I don't know why I keep reading the NYTimes Book Review with its crappy record of ignoring women's writing (when it's not outright belittling it). I guess I keep hoping that, magically, one day that will change. Then I remind myself that one of the definitions of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who feels this way about the male literary world though. One of my favorite book blogs, Fade Theory, has a link to an interview with Spanish author Lucia Etxebarria in cafebabel. (I haven't read any of her books as they're currently only available in her native Spanish and in French translations), Etxebarria has been a "journalist, translator, script-writer and has worked in advertising" in addition to writing novels and non-fiction books about pop culture. About male writers, she says,
‘Male artists are artists, female artists are women. That’s the way things work, and they have always been this way. Literature is an even more macho art than others. There’s a border between sentimental literature and virile literature, which should be kept in mind. Male writers are very embedded into their virility, and it’s a threat if we women sell more books than them.’ The former professor at the University of Aberdeen is jokingly blunt. ‘My books sell well and the best part is that I’m blunt, so people categorise me as a lesbian, or in the best case, as an emasculator.’
If it's a given that women writers ≠ artists, and I think it's safe to say that's true, then in that light, you can see the Times's exclusion of women as part of a conspiracy to erase our words. This is especially true with their high toned and highbrow attitude, though they've now condescended to review (gasp!) mass market fiction (and funny how much of that is written by women!), because in trade fiction, women dominate and on the non-fiction best seller list, the proportion of women to men is almost even, too. And yet, this week's perfidy reviews in the Book Review (Sunday, May 25, 2008): books by men: 11/13. 12/13 if you count the one that's co-authored with a woman, even though her name comes first.
Some things never change. But it's good to have somebody say it out loud.
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