Why are women writers unhappy... they're selling books, aren't they?
I don’t often blog about the parts of my day I spend being a mum (wait, don’t leave! This isn’t a blog about motherhood!)… but today I’m going to share this much with you – it’s a bit of an invisible job. The meals I cook are eaten, the clothes I wash are soon dirty, nobody sees the dirt I’ve already cleaned away, and the Maths and English I teach my 4yr-old and 6yr-old is absorbed… invisibly. So there’s often nothing to show for a day’s work.
Why am I sharing this with you?
Well, last night I went to Shearer’s Bookshop in Leichhardt to listen to crime writer Lenny Bartulin (De Luxe, The Black Russian), author/editor Jane Gleeson-White (Australian Classics, Double Entry and fiction editor of Overland Magazine), novelist/critic Emily Maguire (Smoke in the Room), and literary agent Sophie Hamley talk about the differences between men and women writers.
Author and Stella Prize co-founder Kirsten Tranter, our host for the evening, started off by presenting us with some fairly devastating statistics (compiled by VIDA) for women writers. We don’t get reviewed as much as men, we don’t get nominated for as many prizes, and we certainly don’t win as many awards.
So then, the question was out there – is this disparity due to the differences in the way men and women write? In fact, are there any differences; or is it more the way we, as readers, judge men and women writers?
Jane Gleeson-White, Kirsten Tranter, Emily Maguire, Lenny Bartulin, Sophie Hamley
After joking about the sentimentality with which women are purported to write, the panellists each spoke about the complicated story that the statistics tell.
Sophie Hamley could honestly say that she reads submissions to her agency in a gender vacuum. Lenny Bartulin was a case in point. Having used his wife’s email address to submit his work to her, Sophie couldn’t be sure whether his ‘Lenny’ sign-off was a pseudonym or a real name.
Lenny himself noted that, as a bookseller, he’d never had a customer ask “where is the men’s/women’s writing”, whereas they often asked about subject matter and surely there’s nothing wrong with being interested in different things? For example, a 60yr-old man coming into his bookshop would never buy a book written by a woman, but that wouldn’t be a conscious decision – it would be because they enjoy reading things women don’t write about.
Jane Gleeson-White, herself the author of an accounting book with a mostly male audience, said that her Sudanese taxi driver earlier that night had given her a vehement answer to the question – of course, men and women write differently! He said:
“Women write with the most courage… women have the strength. Whereas men – they are always hiding!”
This led Emily Maguire to speak about the different life experiences men and women have around the world and how those experiences must of course inform their writing.
Which in turn spurred the audience to then question whether the subject matter women and men chose to write about actually stemmed from the culture influencing them, as they grow up.
Most likely so.
But if that’s the case, there are bigger forces underpinning the disparity that Kirsten’s statistics highlight.
Lenny concluded by reminding us that statistics only tell part of the story, whereas a bookshop tells you everything – because no one is ashamed of their preferences in a bookshop. Reviews and awards don’t influence sales much, he said, because when choosing books readers tend to only consider two things – what they like and what they perceive as quality (which they generally determine through in-shop recommendations and word-of-mouth).
So then, if women are selling books irrespective of gender, why be discontent about the imbalance when it comes to reviews and awards?
After listening to everyone talk last night, I think it comes down to one thing – recognition. When I cook a nice meal, I want my family to say thank you; when I give them clean clothes, I don’t just want the clothes shoved in a drawer – I don’t want my work to be invisible.
Acknowledging is visibility.
At the back of one of my all-time favourite books, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, there are fifteen pages entitled ‘Historical Notes on The Handmaid’s Tale’. They are not real historical notes, but a fictional creation by Atwood, designed to highlight this exact point.
I know I’m a good mum, and I know the work I do for my family is important – hell, as a mum, I’m creating and building life. It’s just… (and this is why I understand where Kirsten and other supporters of The Stella Prize are coming from), the lack of recognition can sometimes get to you.
