'Systemic exclusion' prompts plans for prize to 'respect and reward' marginalised authors
Some of the authors spotlit by the British Orange prize ... (l to r) Sarah Waters, Hilary Mantel, Ali Smith, Carrie Tiffany and Zadie Smith. Photograph: Chris Jackson/Getty
A group of Australian women writers and publishers are working to set up an equivalent of the Orange prize in their country, to combat what they describe as "the systemic exclusion of women writers over several decades" from the country's major literary awards.
For the second time in three years, not a single female author made the shortlist for the country's top books prize, the Miles Franklin, last month. The award – established, incidentally, through a bequest from the feminist and novelist Miles Franklin – has been won by a woman just 13 out of 50 times since it was set up in 1957, and only twice in the last decade. It is, said literary blogger Angela Meyer, on the announcement of the 2009 women-free shortlist, a "sausage-fest".
"What we are concerned with is the systemic exclusion of women writers over several decades - a situation that seems to be getting worse, not better," said novelist and publisher Sophie Cunningham, who together with a steering committee including former Miles Franklin judge and critic Kerryn Goldsworthy and Miles Franklin-longlisted novelist Kirsten Tranter, is looking to establish the new prize, which has a working title of A Prize of One's Own.
"We hope we can have the prize up by 2012, but it may be 2013. We're talking to sponsors. At this stage it's for just the one, fiction, prize," she said. "What we want to achieve is a prize that brings more readers to novels by women, and respects and rewards the work of women writers."
Cunningham said that while "we would prefer it if this award didn't have to exist – if writing by women was rewarded and valued on its own terms, with equal merit to the way that work written by men is," this was not, unfortunately, the case. "Women continue to be marginalised in our culture. Their words are deemed less interesting, less knowledgeable, less well formed, less worldly, and less worthy."
She pointed to the fact that several of Australia's State Premiers' literary awards also included no women writers on their fiction shortlists last year, and to statistics showing that although Australian publishing is a predominantly female industry (62%), most senior positions are held by men, with 68% of men who work in the industry earning more than A$100,000, as opposed to 32% of the women.
"I would argue that sexism is so ingrained in the arts industry as it stands that it is, unfortunately, necessary to find ways to draw the public's attention to the work of women writers," she said. "I'd like to quote [poet and novelist] Alison Croggon on the subject - she expresses this better than me. 'A world loaded in favour of one sex accounts for the pyramidal structure of gender. At the wide bottom of the writing world – the world of amateur writers on the internet, for instance – women, if anything, dominate. The closer you get to the top, the fewer women there are. And at the very top, as in this year's Miles Franklin, the presence of women is an exception. What to do about it? One thing is certain: passively assuming women are equal and will gradually work their way to equal status doesn't work. We need some different tools.' This notion of needing different tools is behind our desire to set up the award."
The steering committee, which also includes publisher Louise Swinn, essayist and author Monica Dux, Melbourne Writers festival programme manager Jenny Niven, publisher Aviva Tuffield, Kill Your Darlings editors Rebecca Starford and Jo Case and readings events coordinator Chris Gordon, will also look to work as a lobby group for women in publishing, to set up mentorship schemes, and to get together more rigorous research on women in publishing, said Cunningham.
It was formed following the release in February of statistics from US campaigners Vida showing the dramatic gender imbalance in the British and American literary establishment.
For the second time in three years, not a single female author made the shortlist for the country's top books prize, the Miles Franklin, last month. The award – established, incidentally, through a bequest from the feminist and novelist Miles Franklin – has been won by a woman just 13 out of 50 times since it was set up in 1957, and only twice in the last decade. It is, said literary blogger Angela Meyer, on the announcement of the 2009 women-free shortlist, a "sausage-fest".
"What we are concerned with is the systemic exclusion of women writers over several decades - a situation that seems to be getting worse, not better," said novelist and publisher Sophie Cunningham, who together with a steering committee including former Miles Franklin judge and critic Kerryn Goldsworthy and Miles Franklin-longlisted novelist Kirsten Tranter, is looking to establish the new prize, which has a working title of A Prize of One's Own.
"We hope we can have the prize up by 2012, but it may be 2013. We're talking to sponsors. At this stage it's for just the one, fiction, prize," she said. "What we want to achieve is a prize that brings more readers to novels by women, and respects and rewards the work of women writers."
Cunningham said that while "we would prefer it if this award didn't have to exist – if writing by women was rewarded and valued on its own terms, with equal merit to the way that work written by men is," this was not, unfortunately, the case. "Women continue to be marginalised in our culture. Their words are deemed less interesting, less knowledgeable, less well formed, less worldly, and less worthy."
She pointed to the fact that several of Australia's State Premiers' literary awards also included no women writers on their fiction shortlists last year, and to statistics showing that although Australian publishing is a predominantly female industry (62%), most senior positions are held by men, with 68% of men who work in the industry earning more than A$100,000, as opposed to 32% of the women.
"I would argue that sexism is so ingrained in the arts industry as it stands that it is, unfortunately, necessary to find ways to draw the public's attention to the work of women writers," she said. "I'd like to quote [poet and novelist] Alison Croggon on the subject - she expresses this better than me. 'A world loaded in favour of one sex accounts for the pyramidal structure of gender. At the wide bottom of the writing world – the world of amateur writers on the internet, for instance – women, if anything, dominate. The closer you get to the top, the fewer women there are. And at the very top, as in this year's Miles Franklin, the presence of women is an exception. What to do about it? One thing is certain: passively assuming women are equal and will gradually work their way to equal status doesn't work. We need some different tools.' This notion of needing different tools is behind our desire to set up the award."
The steering committee, which also includes publisher Louise Swinn, essayist and author Monica Dux, Melbourne Writers festival programme manager Jenny Niven, publisher Aviva Tuffield, Kill Your Darlings editors Rebecca Starford and Jo Case and readings events coordinator Chris Gordon, will also look to work as a lobby group for women in publishing, to set up mentorship schemes, and to get together more rigorous research on women in publishing, said Cunningham.
It was formed following the release in February of statistics from US campaigners Vida showing the dramatic gender imbalance in the British and American literary establishment.
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