7 Out of 10 Double-Reviewed Books at the 'Times' Are By Men
Anonymous ladies at Slate crunch the number of book reviews by gender at the New York Times over the last two years (throwing their data-gathering "associate editor Chris Wilson" under the bus as they do so-no Times reviews in your future, buddy!). So: "Of the 545 books reviewed between June 29, 2008 and Aug. 27, 2010, 338 were written by men (62 percent of the total) [and] 207 were written by women (38 percent of the total)…. Of the 101 books that received two reviews in that period: 72 were written by men (71 percent)."
One note on that data: that second number is somewhat tricky. As I understand it, to this day the NYT Book Review and the paper's daily book reviewers operate entirely independently, so that second number isn't necessarily proof of an organized and overarching pro-male bias in anointing "important" books by men, but perhaps a sign that two independent groups skew male. (The overlap in two purple circles of a Venn diagram comes up red, you know what I mean?)
Also it could all just mean that women less often write important and worthy and notable books. (No???)
I also don't think it means that book reviewers and editors hate or avoid books by women!
It is definitely, to me, another sign that the daily and Book Review book coverage should at last be coordinated (if that is not a project underway already). If I owned a newspaper that covered books (and in my mind, I do!), in a world with tens of thousands of books of fiction alone published in English every year, increasing the number of books reviewed by fifty a year would seem to me to be a useful goal. This system is a remnant of the sacrosanct status of critics at the Times; historically critics cover what they like and no editorial schemes dare intrude.
Another disclaimer: it's just a newspaper! They're allowed to cover what they like, how they like!
Still, this also gives weight to arguments that we are not beyond the basics of reminding institutions how we all have an interest in basic diversity. (And reminding certain institutions why the world is leaving them behind.) I know that viewpoint seems very Vassar College 1992 to some people!
In conclusion, I encourage everyone to go buy Julia Holmes' book Meeks, which received a very nice review by a man in the Times.
Three statements phrased as questions.
Are there more reviews by women or by men.
Are there more reviewers who are women then there are reviewers who are men.
Do editors tend to assign books by men to men, books by women to women.
Sorry! too much copyediting makes the baby go blind — THAN there are.
It's worth mentioning every once in a while that a NYTBR is different from a BR in the NYT; it could prevent people from having to read Jennifer Egan.
There should be more reviews YES. Tons and tons of really short ones, and just a few really long ones.
This is exactly wrong.
There should be as many reviews as there are now. They should all be somewhat longer, better argued, and the reviewers should be paid at a higher rate.
Lionel Shriver (who is a woman in case you didn't know) thinks publishers are partly to blame: "I write a nasty book. And they want a girly cover on it"
Lionel Shriver is a terrific writer of "literary" fiction, and the idea of a publisher trying to make her work appeal to the Jodi-Picoult-Blue-Ocean-Watercolor-Or-Shopaholic-Cartoon-Of-A-Shoe crowd is beyond depressing.
p.s. Also, I wish there were somewhere to read book review style recommendations of classic literature. (Such as Three Guineas!!)
It's that last disclaimer that seems most important to me. Want more books by women to be reviewed? Start a book review! Yes, yes, you won't have the same reach as the NYT but they've been building audience for a hundred years or so.
I don't mean to sound unsympathetic, but that skew doesn't seem that bad. 62-38. I think instead of complaining about all this institutional- alleged- sexism, why not do something productive by saying "Instead of reviewing X piece of tripe by a penis toting writer, why didn't you review Y masterpiece by this vagina owning visionary?"
If you just point out the mistake, it's only complaining. Just sayin'.
I've often thought of the double-review as an indicator that I would hate the book in question. Total red flag.
Go to the head of the class. SRSLY +1000
I respect your contrarianism, but THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS, on its second review today, sounds damn good.
As an old, I'm disappointed that the New Yorker seems to have been focusing exclusively on writers under 40 recently. What is up with that?
Gender disparity! Blog-worthy topicking since like only six people had a blog!
Oh, also, the disparity is coming from inside the house! The Awl Media Network has yet to announce a blog with a female site lead (cue conspiracy music!). Of course, it is true the ladies aren't that funny.
Dude.
Funny hmmm.
Math is hard.
Should have scrolled down. Delete the above and replace with "Science is hard".
The numbers are misleading. The double-reviews aren't more biased than the overall pool. They didn't publish the spreadsheet, but based on the Slate figures, it works out this way:
There are 545 books reviewed, 62% by men, 38% by women. A bias. Then, looking at double reviews, it looks like the bias gets worse (71 vs 29). But it doesn't: there are 646 reviews written (including double reviews), of those 410 are reviews of books by men (63%) and 236 by women (37%). The "increasing" bias evident in the double reviews is exactly what you would expect if they were pulling at random from the initial pool of 545 books.
Math is hard.
It's contrarian math!
Actually, we did publish the spreadsheet. If you had read to the end of the article, it says so in the final paragraph! Here's a link though: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AptyZVmKeGUidHgySHJnZ05EWUpkOGRaalRCZlhiMmc&hl=en#gid=0
I'm too lazy (and incompetent) to do it myself, but can somebody do the math for Slate's book reviews?
In conclusion, I encourage everyone to go buy Julia Holmes' book Meeks, which received a very nice review by a man in the Times.
And I did! Time for the Awl Review of Books! Like the LRB but crankier!
This is exactly right.
Publishers are partly to blame for this by relentlessly packaging brilliant women writers as "beloved" and talking up their "heartwarming" "domestic fiction" and all that bullshit. Memo to Judy Clain, et al.: Updike wrote "domestic fiction," and so did motherfucking Saul Bellow. If you want to wreathe your women writers in a cloud of grandmother farts, cozy sweater lint and tea steam, then go do it at Storey Publishing and leave the rest of us in peace.
Percentage of the three founding members of THIS BLOG who are male: 100%
HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN YOURSELVES???