Readin', 'Ritin', and (Publishing) 'Rithmetic

The rarity of spouses like Vladimir Nabokov's, who dedicated her life to supporting his career, may be hindering gender parity in literature.

If boys won’t read books with girl protagonists, the solution is not to create more explicitly “boy” books, the solution is to delve deeply into “why,” says Soraya Chemaly. Last week, The Independent announced it would no longer review books that were specifically marketed to either boys or girls. As they put it, “Gender-specific books demean all …

"When we talk about gender imbalance in the media, it’s not just about women being generally underrepresented compared to men–it’s also about what topics they’re covering. Are women’s voices present in the media conversations around the full range of important issue areas of the day, or are they still siloed into certain traditionally feminine spheres? Welp, take a look at today’s depressing chart brought to you by Foreign Policy using data from The Op-Ed Project."

"Despite years of progress for women in science, men continue to dominate scientific publishing in nearly every country, according to new research in the journal Nature.

Not only do men publish far more research than their female colleagues, but papers with men as the dominant author are more likely to be cited by other researchers."

"Literary girls don't take road-trips to find themselves; they take trips to find men."

I came of age without a literary soulmate. Growing up, I read every book recommended to me. Nick Carraway's lucid account of the 1920's seduced me. Huck Finn's journey up the river showed me the close link between maturity and youth, and Ray Bradbury taught me to be wary of big government as well as the burning temperature of paper. While the male characters of literature built countries, waged wars, and traveled while smoking plenty of illicit substances, the women were utterly boring.

"Journalism is changing, and so is the role of women in the workplace. But the two are not always evolving in harmony. Women substantially outnumber men in journalism training and enter the profession in (slightly) greater numbers, but still only a relative few rise to senior jobs. The pay gap between male and female journalists remains stubbornly wide, and older women - especially if they have taken a career break - find it difficult to retain a place in the industry.

Women in journalism still cluster around particular subject genres. Historically, they were almost totally confined to “pink ghettos”, but as more women entered the industry, there was an expectation that their opportunities would expand and that they would duly embrace areas that had been traditionally male, like hard news, crime or politics.

But a byline analysis of UK national newspapers in 2012 indicates that some areas still have very few women, in particular politics, sport and opinion writing. These findings are also supported by qualitative interview data. There are similar lacunae in the US press."