Following the example of the VIDA count (examining the gender-make-up of reviewers, reviewed authors, etc. at various publications) The Guardian does a similar counting exercise in considering The gender balance of UK literary culture (though it should be noted that the "sample period" -- March, 2013 -- is a rather small one).
The figures (and graphs) are quite fascinating: the sample size really does seem rather small, but still, for both the Mail on Sunday (apparently a part of 'UK literary culture' -- who knew ?) and the London Review of Books to have only had male reviewers for works of fiction is pretty stunning -- though so is the fact that 93 per cent of reviews of works of fiction in The Times were by women. (I'm also disappointed to that the New Statesman (82.6%) The Spectator (71.4%) so overwhelmingly favor covering non rather than real fiction.)
John Dugdale gives an overview (sort of) of How we calculated the gender balance of UK literary journalism, but of particular interest is Alex Clark's long piece on Gender balancing the books. Among her observations going beyond the reviews-pages: a comparison of how well female-authored annotated texts did at the recent PEN auction, versus those by men.
The figures (and graphs) are quite fascinating: the sample size really does seem rather small, but still, for both the Mail on Sunday (apparently a part of 'UK literary culture' -- who knew ?) and the London Review of Books to have only had male reviewers for works of fiction is pretty stunning -- though so is the fact that 93 per cent of reviews of works of fiction in The Times were by women. (I'm also disappointed to that the New Statesman (82.6%) The Spectator (71.4%) so overwhelmingly favor covering non rather than real fiction.)
John Dugdale gives an overview (sort of) of How we calculated the gender balance of UK literary journalism, but of particular interest is Alex Clark's long piece on Gender balancing the books. Among her observations going beyond the reviews-pages: a comparison of how well female-authored annotated texts did at the recent PEN auction, versus those by men.