Friday 22 January 2010

Reviewing the Reviews

In 2008 for my Creative Writing dissertation, I conducted a 6-month case study on the female author’s place in the book review pages. Now, spurred on by a recent article in this issue of Mslexia magazine, I have decided to revisit my findings, baring in mind their recent research.

In the past, many female writers have been forced to adopt male pseudonyms in order to have their work taken seriously by the literary establishment and receive a ‘fair’ book review. With the rise of first, second and third-wave feminism, women writers have now come a long way from the constraints forced upon the 19th century female novelists such as George Eliot. But, can it now be said that women writers have finally managed to penetrate the glass ceiling and reach a state of equality within today’s literary world? And if not, what does this reveal about both the current attitudes towards female authors and publishing and reading trends in today’s market?

With the current market flooded with new and established writers, book reviews are one of the few methods available that identifies a book of significance to readers. And of all the different types of reviews, the newspaper book pages are regarded as the most influential in terms of sales as they reach the widest audience. It is therefore crucial that writers are treated without prejudice within these pages and receive a fair book review. Admittedly a review does not necessarily have to be a favourable one to be recognised fair, though ideally, it should be honest, constructive and free from discrimination.

There has been a lot of interesting research on women’s place in the book review pages over the years. In 1985 the group Women In Publishing completed an extensive study into this subject and found that the broadsheets, including the Times, the Guardian and the Mail on Sunday, were not only the most discriminative against women regarding the length of reviews, but they also showed a clear preference towards the male author. WIP also discovered that although women write and read more fiction than men, female authors actually received far fewer book reviews than male authors. For example, in 1985 the book pages of the Guardian, a newspaper that has always claimed to promote true journalistic standards of objectivity, reviewed on average only 19.54 per cent of women’s writing, compared to 75.86 per cent of fiction written by men.

However, WIP’s research was conducted over twenty years ago. So, what can now be said of more recent findings on women writers in our modern literary world? In 1999 writer Debbie Taylor founded a woman’s writing magazine called ‘Mslexia’, which focuses on practical and creative issues connected to women and writing. In an article written for the first issue entitled ‘Three Cures for Mslexia’ Taylor documents extensive research, which identified the modern female writer’s position in the literary market. Taylor discovered that in Autumn 1998 women writers received 32 per cent of the book reviews printed, whereas male writers received a much higher proportion of 68 per cent.

My own research, focusing solely on The Guardian’s book pages, revealed that in the Spring and Summer of 2007 male authors received approximately 64.3 per cent of the reviews printed, with women just receiving 35.7 per cent. Compared with Mslexia’s findings in the last ten years, the female author’s place in the review pages has only improved by approximately 3 per cent. Could this preference towards male authors in the newspaper review sections merely reflect a world in which women publish fewer books, or does it point to a pervasive, unconscious sexism in how these books are chosen for review or even how they are marketed and classified into genres?

Ironically, research suggests that women still write, read and indeed borrow significantly more fiction than men: the current statistic widely quoted by booksellers is that 60 per cent of all novels published are written by women. The discrepancy between how much work is published by women, and how much is actually reviewed may stem from the subjects that women typically write about. Men and women have different reading and writing preferences and women’s writing is often typecast under the headings of ‘chick–lit’, ‘mum–lit’ or the ‘domestic’ novel. Perhaps it’s because men’s genre writing is broken down into crime/adventure/S.A.S – it’s not called ‘men’s writing’ yet, and genre writing for women is called: ‘women’s writing’. But by categorizing different novels under the same headings, women’s writing does not receive as much (if any) coverage in the press as male orientated genres such as crime fiction. The domestic experiences are often perceived as pertaining only to women, whereas the experiences of men are supposedly universal. While, admittedly, many women do write ‘chick–lit’ and popular fiction, there is a sense that many novels written by women who challenge set stereotypes are often misunderstood or misclassified.

But by not reviewing women’s writing as much as men’s, the literary establishment could be construed as signifying that the experiences of women are not as valid or important as men’s experiences. For if women’s writing is defined as inferior, then women’s experiences are automatically denigrated as well. A discrimination against women’s writing in the literary industry may not even be a conscious one, however it is still as damaging if women’s experiences are simply not seen, and particularly when women’s work is not represented adequately in the book review pages. Literary editors may claim that their book pages reflect the tastes and demands of society, but by producing book pages that are biased against women, whether consciously or unconsciously, the literary establishment is simply perpetuating existing prejudices and subtly shaping people’s perceptions of reality. The problem may fundamentally lie in the way that women’s work is marketed, however, literary editors are in a unique position of responsibility to deal with the world of ideas, and are best placed to influence changes in attitudes.

What can we, as readers, do to combat this problem? Interestingly, in our technology rich age, there are many other mediums readily available for us to review books that we have recently read. As Jane Mackenzie points out in Myslexia, the literary pages are not the only door into the realm of books and ideas. There are thousands of book groups, review sites and discussion groups taking place now, and the more women try their hand at reviewing, the more chance we have of resetting the balance in the book reviewing world. There remains a great need for the promotion of women’s writing, an awareness and awakening of consciousness for us all to set the numbers straight.

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