With books coverage skewed in favour of men, female authors are often overlooked. Should we change our reading habits?
Mad about the girl … the success of Eleanor Catton and other female authors is not always reflected in books coverage. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian
Last month, American author and journalist Lilit Marcus wrote a piece for US culture site Flavorwire about her decision to read only books by women in 2013. A commenter soon came along to tell her that she shouldn't judge authors by gender or any other factor, including height (tall people and women having been equally oppressed, apparently).
When I shared the link on Facebook, one of my friends, herself an author, called it bizarre. But to me it seemed like a reasonable choice in the face of continued literary inequality.
Sure, this year we have a female Booker winner and an all-female Costa shortlist. But men have won the majority of both prizes. What's more, when a woman does bag a major award, there's no guarantee she'll get the credit. When Jennifer Egan won the National Book Critics Circle award in 2010, the LA Times reported it as a loss for Jonathan Franzen, who was also shortlisted.
In fact, books coverage is male-dominated across the board. For the past three years, literary organisation Vida has counted the gender balance in major publications in the UK and US. With few exceptions, the vast majority of book reviews and books reviewed are by men. One of the worst offenders is the London Review of Books, which devotes just 26% of its coverage to books by women. When author Kathryn Heyman asked why this was, the anaemic response from editor Deborah Friedell included the phrase "We're trying". Friedell gave no specific commitment to greater parity.
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When I shared the link on Facebook, one of my friends, herself an author, called it bizarre. But to me it seemed like a reasonable choice in the face of continued literary inequality.
Sure, this year we have a female Booker winner and an all-female Costa shortlist. But men have won the majority of both prizes. What's more, when a woman does bag a major award, there's no guarantee she'll get the credit. When Jennifer Egan won the National Book Critics Circle award in 2010, the LA Times reported it as a loss for Jonathan Franzen, who was also shortlisted.
In fact, books coverage is male-dominated across the board. For the past three years, literary organisation Vida has counted the gender balance in major publications in the UK and US. With few exceptions, the vast majority of book reviews and books reviewed are by men. One of the worst offenders is the London Review of Books, which devotes just 26% of its coverage to books by women. When author Kathryn Heyman asked why this was, the anaemic response from editor Deborah Friedell included the phrase "We're trying". Friedell gave no specific commitment to greater parity.
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