{"id":3881,"date":"2012-03-08T14:06:35","date_gmt":"2012-03-08T03:06:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zenashapter.com\/blog\/?p=3881"},"modified":"2012-03-08T14:06:35","modified_gmt":"2012-03-08T03:06:35","slug":"today-is-international-womens-day-but-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/today-is-international-womens-day-but-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Today is International Women\u2019s Day \u2013 but why?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Why are women writers unhappy... they're selling books, aren't they?<\/p><\/div>\n

I don\u2019t often blog about the parts of my day I spend being a mum (wait, don\u2019t leave! This isn\u2019t a blog about motherhood!)… but today I\u2019m going to share this much with you \u2013 it\u2019s 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\u2019s often nothing to show for a day\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

Why am I sharing this with you?<\/p>\n

Well, last night I went to Shearer\u2019s Bookshop<\/a> in Leichhardt to listen to crime writer Lenny Bartulin<\/a> (De Luxe, The Black Russian<\/em>), author\/editor Jane Gleeson-White<\/a> (Australian Classics, Double Entry<\/em> and fiction editor of Overland Magazine<\/em>), novelist\/critic Emily Maguire<\/a> (Smoke in the Room<\/em>), and literary agent Sophie Hamley<\/a> talk about the differences between men and women writers.<\/p>\n

Author and Stella Prize co-founder Kirsten Tranter<\/a>, our host for the evening, started off by presenting us with some fairly devastating statistics (compiled by VIDA<\/a>) for women writers. We don\u2019t get reviewed as much as men, we don\u2019t get nominated for as many prizes, and we certainly don\u2019t win as many awards.<\/p>\n

So then, the question was out there \u2013 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?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Jane Gleeson-White, Kirsten Tranter, Emily Maguire, Lenny Bartulin, Sophie Hamley<\/p><\/div>\n

After joking about the sentimentality with which women are purported to write, the panellists each spoke about the complicated story that the statistics tell.<\/p>\n

Sophie Hamley could honestly say that she reads submissions to her agency in a gender vacuum. Lenny\u00a0Bartulin was a case in point. Having used his wife\u2019s email address to submit his work to her, Sophie couldn\u2019t be sure whether his \u2018Lenny\u2019 sign-off was a pseudonym or a real name.<\/p>\n

Lenny himself noted that, as a bookseller, he’d never had a customer ask \u201cwhere is the men\u2019s\/women\u2019s writing\u201d, whereas they often asked about subject matter and surely there\u2019s 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\u2019t be a conscious decision \u2013 it would be because they enjoy reading things women don\u2019t write about.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 of course, men and women write differently! He said:<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen write with the most courage… women have the strength. Whereas men \u2013 they are always hiding!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Most likely so.<\/p>\n

But if that\u2019s the case, there are bigger forces underpinning the disparity that Kirsten\u2019s statistics highlight.<\/p>\n

Lenny concluded by reminding us that statistics only tell part of the story, whereas a bookshop tells you everything \u2013 because no one is ashamed of their preferences in a bookshop. Reviews and awards don\u2019t influence sales much, he said, because when choosing books readers tend to only consider two things \u2013 what they like and what they perceive as quality (which they generally determine through in-shop recommendations and word-of-mouth).<\/p>\n

So then, if women are selling books irrespective of gender, why be discontent about the imbalance when it comes to reviews and awards?<\/p>\n

After listening to everyone talk last night, I think it comes down to one thing \u2013 recognition. When I cook a nice meal, I want my family to say thank you; when I give them clean clothes, I don\u2019t just want the clothes shoved in a drawer \u2013 I don\u2019t want my work to be invisible.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Acknowledging is visibility.<\/p><\/div>\n

At the back of one of my all-time favourite books, Margaret Atwood\u2019s The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/em>, there are fifteen pages entitled \u2018Historical Notes on The Handmaid\u2019s Tale\u2019<\/em>. They are not real historical notes, but a fictional creation by Atwood, designed to highlight this exact point.<\/p>\n

I know I\u2019m a good mum, and I know the work I do for my family is important \u2013 hell, as a mum, I\u2019m creating and building life. It\u2019s just\u2026 (and this is why I understand where Kirsten and other supporters of The Stella Prize<\/a> are coming from), the lack of recognition can sometimes get to you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t often blog about the parts of my day I spend being a mum (wait, don\u2019t leave! This isn\u2019t a blog about motherhood!)… but today I\u2019m going to share this much with you \u2013 it\u2019s a bit of an invisible job. The meals I cook are eaten, the clothes\u2026<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[198,285,299,355,374,398,565,585,636,642,683],"class_list":["post-3881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookish-inspection","tag-emily-maguire","tag-international-womens-day","tag-jane-gleeson-white","tag-kirsten-tranter","tag-lenny-bartulin","tag-margaret-atwood","tag-shearers-bookshop","tag-sophie-hamley","tag-the-handmaids-tale","tag-the-stella-prize","tag-vida"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zenashapter.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}