Research shows male writers still dominate books world

This article is more than 9 years old
Statistics from US campaigners Vida confirm dramatic gender imbalance in literary critics and the authors reviewed
Gender bias in books world
Gender bias in books world: Vida's website

The gender imbalance at the heart of the British and American literary establishment has been laid bare by a new study confirming that leading literary magazines focus their review coverage on books written by men, and commission more men than women to write about them.

Statistics compiled by Vida, an American organisation for women in the literary arts, found gender imbalances in every one of the publications cited, including the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Review of Books.

In the UK, the LRB reviewed 68 books by women and 195 by men in 2010, with men taking up 74% of the attention, and 78% of the reviews written by men. Seventy-five per cent of the books reviewed in the TLS were written by men (1,036 compared to 330) with 72% of its reviewers men.

Meanwhile Granta magazine, which does not review but includes original contributions, featured the work of 26 female and 49 male writers in 2010, with men making up 65% of the total.

In the US, The New York Review of Books shows a stronger bias. Among authors reviewed, 83% are men (306 compared to 59 women and 306 men), and the same statistic is true of reviewers (200 men, 39 women). The New York Times Book Review fares better, with only 60% of reviewers men (438 compared to 295 women). Of the authors with books reviewed, 65% were by men (524 compared to 283 by women).

"The truth is, these numbers don't lie," said Vida. "But that is just the beginning of this story. What, then, are they really telling us? We know women write. We know women read. It's time to begin asking why the 2010 numbers don't reflect those facts with any equity."

Peter Stothard, editor of the TLS, said the gender issue was "not a small matter" for the magazine or its readers. "We take it pretty seriously," he said. "I'm not too appalled by our figure, as I'd be very surprised if the authorship of published books was 50/50. And while women are heavy readers, we know they are heavy readers of the kind of fiction that is not likely to be reviewed in the pages of the TLS." The industry source for book data, Nielsen, does not keep records of authors' gender.

"The TLS is only interested in getting the best reviews of the most important books," Stothard continued. "Without making a fetish of having 50/50 contributors, we do have a lot of reviewers of both sexes and from all over the world. You have to keep an eye on it but I suspect we have a better story to tell than others."

John Freeman, the editor of Granta magazine, said he worries about "these gender imbalances a lot", citing the influence of writers such as Virginia Woolf and Margaret Atwood on the development of his own literary taste.

"While numbers and graphs like this are helpful," he said, "conspiracy theories are not, because we have to ask a deeper question, which is how gendered are our notions of storytelling? I have been on mostly women-run prize committees which questioned their own feminist bona fides and then voted for the men's books." Granta commissions equally between men and women, he continued, "but somehow [we] end up as we are. In the end, the most important thing, as editors, is the quality of the writing, but it is the deep and persistent nature of this issue, among other things, that made us decide to do an issue this spring called 'The F Word (Feminism)'."

The Guardian and Observer's own literary sections compare favourably with the publications cited by Vida, with the numbers of reviewers approaching gender parity. Over the past four weeks, 55% of the contributors to Guardian Review were male, while the Observer commissioned 57% of its book reviews from men. Sixty-five per cent of the books reviewed in the Guardian were written by men; the books written by men made up 59% of the Observer's coverage.

The Observer's literary editor, William Skidelsky, said that it would be "unduly rigid" to attempt to enforce "a strict 50/50 division of genders on the Observer's books pages", but added that he does "try to ensure each week that there is a decent male-female spread in terms both of the authors we cover and the people we get to review them".

"Obviously, there is some room for improvement here," he added, "but it could have been a lot worse."

Guardian books editor Claire Armitstead said: "We always try to keep an even balance but many more men offer themselves to review books than women, so we have to go out and find them. My own feeling is that there is an issue of confidence among women writers." She added that she was "relieved that our figures for reviewers are not far off 50/50 because that's the place where we've really got control and, as a female commissioning editor, I do think this is a really important issue."
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