Canadian Notes & Queries 80: The Gender Issue, Taddle Creek No. 26: Summer Issue, Granta 115: The F Word“If I were a man, and cared to know the world I lived in, I almost think it would make me a shade uneasy — the weight of that long silence of one half of the world.” — Elizabeth Robins, 1907
Recently Good Magazine published an article with a simple solution to inequity on conference panels. What if white men refused invitations to panels that don’t properly represent the diversity of their industries? The idea was so basic, yet I had never even considered it. Usually when I see five men on a magazine, marketing, tech or publishing panel, I criticize the organizers: “You couldn’t find a single woman?” I ask. It never occurred to me to question the participants.
Good broke it down:
“Why don’t the white men who are asked to engage in this nonsense simply stop doing it? The boycott is a protest with a long history of success. If white, male elites started saying, ‘I will not participate in your panel, event, or article if it is all about white men,’ chances are these panels and articles would quickly dry up — or become more diverse.”
But why not take this ingenious idea even further? Since literary publications so often struggle with gender disparity, in their contributor lists and mastheads, in the books they review and the viewpoints they include, why don’t men who consider themselves allies to equality simply refuse publication? Why doesn’t the “How do we fix this?” question include the responsibility of male writers, not just male editors, in its solution? Why shouldn’t writers cultivate a list of publications they will and won’t submit or pitch to on the basis of equity?
I realize publication is a holy grail of sorts for those early in their careers, and asking struggling up-and-comers, male or not, to refuse it is certainly a tall order — especially if it is a question of livelihood. But what of those in demand: writers who have the liberty, the privilege, and the means to publish where they like? Maybe it isn’t too novel a concept to have them recognize the glaring inequities of the literary publications that endeavour to include them, and in extreme cases say “no thanks.”
It’s no secret that literary periodicals are failing female writers. It seems they share a knack for siloing off women into special issues once a year, stuffing the contents with female experiences, concerns, and viewpoints, and then ignoring them the rest of the time. Literary editors commonly march out an occasional or annual gender issue, or a woman’s issue, or a feminism issue — or mistakenly assume the concepts are interchangeable. They wave around the lady issue as if to say “Look! We included you! Thank us!” but this only succeeds in making women’s writing, or issues of gender, a “special interest,” and shuts up any arguments to the contrary. The writing community is then forced to rehash the same gag-worthy conversations on mind-numbing repeat. Is feminism dead? Is feminism obsolete? Is women’s writing different from men’s writing? Have women achieved equality? Should we still be having this conversation? (No, no, no, no, and obviously yes, or you wouldn’t be reading this.)
Take, for example, Canadian Notes & Queries. Late last year, the publication devoted an entire issue to capital-G Gender (which oddly contained a piece, written by a man, titled “Behind Enemy Lines: My Life in an All-Women’s Book Club”). While you would assume CNQ’s study of gender would at the very least include a balance of voices, the issue had a rough count of eighteen male and seven female contributors. The journal’s following issue included writing by twenty-one men and three women, one of whom was Margaret Atwood.
Rather than gifting readers with an annual taste of women’s ideas, writing, and experiences in a male-dominated gender issue, wouldn’t it have been better for Canadian Notes and Queries to use its limited resources to consistently integrate female voices? A quick look at CNQ’s online list of contributors reveals that less than one out of every five are women. Of course, there may be many reasons for this beyond editorial discretion, including a simple lack of submissions or pitches, but it feels important to note that another venerable literary publication has no problems publishing gender-balanced issues. Toronto’s Taddle Creek, with a male editor at its helm, is about to launch a summer issue that has an equal split of female and male contributors, despite drawing from a smaller local talent pool. If that magazine can find equal talent in a single city, surely everyone else can find it across the country.
I realize that counting bylines only tells a part of the story, and that small, under-resourced Canadian publications are limited in their ability to outreach effectively, but when the gender disparity is so glaring, does it hurt to ask the question “What if some of those male contributors simply said no?” Are magazine issues devoted to women really the answer to our collective lack of attention to women’s writing — or is it time to move beyond that and question how government-funded publications can be allowed to consistently exclude women from their ranks?
On the other side of this argument lies the U.K.’s Granta, and the recent release of its “The F Word” issue, a tome dedicated to feminism and women’s writing on the topic, with 100 percent of its contributors female. (Incidentally, Granta, while not perfect on the gender equality front, actually fares better than most — 2010 saw it publish twenty-six women to forty-nine men overall.) And while I’m not an advocate for a “special issue” treatment of over half of the population, I would argue that this execution remains a valuable necessity of the current climate. Rather than simply paying lip service to the aforementioned concerns, Granta thoughtfully laid out a variety of viewpoints. There is practiced feminist ideology in its exclusively female issue, but also an additional dissection of women’s experiences, written in a style often missing from “serious” literary circles. The women who wrote for Granta’s F Word issue are writing their lives in a realm that so often excludes them, and despite the “special issue” silo, the result is refreshing and necessary.
So does the special women’s issue get us closer to or further away from equity? I suppose at the very least, its mere existence gets us talking about these concerns rather than blindly publishing, purchasing, and consuming literature without critique or question. It’s no secret that accusations of sexism make people defensive, and discussions around “affirmative action”–style editorial make people, especially editors, extremely anxious. All I know is that if, as a community, we actually care about our literature representing that long-silenced half, we have no choice but to talk about it without anger, and to be open to constructive, practical solutions. We have to resign ourselves to being uncomfortable.
Of course, glass houses: this very animal has its own history of gender disparity, and is certainly imperfect on that front. Successfully including female voices is a long process wrought with myriad forces. At times it’s thankless work, and it’s very likely work that a publication’s readership will never see. Real progress is nothing more than the willingness to acknowledge, discuss, and engage with the issues without resentment. Eventually, issue by issue, the bylines balance, and the publication becomes better for it.
Ultimately, what editors and publishers do with their own magazines — whether they choose to deliberately publish women as an attempt to combat sexism, or keep taking on what they refer to as “the best writing” regardless of gender — is their own business. But supporters, readers, and writers also have the ability and responsibility to decide, and people who truly love literature should encourage them to do so.
And maybe, like Good suggests, it’s time for the men to make some room — for no other reason than their own volition.
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Seenloitering: The “gender analysis” in this article is upside down. Marie Calloway is a threat to the status quo because she threatens the myth that women are morally superior, above...
Legong: I know I am replying to this pathetic, racist statement a little late and the whole ignorant rant probably doesn’t even deserve a reply. Wanhenglo, if we were all to generalise about...
Legong: I know I am replying to this pathetic, racist statement a little late and the whole ignorant rant probably doesn’t even deserve a reply. Wanhenglo, if we were all to generalise about...
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Guest: I didn’t want babies or a period any more. I KNEW without a doubt I did not want children so I had been asking for a hysterectomy since I was 19. I finally got it at 39. My...
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