How Sexist Are We?
There was a conversation recently on the child_lit listserv about women historically making less money than men in terms of book contracts. In conjunction with this Janet Spaeth wrote that in the past, "Books by men were reviewed at in vastly greater numbers than were books by women. Since libraries tend to use book reviews, this practice resulted in lower sales for women, and thus began that vicious cycle, ‘justifying’ why women didn’t do as well in contracts, etc. Low sales=women don’t write as well, right? No, few book reviews=little attention by the buying public=low sales. ARRRRGH."
Huh. Is this true for me? I mean, I’ve never really parsed men vs. women when it comes to my reviews. Here are my 2009 stats as I see them then.
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Number of Men Reviewed:
Jan – 5
Feb – 4
Mar – 5
Apr – 4
May – 3
Jun – 6
Jul – 7
Aug – 4
Sept – 4
Oct – 3
Nov – 3
Dec – 5
=53
Number of Women Reviewed:
Jan – 3
Feb – 6
Mar – 5
Apr – 2
May – 3
Jun – 7
Jul – 8
Aug – 8
Sept – 6
Oct – 4
Nov – 2
Dec – 9
=63
Turns out I am sexist. Sexist in favor of the ladies. Is this the nature of the industry or my own particular prejudice? It’s only by a factor of 10 reviews, but that’s still significant. I’d be interested in seeing how other children’s literary bloggers rate. Well, folks?
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About Betsy Bird
Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.
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I would like to know how your review stats compare to the numbers of male children’s authors vs. female children’s authors, since it seems to me that the majority of those writing for children are women.
Looks like I’m offsetting your female bias in the other direction. My 2009 review numbers are:
30 by female authors
40 by male authors
I was a bit surprised. Even though I tend to gravitate toward books for boys (which, I would venture to say, are more often written by men), I assumed my stats would lean the other way. I’m interested to see what other folks come up with.
On the surface, my statistics are a little embarrassing. In 2009 I reviews 7 book by men authors and 28 books by women authors. I think that the main reason for this is that I tend to lean towards the teenage problem novel and they tend to be written by women. I do need to branch out in my reading choices — perhaps that would be a good resolution for this year. I must also say that I read more than 35 books this year (my total for the year was 90 books) but I don’t review all that I read.
My numbers go just the way I thought they would (though I didn’t anticipate the degree to which they would be skewed…). 88 women and 35 men (!!). This can partially be explained by the fact that I tend to read and blog about what I like (and I obviously like my chick lit…). Frankly, I don’t think I’ve ever paid attention to the gender of the authors I review, but I will now!
I think those statistics only apply to adult literature. I don’t have any review journals in front of my but a quick scan of my YA shelves shows that I’ve got many more books by women than men.
Of course, that goes along with the “children’s literature isn’t taken seriously by the literary establishment and that’s why women are just as successful in that field than men” argument.
I find all these statistics utterly fascinating. I too would like to see how my reviewing compares to the gender stats of what’s being published right now.
I count 33 men and 81 women in my 2009 reviews (not counting illustrators, counting co-authored books like Let It Snow once for each author). One thing I noticed is that many authors that I reviewed multiple times were women. Oh, and my picture book reviews were evenly split – the gender divide started in middle grade, and got quite wide with YA titles.
63 to 53 is within an expected range, so I wouldn’t call it biased in favor of women unless you have a history of that ratio. In other words, some years it could be more, some less.
My own stats are that I reviewed far more men than women until I attended Wiscon last year. Pre Wiscon, my stats were 25 to 12 in favor of men. Post Wiscon it was 16 to 13 in favor of men. Still more more than I would like, but I am mostly tracking white males vs. everyone else, not so much men vs. women. Previous years were similar to my pre-Wiscon period.
My reviews from last year consisted of 9 YA novels written by women, 5 YA novels written by men, 3 adult non-fiction by male authors, and 2 YA non-fiction by male authors. Also 1 YA professional development book by two women. (These numbers are kind of embarrassing compared to everyone else who has commented.)
I know I read more fiction by female authors, which is reflected in the above stats. What surprised me the most is that ALL the non-fiction I reviewed last year were by men. Part of the reason is that the five NF reviews were written for Guys Lit Wire and cross-posted to my own blog. And now that I think about, I probably do read more non-fiction written by men, though I don’t have any concrete numbers on this. Still, I feel like I should review more non-fiction by female authors this year.
40 males, 36 females over at Bookie Woogie. That includes both authors and illustrators in the count…
And for what it’s worth 3/4 of our picks are typically chosen by my kids, and they really have no clue about creator gender when they are selecting the books they like.
Interesting stats. Would love some MFA candidate or the SCBWI to do a little research, but here are some unscientific stats: My Class of 2k7 debut novelists group was 35 women, 4 men. Class of 2k8: 27 members, all women. 2k9: 22 members, 1 man. 2k10: 23 members, 1 man. It’s not uncommon for men to not “team up” as often, as critique group membership also tends to display, but that probably can’t account for all of that imbalance, which is in the neighborhood of a 10 or 15 to 1 ratio. I’d be willing to bet there are AT LEAST three times as many published women as men in the kidlit novel world, though PBs might well have more balance. So even 50/50 reviews are unevenly weighted toward those men.
I think that would be a fascinating analysis. I can’t tell you how grateful I was to have a woman selected as Ambassador to Young People’s Literature. But…why in the world was she not the first? Did a man have to legitimize the position?
Nah. In that case I think it was more that you needed someone with a love of the spotlight who could really draw a lot of attention to the position. That’s always been Scieszka’s bag. It had to be a goofball. And our female goofballs are sorely lacking at the moment. Which is why I think that THAT is the real position that needs to be filled here. We do gravitas beautifully but we need to work on our out-and-out silliness.
If you reviewed 63% books by women, but books by women make up (to invent a number) 80% of children’s books, then you are skewing in favor of men.
Yup. Sounds about right. Do you think the percentage is that high?
Betsy said: “…our female goofballs are sorely lacking at the moment.” But we have them! They just aren’t being nurtured into national icons. Funny women are, I think, regarded as “weird” but funny men are “hilarious and brilliant”. Just my opinion at the moment…
For this year’s Cybils, 20 of 22 finalists (91%) in the younger illustrated book categories (Fiction Picture Books, Non Fiction Picture Books, Easy Readers, Short Chapter) are illustrated by men. Also 2 books with photographs (also by men, I think). Typically the illustrator is paid more than the author on these types of books.
I do YA, and I’m way worse than you are, apparently. 41 women to 20 men, with one co-written by a husband and wife team, in 2010 (at thebooleyhouse.wordpress.com).
I do have a strong interest in books dealing with gender issues and sexual misconduct; I’d bet that there are more women writing about these issues than men (though men deal with them, too), so that may help account for the disparity.