Roundup: The Count | Why Not Contemporary Recovery Projects? | Some Editors Who Are Gonna Try Harder

Alyss Dixson has done a great service by compiling many of the responses to VIDA's The Count and its dismal data.

There's a new response at Slate from Katha Pollitt today, too:

Both sexes see life through a gendered lens, after all. But while women are constantly reminded that their views are only partial, men have the luxury—in life as in grammar—of thinking they represent humanity, tout court. So while male editors may say they wish they had more women writers, women are always going to be an afterthought for them, an add-on, a specialty item—dance criticism. As in those studies that show men overestimate the number of women in a group—one-third feels like half, half feels like a majority—a big piece by a woman two years ago feels like it was published last week, and one or two pieces by women feels like half the magazine. [read the rest]

[The Count at vidaweb.org]

*

Scholars who study African American or women writers have been performing "recovery projects" in full force since the 60s and 70s, recasting the canon in a way that better represents the important literature that was forgotten, hidden, or repressed. For example, no one would argue, now, that Their Eyes Were Watching God shouldn't be regularly assigned reading in high schools and colleges. But of course, for many decades, no one had ever heard of Zora Neale Hurston.

There are so many reasons why high-quality work gets forgotten. Taste, as we know, is subjective. (I can say "high-quality" knowing very well that to certain editors, "high-quality" simply means "looks like the rest of the stuff we publish mostly by white guys.") The numbers, on the other hand, are objective data. Just as much as being a tastemaker, it is an editor's job to make sure his or her publication includes diverse voices, includes work by people who don't look and talk and write just like him or her. If the literary canon can be rebuilt by scholars getting their hands dirty in archives and cemeteries (see Hurston link above), why shouldn't today's editors see it as their job to do the same for their contemporaries? It is their job, after all. I and many small press or literary magazine editors I know work for free, but for (probably) all of the editors of the magazines counted, editors are getting paid to make these choices.

I'm happy that several editors of magazines that VIDA counted have already expressed their determination to try harder. As Pollitt points out in the article above, it may only take an editor 20 minutes a week to redress imbalances and make sure that the voices of women and other underrepresented groups are heard in important venues. Moving toward these changes will only make their magazines that much richer.

Rob Spillman at Tin House:

The bottom line at Tin House is that we are aware of the gender disparity, we are concerned about these numbers, and we are committed to redoubling our efforts to solicit women writers. Personally, I am deeply tuned into the reality of gender inequality: I am married to a short story writer, and my fifteen year-old daughter is a drummer in a feminist punk rock band. Since the start of Tin House twelve years ago, I have been committed to publishing the best work I can find. Agents of female writers, publishers of female writers, and especially female writers, please send us your work. We really want your work.

Christian Wiman at Poetry magazine:

We might have ten poems by ten men in one issue and one twenty-page poem by a woman. Who is getting more attention in that instance? The main point we’re trying to make is that we are very conscious of the distribution between men and women poets, but we think more in terms of space devoted to the work rather than simply a tally of names.

Still, it’s not equal, and it ought to be. The VIDA results seem to us a useful and necessary warning. For our part, we’re going to begin trying even harder.