continually send pitches after rejections, women don't.
- Structural acculturation. We have to overcome our own socialization — and not just in terms of gender. The audience, for instance, was overwhelmingly white.
- We must make our own choices conscious because many of our prejudices are unconcious. Graff pointed to the Implicit Association Test.
- For students, there is a dramatic shift between the world of school and the world of work. It can be difficult to learn how to promote yourself. Men tend to do this more comfortably than women, because it's generally more socially acceptable for men.
- Make a posse. Promote yourself and your group. Start a movement or magazine. Challenge each other, help with drafts and careers, but as a group move each other forward.
- When lesbians and gay men started working together in the 1980s, there were many difficulties, suspicions, and prejudices. To overcome these difficulties, many groups decided on a shared leadership structure that required equal power sharing between a man and a woman rather than just one leader. Why not do that with more prizes, editorships, groups?
Katha Pollitt (a personal hero of mine, and one of the main reasons I went to the panel) then offered her perspective, particularly as someone who has a long career as a poet and essayist, as well as a former editor with
The Nation. Because I love Katha Pollitt, I tried to write as fast as she talked, and so here are my notes from her initial statement:
- Some editors are quite conscious, others not at all — and some of the latter group are women. They can be very far away from consciously considering the issue, they can be very far away from any sort of balance, and yet still think they're doing great (and thus not need to become conscious).
- As VIDA has shown, raising the issue can, sometimes, make change.
- At The Nation, the front and back of the magazine are totally separate. In front, the subject areas (politics, news, current events) and speed of weekly publishing means the editors have settled on "go-to" people who they know are very reliable — maybe not the best writers, but they turn in clean copy on time. These editors would need to make the time to seek out new, female experts who are reliable. Some places have made such an effort — Alternet and Mother Jones, for instance.
- You have to think about it (make the issue conscious) because we have to compensate for elements in the culture.
- There are too many women trying to write in too few subject areas. Look at how many women are writing about Girls! Women should try to cultivate interest and knowledge in areas outside those seen as "feminine" or "women's issues".
- If you're not getting submissions from women, you have to ask why. Why would a woman throw herself at your wall?
- Most op-eds are solicited. Most slush piles aren't even read by an editor. Slush is not where the problem lies.
- Things are fairer at newspapers. They have unions and must follow anti-discrimination policies.
Then the discussion moved on to questions and comments from the audience. Again, from notes, which may distort some things simply because I couldn't write fast enough. (I'll offer some summary and response at the end.)
Q: Is gender-identified subject matter more or less appealing? Also, racially-identified? Etc.
Don Bogen: An experience can be gendered, but not to the writer. Surprised plenty of times to discover the gender of a writer whose byline was indeterminate. The otherness of the imagination is important.
Q: 99% of news is what is seen to be traditionally male. Much of human life is dismissed as female.
E.J. Graff: It's worse than you know! The
Global Media Monitoring Project statistics are horrifying. Women in the news are usually victims or family members ("the wife of", "the mother of", etc.). These create our implicit biases. Though, as Katha Pollitt said, there may be a good amount of female bylines in newspapers, the top editors and the columnists tend to be male.
Q: Wal-Mart has a huge effect on the economy because it is so large, and so getting Wal-Mart to change practices can have a massive ripple effect. Is there a Wal-Mart of the literary world that we should focus on trying to change?
[Some laughter, cross-talk]
Another audience member: The Wal-Mart is in the room. Unsubscribe from magazines you don't like the numbers for, and let them know. Let Harper's know. Let The New Yorker know. Don't let your subscription lapse silently — it's important that the magazines know why you are leaving them, and what it would take to get you back.
Q: Why is the literary world so obsessed with dudes from Brooklyn?! I don't want "women's literature", I want literature. Even when women are put forward, though, they become invisible.
Pollitt: Yes, why when Jonathan Franzen writes a book is everybody else suddenly invisible? Can Karen Russell get the same amount of notice? She should, but does she? It's a problem of publicity. Some women get attention. But does the attention last? Will it last? Can we make it last? The writers are there, the quality is there, the publicity is not.
VIDA volunteer: Feel empowered. Email magazines. Use knowledge to use your money and time well. VIDA is 10 volunteers. You are many. Vote with your dollars.
VIDA co-founder Erin Belieu: Most of the media reports on the count frame the story as, "It still sucks." And it does. But there's more to it than that. Many places say they need a comment from people such as New Yorker editor David Remnick if they're going to run a big story, but the editors of the highest-profile magazines won't talk, and so the story is not seen as journalistically significant. Behind the scenes, though, there is concern. One well-known female fiction writer gots calls from multiple editors when the count was released this year — the publications were embarrassed, and they wanted this writer to contribute. She didn't have any short fiction available and also didn't want to be the token female, so she gave the editors the names of 5 other writers who might be able to give them something.
Q for Katha Pollitt: Is there a perception among editors that there are female and male subject matter? Is more male subject matter being covered?
Pollitt: War, politics, etc. — these are not "male" subjects! More women are killed by war than men. Women's lives are deeply, intimately, and constantly affected by politics. These are human subjects. The New York Times has two male columnists who started out as food writers, a subject often associated with women. Get to know a lot about something interesting in a less crowded field and you will have an easier time getting published.
And then time ran out.
The take-away message was, as Erin Hoover wrote, consciousness. The world we live in is structurally biased against equality, and as people who live in this world, if we don't consciously work toward increasing equality, we will unconsciously contribute to inequality.
I love the idea that we could follow Don Bogen's lead and try to read and publish eclectically, seeking experiences and representations outside of our own, and thus achieve equality. But I don't think it would work. I expect he's an outlier and his example would be difficult, even impossible, to replicate. Worse, a stated interest in diversity might be used as cover. I think too many publishers and editors could just say to themselves, "Hey, we're nice, tolerant, liberal people who sorta like, you know, value that diversity thing. Yeah. We'll be equal," and then go right on reinforcing the status quo. I actually would prefer that someone just say, "I couldn't care less about equality," and not pretend.
Let's go back to Stephen Corey's questions. They're good for discussion, but I think they're problematic overall. With regard to page lengths and genres, etc., it's really not that hard to compare like to like, and VIDA, for instance, offers statistics in various breakdowns (books reviewed, reviewers, etc). The "overall" stats that VIDA provides are useful as a way to view the problem generally, but yes, there's a difference between a 200-word review and a 10,000-word article. The general view is useful, though. We're not to the point where distinctions necessarily say a lot. The trends are so bad that getting too specific is pretty much a waste of time. Maybe in the future it would be an interesting exercise, but right now the information is pretty damn unambiguous and shameful. As Don Bogen showed, there's plenty of reasons for an individual magazine issue or section of an issue to be dominated by women or men, but once you step back from individual issues and sections, once you increase the data set, then consistent, significant inequality speaks for itself.
Do we want editors to read our work with our gender in mind? I've never assumed they wouldn't. I'd love to live in a world where my gender presentation was irrelevant, but I don't live in that world, and pretending I do just reinforces a status quo I loathe. My name is Matthew and I physically present as male; that affects people's perceptions of me consciously and, especially, unconsciously. How much does that matter to any one editor? I assume a bit (at least), unless they want to give me multiple results from the
Implicit Association Test showing that they are utterly unaffected by gender ... at which point I might assume they don't entirely care about my apparent maleness. Otherwise, I'm going to assume they're living in the same swamp of associations that I am.
Should there be a call made for more of one gender, or against another? Oh, please. This is a question better left to
concern trolls. I can just imagine the sort of call that would go out: "Dear Womens: We don't know any female scribblers. Please submit to us so we can see if you know how to write. Thanks!" Or, even better, "Hey guys! These feminazis are doing their thing and we're afraid it might hurt our reputation in this politically correct environment, so please cut it out with the submissions for a while. Once we've published some girls, then we can get back to the real work."
More interesting to me is the question: Do you care about the gender of a writer you read, and should an editor care? The audience loudly affirmed that they care about the gender of writers they read. For me, this is a similar sort of problem to whether I care about if an editor knows my gender when I submit writing to them. In an ideal world where gender is as meaningful as handedness or eye color, a writer's gender for me would be an interesting and inconsequential detail. But I don't ever expect to live in such a world. Human culture has been and continues to be meaningfully and significantly affected by gender. To not care about a writer's gender in such a world is to not care about something that meaningfully and significantly affects that writer. So yes, I notice the gender of writers I read. I care about it. The world does not just naturally drop a nicely balanced group of male, female, and genderqueer writers on my readerly doorstep. The world makes it easiest for me to read white male writers who use the English language and publish with major publishers. I make the conscious effort to seek out others. (Among the books I'm currently reading: Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin; The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates; The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde; Warrior Poet: A Biography of Audre Lorde by Alexis De Veaux.) If I want to know about the world outside of my own experiences — and that really is why I read — then I have to pay attention to some of the categories the writers I read fall into. It's why I got interested in African literatures, even before I ever traveled to Africa. I can't imagine not reading such work now. Not for reasons of political correctness or some other overloaded scare term, but for purely selfish reasons: my life is richer and more interesting with such writings in it than not.
So it's probably not surprising that I think editors should notice and care, because otherwise the structures of our culture are going to notice and care for them, and will replicate the dominant status quo.
The most important thing to come out of the VIDA count, though, is a desire from editors, writers, and readers to actively fix the problem. This, it seems to me, is VIDA's real message and value. Here are the stats. If you don't care about them, then don't care about them. (You're an asshole, but maybe you're okay with that.) If these numbers shock, dismay, annoy, or even just vaguely bother you, then do something. If you're an editor, seek out female writers and work to make sure your venue is not one that posts various signs saying, "GIRLZ KEEP OUT!" (Hint: If you publish mostly male writers and seriously wonder why non-males don't submit more to you, you're behaving like an oblivious dunderhead.) Be conscious, put forth some effort, and don't start whining for cookies because you did what you should have been doing all along. If you're a reader, let the VIDA count guide you.
Tin House, Poetry, and
Threepenny Review are three magazines that have deliberately tried to get their numbers to be better, and they're three great magazines well worth your support. There are others, too, and will, I expect (I hope!), be more. If it matters to you, speak up with your voice and your writing, with where you submit work, and with where you spend money. We can be proactive.
And remember E.J. Graff's advice:
Make a posse. Promote yourself and your group. Start a movement or magazine. Challenge each other, help with drafts and careers, but as a group move each other forward.
In honor of Women’s History Month (and International Women’s Day, which is today!), we’ve pinned a roundup of our titles that feature some pretty amazing women on Pinterest. Check out our board and be inspired to make your mark in history!
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Welcome, all, to Poetry Friday! It's March 8, a date which has been International Women's Day since 1911. If you've never explored the history, get it
here.
I had hoped to go broadly international for you today with a few poems from women around the world, but then something less exotic yet somehow more universal caught my eye. It's in the title; it's in the way we comb our hair and dreams sift out; it's in the way nothing is very serious and yet we all worry about forgetting the way home.
Bon Courage |
Amy GerstlerWhy are the woods so alluring? A forest appears
to a young girl one morning as she combs
the dreams out of her hair. The trees rustle
and whisper, shimmer and hiss. The forest
opens and closes, a door loose on its hinges,
banging in a strong wind. Everything in the dim
kitchen: the basin, the jug, the skillet, the churn,
snickers scornfully. In this way a maiden
is driven toward the dangers of a forest,
but the forest is our subject, not this young girl.
She’s glad to lie down with trees towering all around.
A certain euphoria sets in. She feels molecular,
bedeviled, senses someone gently pulling her hair,
tingles with kisses she won’t receive for years.
Three felled trees, a sort of chorus, narrate
her thoughts, or rather channel theirs through her,
or rather subject her to their peculiar verbal
restlessness ... our deepening need for non-being intones
the largest and most decayed tree, mid-sentence.
I’m not one of you squeaks the shattered sapling,
blackened by lightning. Their words become metallic
spangles shivering the air. Will I forget the way home?
************
Find the rest here, and meet me in the woods at dusk.
In case it's possible that anyone has missed the March 1 launch of the new Poetry Friday Anthology, Middle School edition, please visit the blog to learn more. I'm delighted to be included in yet another stellar collection of work for children and teachers to enjoy together. I'll be rounding up in three waves today and look forward to seeing what everybody's been up to while I was "resting." Leave your links in the comments (since me and Mr. Linky have yet to get it on), and thanks for stopping by.
“Just the facts, Ma’am. Just the facts.” Isn’t that what Sgt. Joe Friday would say on Dragnet? Actually, no. Sgt. Friday’s actual lines were "All we want are the facts, ma'am" and "All we know are the facts, ma'am".
The writer's mind is always working - always questioning, always wondering. Last Saturday night, I sat down for some TV time and the movie Hysteria was on. I love that time frame, the actors in the movie, and the subject. In my last book, I touch upon the diagnosis of hysteria that was used to describe the feelings of women in the late 19th century. It’s a topic that interests me, so I settled down to spend a few hours watching the movie.
The beginning of the movie starts with “1880” at the bottom of the screen. I’m enjoying the movie until Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character, Charlotte, rides down the street on her bike. “Wait, a second”, that voice way back in my head says. “That’s a safety bike, they weren't invented until 1885.” I know, the director was trying to show that the character of was a strong, independent woman. The bicycle in the 1890s was a very instrumental in the woman’s rights movement. In fact, Susan B. Anthony told the New York World’s Nellie Bly in 1896 that bicycling had “done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.” But, the safety bike, though it is very cool, wasn’t invented until 1885.
The next day, as I am wont to do, I researched the movie, the characters, and the story. The movie totally changed the actual facts and characters for Hollywood’s version of the story. I was okay with that. I was not okay with the appearance of the safety bike. Actually on IMDB in the goofs section, it states:
“The character Charlotte Dalrymple is shown riding a safety bicycle. The film is set in 1880, but safety bicycles weren't invented until 1885.” IMDB not a valid source, but a good jumping off point, I soon plunged into my own quest for the truth. After swimming through the pages and pages of research, images, and such, I narrowed down the manufacturer of the bicycle in the movie - who may not manufactured this particular style until many years past 1885. Before I could continue, to squelch my excitement, that little voice in the back of my head asked, “Don’t you have a manuscript due in a few days?
The manuscript I just finished contains about 200 "things" about Chicago. Since it is for kids, I thoroughly researched every fact and yelled at my computer when I found twisted information. For example, several sources said that rainbow sherbet is a Chicago thing. The truth is "rainbow cone" is a Chicago thing, not rainbow sherbet.
In my description of the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition, I wanted to show the many inventions from the fair. Many sources said that the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair introduced the world to the Pledge of Allegiance, Cracker Jack, the Ferris Wheel and Juicy Fruit Gum. The Random House site for
The Devil in the White City says:
"The World’s Fair introduced America to such classic favorites as Cracker Jack, Shredded Wheat. and Juicy Fruit and was the birth of historically significant symbols like Columbus Day, the Ferris Wheel, and the Pledge of Allegiance." In actually, what Erik Larson wrote about Juicy Fruit was:
“They sampled a new, oddly flavored gum called Juicy Fruit and caramel-coated popcorn called Cracker Jack.” Evidently, what Erik Larson writes is fact. Many sources now state, crediting
The Devil in the White City as the source, that the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair introduced the world to Cracker Jack, the Ferris Wheel, and Juicy Fruit. Cracker Jack was actually sold at the fair, the Ferris Wheel no one can doubt was a hit at the fair, but Juicy Fruit was not officially at the fair.
Other products that receive second billing as introductions at the fair had actual booths; Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix, Shredded Wheat, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and others. The Wrigley website reads:
"In 1893, during an economic depression, he introduced two brands that would become company icons: Wrigley’s Spearmint® and Juicy Fruit®."Going straight to the source, I sent an email to the Senior Vice President of Wrigley Corporate Affairs. We went back and forth a few times but I didn’t get an official answer to my question:
"In time for the fair and the millions visited. It would have been sold by salesmen and women to the crowds attending may of whom visited Chicago for the first time. There will not have been a Juicy Fruit pavilion I'm pretty sure it was launched in time for the worlds fair rather than at it.” "It was as I thought. It was launched in Chicago in time for the World’s Fair but it wasn’t an official part of the Fair.” “The fair bought many people to chicago so lots of footfall for the brand." "But in 1893 Wrigley was a small business and remain so for another 15 years or so.”In the end, what I finally wrote as part of the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition: William Wrigley Jr. introduced Juicy Fruit gum. (And, people wonder why writing takes so long.)
I started this piece by quoting Sgt. Joe Friday, I thought I’d end it by sharing a few fabulous fact quotes by some very wise folks.
“If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts.” ~Albert_Einstein
“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable." ~Mark Twain
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” ~John Adams
“The truth is more important than the facts.” ~Frank Lloyd Wright
“False facts are highly injurious to the progress of science, for they often endure long; but false views, if supported by some evidence, do little harm, for everyone takes a salutary pleasure in proving their falseness; and when this is done, one path towards error is closed and the road to truth is often at the same time opened.” ~Charles Darwin
And, finally,
"Never trust quotes you find on the internet." ~Abraham Lincoln
For my INK blog this month, I am doing something a tiny bit different, although all the content is still nonfiction, and it is in honor of my new picture book about Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor in America, which came out this Tuesday. But I digress. What is the Next Big Thing? It is an author blog tour. What’s a blog tour? A blog tour gives those on the tour a chance to meet different authors by way of their blogs. The Next Big Thing began in Australia. Each week a different author answers specific questions about his or her upcoming book. The answers are posted on author’s blogs. Then we get to tag another author. On and on it goes.
The tour came to me from Manhattan. I was tagged by my friend Elizabeth Winthrop. She was tagged by her friend Eric Kimmel. I’ll tell you whom I’m tagging at the end.
Now for the questions.
What is the title of your next book?
Who Says Women Can’t Be Doctors? It is the story of Elizabeth Blackwell, who was the first woman doctor in America.
Where did the idea come from for the book?
I have done, and do, a lot of research on women’s history—especially in America. Elizabeth Blackwell’s story was one I came upon again and again. It was also one of those stories I tried to sell more than once but met with some resistance because Blackwell’s name is not instantly recognizable. I felt that was exactly why there should be a book about her!
What genre does your book fall under?
Most definitely picture book.
What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Keira Knightley would make a fabulous Elizabeth Blackwell, who was also British—although she is too tall in real life. But Knightley captures the spark and fire of Elizabeth well. Blackwell was a petite blonde, studious and serious, but a real risk-taker.
Who is publishing your book?
Christy Ottaviano Books/Henry Holt and Company (Macmillan Kids Books)
How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
I never know how to answer this question! With picture books, especially, I tend to write a draft and stick it in a drawer for quite a long time, then pull it back out and work on it again, and repeat. A few years inevitably pass in this way.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Elizabeth Blackwell inspired me to write this book! There are older books about her, but it was time to get younger kids excited and let them know who this trailblazer was.
What else about the book might pique the reader’s interest?
I love Blackwell’s fire. The details I discovered about her toughness as a kid were a delight to find and kids will, I think, really be able to relate to some of the things she did as a child. Who Says Women Can't Be Doctors? hit bookshelves this past Tuesday, and I couldn't be happier.
For the next Next Big Thing, I am tagging the amazing and talented Deborah Heiligman. Her answers will be up soon.
By: KimberlyH,
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By Daniel Freeman and Jason Freeman
Students are often told — perhaps by excited friends or nostalgic parents — that university is the best time of their life. Well, for some people these years may live up to their billing. For many others, however, things aren’t so straightforward. College can prove more of a trial than a pleasure.
In truth it’s hardly surprising that many students struggle with university life. For one thing, it’s probably the first time they’ve lived away from home. College involves all sorts of potentially daunting changes and challenges with the young person’s support network of family and friends usually many miles away.
It isn’t only university life that students may be struggling with. Many common psychological problems also tend to develop around this stage of life. Depression, phobias, social anxiety, panic disorder, insomnia, alcohol problems, eating disorders, sexual problems — all typically begin during adolescence or early adulthood.
Whether students arrive at university with these problems, or develop them while there, coping with mental health issues alone and in a strange town can be particularly difficult. It’s not made any easier by the assumption that you should be having a ball.
When we think about mental health, one issue that is often overlooked is gender. Yet who is more likely to develop almost all of the psychological problems we’ve mentioned? The answer is clear: women.
Indeed, although it’s commonly asserted that rates of psychological disorder are virtually identical for men and women, when one takes a careful look at the most reliable epidemiological data a very different picture emerges.
Contrary to received wisdom, overall rates of psychological disorder are not the same for both sexes. In fact, they are around 20-40% higher in women than in men. Depression, for example, affects approximately twice as many women as men. The same is true for anxiety disorders. Women are anywhere from three to ten times more likely to develop eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia nervosa. There’s good evidence to suggest that women are more vulnerable to both sleep disorders (primarily insomnia) and sexual problems (such as loss of desire, arousal problems, and pain during sex — all of which are classified as psychological issues).
This doesn’t mean, of course, that mental illness is an exclusively female problem — far from it. Very large numbers of men experience depression and anxiety, for example.
Nevertheless, though men tend to be prone to so-called externalizing disorders such as alcohol and drug problems and anti-social personality disorder, while women are more susceptible to emotional problems like depression and anxiety, the figures aren’t equal. If the epidemiological data is reliable, women clearly outnumber men for psychological disorders as a whole.
How do we explain this phenomenon? Why is it that women appear to be more vulnerable to mental illness than men? Well, this is an under-researched area. In the case of certain disorders — depression, most notably — some useful work has been done on gender. For most conditions, however, we have little evidence for why men and women are affected differently.
Things are especially tricky because mental illness is seldom the result of just one factor: a complex mix of genetic, biological, psychological, and social causes is often involved. Yet patterns do emerge from the limited research that has been conducted into the links between gender and mental health. What stands out is the stress caused by life events and social roles.
It’s certainly plausible that women experience higher levels of stress because of the demands of their social role. Increasingly, women are expected to function as career woman, homemaker, and breadwinner — all while being perfectly shaped and impeccably dressed: “superwoman” indeed. Given that domestic work is undervalued, and considering that women tend to be paid less, find it harder to advance in a career, have to juggle multiple roles, and are bombarded with images of apparent female “perfection”, it would be surprising if there weren’t some emotional cost. Women are also much more likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse, a trauma that all too often results in lasting damage.
How do these environmental factors affect the individual? At a psychological level, the evidence suggests that they can undermine women’s self-concept — that is, the way a person thinks about themselves. These are the kind of pressures that can leave women feeling as if they’ve somehow failed; as if they don’t have what it takes to be successful; as if they’ve been left behind. Body image worries may be especially damaging. Then there’s the fact that women are taught to place such importance on social relationships. Such relationships can be a fantastic source of strength, of course. But to some extent we’re relying on other people for our happiness: a risky business. If things don’t work out, our self-concept can take a knock.
Perhaps then, part of the reason why so many common psychological disorders begin in adolescence and early adulthood is because this is the time when young people start to take on the demands of their conventional adult role. If those demands are more stressful for women than men that may help explain why we see young women start to outnumber young men when it comes to psychological problems.
But we need more evidence. The best answers will come from longitudinal studies: following representative cohorts over a number of years from childhood into adulthood, and carefully measuring the interaction between biological factors, life events, and mental illness.
Such research is complex and expensive, but given the extent of the burden on society and individuals alike, understanding what causes mental illness and thus being better placed to prevent and treat it should need no justification. Yet we cannot assume, as so many have done, that gender is merely a marginal issue in mental health. In fact, it may often be a crucial element of the puzzle.
Daniel Freeman is Professor of Clinical Psychology and MRC Senior Clinical Fellow, Oxford University. Jason Freeman is a freelance writer and editor. Together they wrote The Stressed Sex: Uncovering the Truth About Men, Women, and Mental Health, Anxiety: A Very Short Introduction, and Paranoia: The 21st Century Fear.
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Image Credits: (1) Stressed student. Photo by Alexeys, iStockphoto. (2) Hard study. Photo by Oliver, iStockphoto.
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February is Black History Month and way back in 2011, I looked at a book about African American soldiers in World War II called
The Double V Campaign: African Americans and World War II by Michael L. Cooper. The Double V Campaign demanded that African Americans who were risking their lives fighting for freedom and democracy abroad should be given full civil rights at home - Victory at home AND abroad. Cooper's book is an interesting, well-researched book, but it doesn't tell the whole story of the Double Victory Campaign. The Double V campaign was also waged on the home front, and women played a very important part.
In her book,
Double Victory: How African American Women Broke Race and Gender Barriers to Help Win World War II, Cheryl Mullenbach brings together the lives and work of a number of strong, brave women in four areas: women who worked in the war industry, women who became political activists, women in the military, volunteers and of course, women in entertainment.
Here are only a few of the many stories covered in Mullenbach's book:
High school teacher Layle Lane was asked by A. Philip Randolph, a Civil Righs leader, to help organize a March on Washington in 1941 to end discrimination in employment, since most defense plants would not hire African Americans. The march never happened, but Lane was in on the talks with President Roosevelt that led to the issuance of Executive Order Number 8802, which meant if you discriminate, the Fair Employment Practices Committee can investigate you. It wasn't perfect, but it was a start.
Pauli Murray, a female law student, let students from Howard University in peaceful direct action sit-in at a restaurant that refused to serve African Americans. Three by three the students entered, sat and asked for service. When that was refused, they stayed seated and began to quietly study. Police couldn't arrest them because by not being served, they weren't breaking the law. The owner closed for the day, but when he reopened the next day, the students held a peaceful picket outside and after a few days of lost business, the Whites Only sign came down.
The women who joined the WAAC (Women's Army Auxiliary Corps) once it was opened to African Americans discovered the racism and segregation followed them into the military, just as it had followed men of color. Nevertheless, the women soldered on and succeeded. And eventually, Charity Adams even became the first African American woman officer in the WAACs and commanded the 6888th Central Postal Battalion (see
Mare's War by Tanita Davis for an interesting and accurate fictional account of one women's experience in the 6888th).
Star power carries a lot of weight and in WWII it was not different. When the Hollywood Victory Campaign was formed, actress Hattie McDaniel was asked to be in charge of "Negro talent" section. Hattie, who had won an Academy Award in 1940 for playing Mammy in Gone with the Wind, helped to organize black entertainers to perform in the segregated all black units of the armed forces. This work required the entertainers would need to meet frequently, usually at Hattie's house. But she lived in a restricted area, meaning no blacks allowed. So when the white homeowners filed a legal complaint, Hattie fought back and won.
Lena Horne, one of my favorite singers, was a favorite during the 1930s and 1940s and she was also part of the Hollywood Victory Campaign. Mullenbach tells about the time on a southern USO tour, Lena performed one night to a white only audience, and the next morning in the mess hall, she was to perform for the black soldiers. But in the front row were German POWs. She left the stage, stood in front of the black soldiers, back to the Germans and sang. She ended up quitting the USO tour over this, but continued entertaining soldiers throughout the war.
These are just a few of the many interesting women included in
Double Victory: How African American Women Broke Race and Gender Barriers to Help Win World War II. It is a well-researched, nicely presented book with lots of supporting photographs and detailed back matter. It is intelligently written, yet very accessible for young readers. The fact that she introduces us to ordinary women doing extraordinary things in wartime makes it all the more valuable. And while it is good to know that anyone can make a difference, not just famous people, it is also nice to read about the contributions of so many African American women, which are often overlooked.
Kathryn Atwood started a narrative about women and their courageous acts in WWII in her work
Women Heroes of World War II and Cheryl Mullenbach has extended that narrative to include African American women in
Double Victory: How African American Women Broke Race and Gender Barriers to Help Win World War II.
This book is recommended for readers age 12+
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For more on the Double Victory Campaign, see
Newspapers - The Pittsburgh Courier and
Fighting For Democracy - African Americans
I don’t know if people are willing to admit it, but many of us, and I suspect especially those of us who write books, have given some thought to what our legacy will be. I know I have. Since I am childfree—a term I recently heard for the first time—I won’t be leaving any progeny to carry on the family name. But I will be leaving my books to inform future generations. Even if libraries purge their holdings to make way for newer volumes, I’m thinking (hoping) that some of my writings will survive on the dusty shelves, or at the very least, in Cyberspace. I know it won’t really matter to me after I’m gone, but right now, I find the thought comforting.
Perhaps that’s why I had such a visceral reaction to the Gilda’s Club brouhaha that erupted last week. For those who don’t know, Gilda’s Club is a community organization with more than 20 affiliates that is dedicated to offering support to people who are living with cancer, and their loved ones. It was founded in the 1990s in honor of Gilda Radner, one of the original “Not Ready for Prime Time Players” on Saturday Night Live, who died of ovarian cancer in 1989. During her illness, Gilda found encouragement and solace at a California organization called the Wellness Community. Gilda’s Club was modeled after that group. (The name refers to Gilda’s quote that “having cancer gave me membership in an elite club I’d rather not belong to.”)
In 2009, Gilda’s Club Worldwide merged with the Wellness Community to create the Cancer Support Community. After the merger, the home office decreed that affiliates could determine which of three names worked best for them: Gilda’s Club, the Wellness Community, or the Cancer Support Community. A few weeks ago, the affiliate in Madison, Wisconsin, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate its new name, the Cancer Support Community Southwest Wisconsin. The executive director, Lannia Syren Stenz, told the Wisconsin State Journal the name was being changed because the population they serve is getting younger. "One of the realizations we had this year is that our college students were born after Gilda Radner passed," she said. "We want to make sure that what we are is clear to them and that there’s not a lot of confusion that would cause people not to come in our doors.”
Coverage of this event jumped from the Wisconsin State Journalto Gawker.com and pretty much all over the Internet, thanks to Twitter and Facebook. Fans of Gilda, and common sense, pointed out that it would be more meaningful to teach people who Gilda was than to obliterate her from the organization that was founded in her name. Toward that end, actress Martha Plimpton tweeted that she had ordered five copies of Gilda’s moving memoir, It’s Always Something, to be sent to the Madison chapter. Others pointed out that few of us know who Mayo was, or Sloanand Kettering, or Dana and Farber, but we still can find our way to their hospitals when necessary. Among the hundreds of comments on the Madison branch’s Facebook page (now taken down) was this one: "The only educating you're doing is teaching kids that when they die from cancer, their name will be erased from history in 20 years because the next generation doesn't know who they are. Way to give them hope!"
While the Wisconsin affiliate doesn’t seem to have been swayed by the petitions, tweets, and articles blasting their decision, other branches were quick to reassure the public that they had no intention of changing their name. “As the flagship Clubhouse, we value our brand and our association with Gilda Radner,” the New York club posted on their Facebook page. The Chicago branch tweeted, “Gilda’s Club Chicago will remain Gilda’s Club Chicago in honor of the courageous way Gilda, and all of our members, live with cancer.”
Just two months ago, I blogged about the importance of naming buildings and public memorials after women, so there’s no mystery about where I stand on this matter. I was also a big fan of Gilda, who had the guts to bare her soul in the process of reaching her audience. (Just watch this clip from her movie, Gilda Live, to see what I mean.) She did the same in her book, an admirable, intimate account of her struggle with cancer which is back in print with a new Resource Guide and a new chapter on Living with Cancer. And besides all that, she was really funny. Just check out these clips of her characters Roseanne Roseannadanna and Emily Litella.
I joined the New York chapter of Gilda’s Club when a close friend was dealing with cancer. The other day, she reminded me that not too long ago, cancer was something you didn’t discuss. Friends would shy away from you if they knew you were sick and you pretty much suffered in silence. Thanks to Gilda and the movement she inspired, people with cancer have a place to talk about what the “civilians” in their lives might not want to hear, the gritty details of survival. Helping each other empowers them in their own fight. That's why if people don’t know who Gilda Radner was, they sure as heck should find out.
By: ChloeF,
on 11/30/2012
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What do anaesthetists do? How does anaesthesia work? What are the risks? Anaesthesia is a mysterious and sometimes threatening process. We spoke to anaesthetist and author Aidan O’Donnell, who addresses some of the common myths and thoughts surrounding anaesthesia.
On the science of anaesthesia:
Click here to view the embedded video.
The pros and cons of pain relief in childbirth:
Click here to view the embedded video.
Are anaesthetists heroes?
Click here to view the embedded video.
Aidan O’Donnell is a consultant anaesthetist and medical writer with a special interest in anaesthesia for childbirth. He graduated from Edinburgh in 1996 and trained in Scotland and New Zealand. He now lives and works in New Zealand. He was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists in 2002 and a Fellow of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists in 2011. Anaesthesia: A Very Short Introduction is his first book. You can also read his blog post Propofol and the Death of Michael Jackson.
The Very Short Introductions (VSI) series combines a small format with authoritative analysis and big ideas for hundreds of topic areas. Written by our expert authors, these books can change the way you think about the things that interest you and are the perfect introduction to subjects you previously knew nothing about. Grow your knowledge with OUPblog and the VSI series every Friday!
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I’ve recently posted about the fabulous books published by Goosebottom Books that I found at JCLC. The postings included a video of their wonderful interact book, Horrible Hauntings and a review of Qutlugh Terkan Khatun of Kirman. I think it’s time to look behind the books and find out a little more about Goosebottom. I’ve reached out to Shirin Bridges, the Head Goose for just that purpose!
1. Your book Ruby’s Wishwas quite well received! Can you talk a little about what took you from writing to starting Goosebottom Books and entering the publishing world?
Well, the change in career was inspired by my niece. If you know my books, beginning with Ruby’s Wish, they have all been (until my recent ghost book, Horrible Hauntings) about girls who found ways to do their own thing and exceed expectations. So when my niece showed signs of getting caught up in the pink princess craze, I was a little alarmed. “You know that there were princesses who didn’t sit around waiting for a prince, don’t you?” I asked her. I knew, because I’ve always been a history buff. She didn’t know, but she was interested, so we went looking for the books. But to my surprise, we didn’t find them. I was so surprised by how few women find their way onto our children’s bookshelves, so I decided I needed to write these books myself. Then I decided that more than that, I needed to publish these books, in part to ensure that they would come out as a series—that the message would be that there were many of these princesses, across the world and throughout history; that they weren’t isolated aberrations. That’s how Goosebottom Books came about. We published our series “The Thinking Girl’s Treasury of Real Princesses” in October 2010, and followed it with “The Thinking Girl’s Treasury of Dastardly Dames” in October 2011 (this time with the help of many other authors), and have added to both series in 2012. Another series is now in the works for 2014.
2. From where did the name “Goosebottom” come?
I wanted a name that reflected our personality. “Goose” says we publish for children. “Bottom” says we do it with a sense of fun and a 
little attitude. And “Goosebottom” happens to be a kid-friendly English translation of a nickname given to me by a French-speaking ex-boyfriend, not because of any anatomical amplitude, but because of a certain mental attitude.
3. I’ve noticed that Goosebottom has its own staff of writers. How does that work? Are writers assigned projects? Do they create their own?
We’ve been very blessed with our authors—the geese, as we call ourselves. Many of them have now become personal friends, and there is a real collaborative spirit to Goosebottom Books.
The way we find and work with our authors is, I think, unique. We receive submissions all year ’round, and we file them for later reference. We don’t accept manuscripts—we accept writing samples. When it’s time to find writers for our next list, we review these samples and decide whom we’d like to work with. We then approach those writers with our idea for the next series, and with specific titles for that series. They are asked to pick the top two titles they would like to write, and also asked to suggest other titles for the series that they’d find interesting. We then decide on a final title list, and have so far been able to assign titles so that everyone has been able to write at least one of their top two picks, if not their favorite title.
4. Who has been the most difficult woman to research so far?
I’d say either Qutlugh Terkan Khatun of Kirman or Sorghaghtani of Mongolia. Both have left very faint traces in the historical record—or at least faint in the English language record that I can access. But the traces they left were so compelling, they begged for inclusion on our list. And in Sorghaghtani’s case, I thought that she really brought to light an often forgotten and fascinating point: 
that the administration of Genghis’ empire was often entrusted to women. Jack Weatherford, in his book The Secret History of the Mongol Queens, writes about Genghis’ daughters who inherited and ruled lands as his sons did. But at one point in history, most of those sons’ lands were also ruled by women. On the death of her husband Tolui, Genghis’ youngest son, Sorghaghtani was formally confirmed as the ruler of his lands (Eastern Mongolia and Northern China)—this despite her having a son old enough to inherit. Similarly, Genghis’ son Chagatai’s power passed to his wife Ebuskan (Central Asia), and Ogodei’s (named Great Khan after Genghis’ death) to his wife Toregene (Western Mongolia). That’s an impressive number of female Heads of State, ruling most of the largest contiguous empire the world has ever known. I don’t think that many people know that this seemingly macho culture had a deep respect for its women.
5. Horrible Hauntings is one of the most innovative books I’ve seen! How did you all ever come up with such a concept? Do you think Goosebumbs will continue to work in electronic formats?
Thank you! As I write, we have just learnt that we’ve won the Best Children’s Book Award given by the Halloween Book Festival. But the credit for the idea goes to our augmented reality partner, Trigger, and specifically to their President, Jason, who also happens to be my brother. He showed me a project they were working on using the technology and said, “Don’t you think this would make a great ghost book?” The answer was obvious, so we decided to create this experience together.
Whether the book will succeed financially is an open question at the moment. It’s still too early to tell. And the augmented reality component changes all the math, as you can well imagine.
But we’re very pleased to have been able to accomplish something so innovative, and I’m especially pleased that we found a way to make the latest technology bring readers back to the printed book.
After my nieces and nephew went through all the augmented reality ghosts, they actually curled up with the book and read the stories, so they’d know what they’d just seen. That was very rewarding for me, and I’ve spoken to reading specialists who are enthusiastic about this book’s potential when it comes to luring in reluctant readers. If this book has more kids reading, I’m happy. If it has more kids interested in history and nonfiction, I’m happier still. That’s what Goosebottom Books are all about: stealth education.
6. What are some of your upcoming releases?
We have something new in the works, a format we haven’t tried before. I’m not at liberty to disclose what that is at the moment, but stay tuned! Young readers have been asking for this, so we’re going to give them what they’ve asked for.
7. Because I met you at JCLC I have to ask: What does diversity mean to you?
For me, diversity just IS. Having lived and worked around the world, I’ve seen how diverse this world is. I believe that natural, existing diversity needs to be reflected on our bookshelves. Why? Because exposure is key. Only with exposure can we hope for understanding, and only with understanding can we hope for empathy and compassion. And only with empathy and compassion is there hope at all for the world.
Children have no frame of reference except what they’ve been exposed to. When they don’t see women on their book shelves, they think it’s because women haven’t done anything. When they don’t see certain ethnicities, they think those ethnicities haven’t accomplished anything worth publishing. It sets the boundaries for what they think is possible. It sets those boundaries artificially small. The celebration of diversity not only affirms, it empowers.
Shirin, thank you for such an insightful interview. I wish you many future successes!
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In downtown Rochester, New York, a triple steel arch bridge carries Interstate 490 over the Genesee River. Originally called the Troup-Howell Bridge, this structure was renamed the Frederick Douglass-Susan B. Anthony Memorial Bridgein 2007, after two historic heavyweights with ties to the city. Locals affectionately call it the “Freddie-Sue Bridge,” as I learned on a visit there last week. It’s just one of several local monuments to Ms. Anthony. (There’s also a local Roller Derby skater with the truly inspired Derby name Susan B. Agony, but that’s a topic for another post.)
As someone who grew up in a world where almost all schools, bridges, and other public memorials were named after men, I rejoiced at the very visible presence of Ms. Anthony in her adopted hometown. Nothing pleases me more than to see women’s names carved in stone or displayed on highway signs. When I wrote Bull’s-Eye, my biography of Annie Oakley, I shared in the pride that members of the Annie Oakley Foundation felt when they successfully lobbied the Ohio legislature to rename a portion of US127 the Annie Oakley Memorial Pike. When I was working on Bylines, my biography of Nellie Bly, I even was thrilled upon driving past the dilapidated Nellie Bly Amusement Parkin Brooklyn, New York. Alas, this tribute to Nellie’s round the world voyage was renamed the Adventurers Family Entertainment Center when it was refurbished in 2007.
It’s important for women to stamp their names on things, at least as important as it is for men. It helps us remind people of our achievements and our presence in the world. I know I’m not the only one who thinks so. A few years ago, I attended a weekend celebration of women who graduated from Princeton, and President Shirley Tilghmantold the story behind the naming of the university’s newest residential college. The college, home to some 500 undergraduates, was built with donations from 30 donors, but primarily from then eBay CEO Meg Whitman, Class of 1977, and her family and colleagues. President Tilghman implored Whitman to lend her name to the college, but she relented only after the president pointed out that every other residential college, including Rockefeller, Wilson, and Forbes, was named for a man. In 2003, I had the satisfaction of taking part in the dedication ceremony for another institution named for a woman. Madeline “Maddy” English was a veteran teacher and guidance counselor with the Everett, Massachusetts, Public Schools. She was also a standout third basewoman on the Racine Belles of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. After the town voted to name its newest school for her, Maddy asked me to represent the league at the event, since I was then on the board of the Players’ Association and lived only a few hundred miles away. I got to say a few words about her as an athlete and see her pride as the entire community celebrated her achievements. Sadly, Maddy passed away less than a year later, but her school and its “Madeline English Bulldogs” are still going strong.
Some time back, journalists Lynn Sherr and Jurate Kazickas put together a book titled Susan B. Anthony Slept Here: A Guide to American Women’s Landmarks. It’s full of parks, museums, libraries, and other sites that are significant to women’s history. I’d love to see a companion volume of buildings, bridges, and other structures named for women. Are there any in your neck of the woods? Let me know by commenting below.
By: Elvin Lim,
on 9/4/2012
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By Elvin Lim
The Republicans’ convention bump for Mitt Romney appears to be muted. Why? There was a lot of bad luck. Holding the convention before the Labor Day weekend caused television viewership to go down by 30 percent, as did the competing and distracting news about Hurricane Isaac. The Clint Eastwood invisible chair wasn’t a disaster, but a wasted opportunity that Romney’s advisors should have vetted. Valuable time that could have been spent promoting Romney (such as the video of him that had to be played earlier) before he came out to speak on prime time, was instead spent in a meandering critique of Obama.
Obama’s first remarks about the convention was that it was something you would see on a black-and-white tv — a new spin on the Republican Party as allegedly backward, as opposed to the Democrat’s who lean “Forward.”
The most revealing thing about the convention was that President George W. Bush wasn’t asked to speak. Instead, he appeared in a video with the older Bush, possibly in a bid to mollify the presence of the younger. Republicans are still divided over Bush, which is why they continued their hagiography of Reagan in the convention. For all of Jeb Bush’s intonations for the Obama campaign to stop putting blame on the previous administration, the fact is that the convention conceded that George W. Bush was indeed a liability. “Forward” is a narrative that can work as long as the look immediately backwards isn’t too satisfying.
On the other side, Bill Clinton will of course make an appearance in Charlotte in next week. The Democrats have also wisely flooded the speakers’ list with women, to show that the Republicans’ paltry presentation of just five women represent the tokenism narrative that Democrats are trying to paint. Women are America’s numerically biggest demographic and they are more likely to turn out than men (by 4% in 2008).
In this final stretch, the gurus are gunning straight for the demographics. Campaigning has become a science, albeit an imperfect one. The Romney campaign now knows that a generic refutation of the Obama’s performance about the economy, jobs, the national debt — which we’ve been hearing for nearly four years — is not going to change the underlying tectonics of voter sentiment. This is why they tried to elevate the Medicare issue last week, and why they’re trying the personalize Romney strategy this week. The latter is more likely to work, and it should be done quickly, because next week, the DNC intends to make America fall in love with Barack Obama again.
Elvin Lim is Associate Professor of Government at Wesleyan University and author of The Anti-Intellectual Presidency, which draws on interviews with more than 40 presidential speechwriters to investigate this relentless qualitative decline, over the course of 200 years, in our presidents’ ability to communicate with the public. He also blogs at www.elvinlim.com and his column on politics appears on the OUPblog regularly.
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Here's an important post from Atlantic senior editor Garance Franke-Ruta regarding Republican U.S. Senate candidate Todd Akin's repugnant comments about pregnancy rarely occurring from "legitimate rape" (just typing those words makes my hands shake).
Franke-Ruta makes the important point that Akin is not an outlier in the world of anti-abortion zealots. His ideas are connected to those that seek to distinguish between "forcible rape" and something else. Such dangerous delusions are central to so many of the misogynistic and ignorant tenets of the anti-abortion movement and to the sorts of ideologies that seek to downplay the frequency of sexual assault and defund the institutions that attempt to address sexual violence:
Arguments like his have cropped up again and again on the right over the past quarter century and the idea that trauma is a form of birth control continues to be promulgated by anti-abortion forces that seek to outlaw all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest. The push for a no-exceptions anti-abortion policy has for decades gone hand in hand with efforts to downplay the frequency with which rape- or incest-related pregnancies occur, and even to deny that they happen, at all. In other words, it's not just Akin singing this tune.
Amanda Marcotte explores similar evidence and ideas at The Prospect:Akin’s comment should serve as a reminder that despite its sentimentality surrounding the fetus, the anti-choice movement is motivated by misogyny and ignorance about human sexuality. In this case, what underlies the rape-doesn’t-get-you-pregnant myth is the notion that sex is shameful and that slutty women will do anything—even send an innocent man to jail to kill a baby—in order to avoid facing the consequences of their actions.
Akin's ideas are not a gaffe.
The latest statisticsreleased by VIDA: Women in Literary Arts reveal disturbing figures. Genderdiscrimination in the literary arts has been hotly debated since VIDA releasedtheir 2010 figures. This year VIDA looked at the number of male reviewers aswell as the number of male authors reviewed. The figures were dismal. Men weredominant in all 14 literary journals surveyed.
It is surprising thatthis is the case given that women drive the publishing industry. It seems atthe final stages of publishing when the book is released, the men still havethe power to decide the fate of a book.
Sarah L’Estrangeinterviewed three literary editors to see if the situation in Australiareflected VIDA’s statistics. Jason Stegar from The Age and Susan Wyndham fromThe Sydney Morning Herald agreed that their regular reviewers are split 50/50,but overall men are dominant both as reviewers and as the authors of booksreviewed. When Wyndham looked through the past six issues of the Sydney MorningHerald’s literary pages she was shocked to find the bias towards men. Both Stegar and Wyndham agreed that there was no deliberate leaning towards men although Wyndhamsuggested she was more inclined to send a male reviewer a book by a male author.Stegar claimed he reviews the books worthy of review regardless of the genderof the author.
Stephen Romei from The Australian saysthe fault lies with the women reviewers. The men are more likely to be vigorousin their pursuit of securing a review with The Australian. Romei regularlyreceives more pitches from male reviewers. Perhaps persistence is the answer.If you are a female reviewer Stephen Romei awaits your phone call.
With the gender biasdebate in full force once again I went to have a look at the New Frontier listfor 2012. As a publisher I don’t strive particularly for a 50/50 split. Ipublish the best manuscripts that come across my desk.
This year we willpublish ten new books, eight penned by women, two by men. There was no grandplan to give women the numbers this year; it is simply the way it turned out.
VIDA claim that eventhough the numbers are still dismal the gender bias is slowly changing. Thediscussion will no doubt continue.
By: Elena Ornig,
on 3/10/2012
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Why Every Man Should Update His Wife.
Warning – for men only.
Exploring men’s sexuality in graphic detail, this controversial book delves into motivation, purpose and futility of persisting with unsatisfactory relationships.
It exposes stark views on marriage, on having children and apparently worthless social values.
$3.99 AUD is a fair price for eBook WHY EVRY MAN SHOULD UPDATE HIS WIFE!
To buy – go to Hot Digital Books and read more.
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It’s easy to understand misogynist Republican men if you view them in the context of the animal kingdom. Males, from fruit flies to men, have an anatomical limitation. They cannot produce eggs, and if they’re mammals like us, they cannot get pregnant or give birth. Their only contribution to reproduction is sperm. And sperm must leave a male’s body in order to fertilize an egg. This means that in the act of mating, males lose control of their most precious biological possession, their sperm. Once sperm leave a male’s body, they are under the control of the female. She can eject them, kill them, block them or allow them to fertilize her eggs. Females are scary creatures!
Among waterfowl, where rape is common, females have evolved vaginas with dead-end sacs, a kind of internal burial ground for an unwanted male’s sperm.
The only way males can try to control their sperm investment is by controlling the recipients—females! And males—insects to humans—do anything and everything they can to exert control and subvert female choice. (Of course there are many wonderful liberated men who think with their brains instead of the instrument below their belt, but those who want to make women’s bodies property of the state are not among them.)
Subversion tactics are seen most clearly in insects. Female insects mate with several males and store sperm in their sperm-storage chamber. Scientists have discovered that female choice goes on internally in the female’s reproductive tract. It is within the changing climate of this internal environment that hidden or “cryptic” female choice takes place, perhaps at the level of the ovum itself, in determining which sperm of which male, if any, will be allowed to penetrate the egg’s membrane to achieve fertilization. Such internal female choice may be going on in women, too!
So males across species engage in sperm competition and mate guarding to ensure that only their sperm fertilize their mate’s eggs and sire her offspring. Among insects, some bizarre tactics for ensuring confidence of paternity have evolved.
One tactic is the copulatory plug, a gluey substance secreted by the male to block the female’s genital opening, preventing a rival’s sperm from getting inside. The male damselfly has a kind of scooper on the end of his penis that he uses to scoop out previously deposited sperm before mating with a female. Some male fruit flies inject toxic semen, which thwarts rivals but also hastens the female’s death.
Men don’t use genital glue or sperm scoopers but they do use religion, laws and politics to achieve the same end – controlling women’s reproductive biology. The use of mutilating genital surgery in some 28 countries of Africa and the Middle East wounds about three million young girls every year. The current profusion of ultrasound and “personhood” bills being passed by Republican male legislators across the U.S. are the human equivalent of insects’ copulatory plugs. These men are probably no more aware they are acting out such a primitive biological scenario than are insect males. They are caught up in a form of mass hysteria reminiscent of medieval witch hunts and persecution of women. Indeed, the attempt to vilify Planned Parenthood is similar to medieval persecution of women who gave advice on preventing births.
If the current misogynist movement led by Republican men were not so dangerous and harmful to women and our entire society, it would make an interesting anthropological field study. It’s unprecedented in U.S. history, to see males, primarily in one major political party, using the legal process and available medical technology to turn back the clock, prevent access to, and even ban medical advances that benefit men as well as women. Yes, many women accept their subjugation and support these efforts. But would they if they understood that from a biological perspective, these men are acting as brainless as beetles? With this difference: Male insects are ou
By: Elena Ornig,
on 4/7/2012
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Personal Confession
My name is Elena Ornig and I confess to encourage you to live your dreams.
At four, I was the only child in kindergarten who could fluently read. Often, the nannies would sneak out for an extra gossip break, leaving me inside of a circle of children; I just loved it.
At 15, as a dedicated volunteer researcher of Moscow Regional history, I was invited to write for a local newspaper and I just loved it.
At 16, known by every local librarian as a book monster, I was encouraged by one of them to write my own book and I put all my effort into it. And I just loved it because I dreamed of becoming a great writer.
Nevertheless, I thought I needed a professional opinion to be sure I was on the right path. At my school I approached a teacher who was regarded by almost everybody as “the guru” ...
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I just did a fun interview about my eBook, HOW TO HAVE SEX IF YOU'RE NOT HUMAN, on the Radio Show, SUSAN RICH TALKS: Love and Lifestyle. Susan Rich and Annemarie Schuetz were great interviewers and we had a fun time talking about mating behavior across the animal kingdom, including humans. Also had a chance to plug my book SEXUAL STRATEGIES: HOW FEMALES CHOOSE THEIR MATES. The show is archived, so you can listen by clicking on the show link.
Cornelia Neal, of the Office of Transportation of the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Washington, D.C., was so determined to give her son the experience of riding his bike to school despite the stream of cars on the capital’s roadways that she came up with a creative solution. She regularly piled her son and his bike into her car, drove him to a park en route, dropped him off to cycle across the park, and then picked him up and drove him the rest of the way to school. Neal grew up in the bike-friendly Netherlands, where, she says, “Every kid goes to school on a bike.” She wanted her son to have the same experience, despite his living in Washington.
Neal told her story as a panelist at the first-ever National Women Cycling Forum in Washington on March 20. The purpose of the forum was to explore ways to encourage more women in the United States to ride bicycles. (A 2009 study by the Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals showed that only 24 percent of bike trips in this country are taken by women, compared with 55 percent of the bike trips in the Netherlands.) I was honored to be invited to start things off by highlighting the impact of cycling on women during the 1890s bicycle revolution.
I bring this up now because May is National Bike Month, so designated by the League of American Wheelmen (now the League of American Bicyclists) in 1956. This year, specific dates within the month are designated as the first-ever Bike to School Day (May 9), Bike to Work Week (May 14-18), and Bike to Work Day (May 18). Internet resources aboundin support of these efforts, making it possible to map the best cycling routes, enter to win contests (with prizes such as bike racks for your school), and register or find events in your community.
On Bike to Work Day, I’ll be in Washington, DC, where the publisher of Wheels of Change, National Geographic, will be one of the “pit stops” for the 11,000 or more area cyclists expected to take part. It will be fun to be involved in this celebration of the bicycle, some 120 years after the two-wheeler first took America by storm. Today, more and more communities are developing the infrastructure to promote safe cycling and more people are turning to the bicycle as an economical, ecological, and healthy means of transportation. I admit that I have a particular affection for this durable, revolutionary invention of the Gilded Age, and I’m glad to see that its place in society continues to grow.
2 Comments on Happy National Bike Month!, last added: 5/6/2012
By:
Susanna Reich,
on 5/10/2012
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I.N.K.: Interesting Non fiction for Kids
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"True stuff doesn't have to be all solemn and serious and sedate," wrote Roz in her postlast week about humor in nonfiction picture books. If ever there was a biographical subject who was NOT solemn and sedate, it was Julia Child, who would have turned 100 this year. Serious is another matter, however.
 |
| Fun in the kitchen |
On TV, Julia had a natural, relaxed attitude that belied her seriousness about French cooking. Of crucial importance were fresh, high-quality ingredients, prepared with classic techniques that had been developed over centuries. Fortunately, Julia's serious approach was always tempered by an earthy sense of humor. At heart an educator, she knew that learning goes down easiest when you're having fun. Above all, she would say, are the pleasures of sharing a delicious meal with family and friends. For Julia, relationships came first.
In my new picture book,
Minette's Feast: The Delicious Story of Julia Child and Her Cat (
Abrams)
, all these facets of America's most beloved chef and cookbook author are on the table. The challenge for me as an author was to find the right balance of seriousness and playfulness, and to do it in a way that kids would enjoy.
 |
Flowers for Julia Child's
80th birthday party,
complete with kitchen whisk. |
A Julia fan since childhood, I'd wanted to write a book about her ever since we met when I designed the flowers for her 80th birthday party, at the Rainbow Room in New York. But I struggled to find a way to make the subject child-friendly. Would six-year-olds really be interested in fancy French food?
Then I learned that Julia got her first cat, Minette, when she and her husband Paul lived in Paris in the late 1940's. This fortunate French feline ate meals lovingly prepared by the future Queen of Cuisine. In return, Minette brought Julia little tokens of affection—in the form of fres
By:
Deborah Heiligman,
on 7/17/2012
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Yesterday morning there was an article in the NY Times that touched on my former subject, Mary Sullivan. Although the article (in case the link doesn't work it's called
100 Years After a Murder, Questions About a Police Officer’s Guilt)
doesn't mention Mary, she had a minor roll in the case, though not in solving it (one of the many reasons I, sob, dropped the book). Seeing it there in the paper, I had a pang and so I decided to re-post this blog from early last year. If we weren't posting old blogs, I probably would have written an entire blog about my newly adopted dog, Ketzie. I guess I'm lucky because I am such a doting new parent I would have embarrassed myself by writing thousands of words about her and showing you a picture. OK. Since you asked. I'll show you a picture.
and one more just so you can see what she really looks like:
Now on to the "real" blog post, the repeat:
If it were up to me, you'd listen to
this song while reading this post.
So. It's been a very, very long time since I broke up with a sweetheart, given that I've been married for almost 30 years. (In my culture, you get married at 11.) And I don't intend to ever break up with him. But there comes a time in every writer's life when she has to break up with a topic. Actually, many times. Usually the break-up comes early on in the project. At least for me. I work on something for a short time and realize that there's just no there there, or that it's not for me. Or someone or something else pulls at me, grabs my attention. ("Oh you over there, come hither...")
But sometimes, it seems, you go out with someone for a very long time before you realize he or she was not your
bashert. This has just happened to me. It was a long relationship, but it was going nowhere. It just took me a very long time to realize that because I thought... I was sure...though I had niggling doubts...that I was in love.
But breaking up really IS hard to do.
(By the way, I also like
this version of the song. My friend
Judy Blundell votes for the
2 Comments on Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, Redux, last added: 7/17/2012
Last week's
Readercon was among the best of the many I have attended, for me at least. Inevitably, there wasn't enough time for anything — time to see friends, time to go to all the various panels I had hoped to go to, time to mine the book dealers' wares... Nonetheless, it was a tremendous pleasure to see so many friends and acquaintances again, as well as to be immersed in such a vibrant community of people who love to talk about books.
I've been on the Programming Committee for Readercon for the past two years now, which changes my experience a little bit, because I find myself paying closer attention than I did before to how the panels end up working in reality (after we on the committee have puzzled over their possibilities for a few months) and to how people on the panels and in the audiences respond to them. (Note: We're actively trying to expand the invitation list to Readercon. If you have any names to suggest [including yourself],
please see here for more info.)
I don't love being on panels myself, because I don't really have any confidence in my ability to say anything beyond the banal in an extemporaneous situation, but I was on a couple this time, and though I don't think my contributions were anything memorable, there were some good moments. (More thoughts on panels and the current discussion of gender parity on panels at cons below.)
The two panels I was on were both on Saturday morning, which turned out to be less than ideal for me because I hadn't gotten to sleep until sometime after 2am (having been part of a long and wonderful conversation with Eric Schaller, Jeff VanderMeer, and Michael Cisco), so I was pretty exhausted. The first panel was on John Reider's excellent book
Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction, with the other panelists being Robert Killheffer, Darrell Schweitzer, Vandana Singh, and, as leader (that is, moderating participant), Andrea Hairston. I thank the gods of scheduling that Andrea was the leader, because her skills at moderating are a wonder to behold. I wouldn't have been leader of this panel for anything, because not only is there a potentially controversial topic, but it's the sort of topic that is wide open to unproductive tangents — for instance, it may bring out the history geek in participants or audience members to such an extent that they can't help demonstrating how much they know about exactly what happened in 322 BCE and how
that is what really explains the
Berlin Conference. There was a bit of this, and Andrea brilliantly brought the conversation back toward things that could be more effectively discussed in the hour we had without making the person who just couldn't help talking a lot about the Romans feel entirely squashed. (If he did, he didn't behave as if he'd been squashed.) I find it hard to stay on track during panels myself, so always appreciate a moderator who can moderate without humiliating.
I'm not sure we were able to really say anything beyond what the book itself already says, but we affirmed that its analysis is provocative, powerful, and generally convincing, and if we succeeded in sparking curiosity about the book in one or two other people, then it was a success. (Copies seemed to be selling well at the Wesleyan University Press table in the dealers' room.)
After the panel, Andrea
Native American Athletes to Compete in the London 2012 Olympics
By Cheryl Cedar Face · 07/27/2012
From: American Indian Report
Indian Country has an extra reason to celebrate today’s opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics: four Native American women will be competing for a medal in London.
The women are competing one hundred years after Jim Thorpe won two gold medals at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. If they win, they will join Billy Mills (Oglala Sioux), Duke Kahanamoku (a Native Hawaiian), and Jim Thorpe (Sac and Fox), as Native American medalists.
Mary Killman, a member of the Citizen Band Potawatomi Nation of Oklahoma, will be competing in the Synchronized Duet Technical swimming event. She and her partner Mariya Koroleva qualified by placing 7th at the Federation Internationale de (FINA) Olympic Games Qualification tournament.
Mary Spencer, First Nation Ojibway, will be competing in the 75-kilogram middleweight boxing event for Team Canada in women’s boxing Olympic debut. Spencer has been hailed as one of Canada’s best bets for Olympic gold. According to her official website, Spencer is a three-time world champion and an eight-time national champion.
Tumua Anae, a Native Hawaiian, will be competing as the goalie for the U.S National Water Polo team. She began training with the National Team in 2010. Anae recorded sixteen saves at the 2012 FINA World League Super Final.
Adrienne Lyle, 27, is one of the youngest American dressage riders to compete in the Olympics. Lyle is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She earned a place on the American team after placing in the top four at the U.S. Equestrian Federation Dressage Festival of Champions and USEF Dressage Olympic Selection Trials on June 16th.
All four women are distinguished athletes competing not only for their countries, but for their Indigenous nations. Be sure to watch out for their events!
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According to The Ladies Home Journal, 34% of American women do not vote. What is THAT all about? Ladies, you have to vote. A lot of the talk in this presidential campaign is about you - your health, your employment, your family and who gets to make decisions about your life. You might be fine with letting the men have the final say. But you still need to VOTE!!! I have to say, I think the men should listen to the women in the world.
Like that Pope Benedict. What is he doing, ordering the Nuns on the Bus about? And not just the more outspoken nuns, either. Benedict wants to take over the whole Leadership Conference of Women Religious. What these nuns seem to be saying is the world needs more kindness. When you ask a group of people - nuns in this case - to work with the country's most marginalized people - the poor, the sick, the troubled, - well, you have to expect them to want to HELP the people they work with. American nuns are just taking their Christian gospel to the streets, admonishing law makers to remember all the citizens of the United States, not just the rich, the white, and the male.
Here's what the Huffington Post reports on how the LCWR responded to Pope Benedict at their annual conference. The ladies are behaving like ladies and offering to keep the lines of communication open.
Now, I went to parochial school, and I KNOW just how scary a determined sister can be. Maybe Benedict ran into one or two of those determined nuns back in his younger days. But he's a grown-up now. And if the best he can do, when negotiating with committed members of his flock, is to threaten them with take-over, he might not be the World Leader he thinks he is. I'm just saying.
So back to voting. If you have two X chromosomes, are over 18 and have not registered to vote, do so tomorrow. There are laws about being registered at least a month before an election in many states. In Pennsylvania, until the law is overturned, you will need a photo ID and possibly another form of ID to register. And you will need a government issued photo ID to actually cast a vote - unless fairness prevails. Take a lesson from the sisters. Get involved. Work to make things better.
I try not to get political on this blog - much. I don't care if you vote R or D or I or L or G or even, gasp, C. I DO care if you vote. Register. Vote. Here's a site that will tell you what you need to know. Registertovote.org.
Do it. Now.
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I'm glad that the VIDA count is reverberating through the literary world. Things in that world don't tend to degenerate into huge online brouhahas [with I guess, the Franzenfreude thing being an exception](although sometimes they turn into genteel brouhahas in the pages of major newspapers and magazines) so it's sometimes a bit difficult to see what is making waves and what isn't. I'm also sorry that I missed your panel w/ Delany and Reed. I hope it went well!
Dear Mister Cheney,
My name is Carla Lerner. I couldn't find an email address to contact you at, so that is why I am posting on this post. I apologize for lack of relevance to the particular blog post.
I was looking up images from the play Far Away by Caryl Churchill and I read your article on it. You mentioned that it was a play you constantly returned to, but had never seen. I have the excellent fortune to be playing Joan in a production of Far Away through the Columbia University MFA Directing program, so I wanted to invite you to come see. Maybe New York City is too much of a trot, especially on such sort notice. However, I really liked the way your wrote about Far Away, and in working on the play I have come to really love it, so I wanted to at least make the gesture of the invite. There is info on the facebook page if you are interested. http://www.facebook.com/events/424071084349015/?fref=ts
Cheers,
Carla