VIDA presents The 2011 Count, where they look at: "the rates of publication between women and men in many of our writing world's most prestigious literary outlets" -- i.e. the sex-ratio re. number of articles, book reviewers, and authors reviewed.
The graphic pie charts show the ugly results.
Obviously, I'm close to the last person who should weigh in on this (though I'm ... pleased ? to see that The New Republic is giving me an impressive run for the money ...), as I've been wondering for nearly a decade now How Sexist are We ? -- and haven't found the rate of reviewed authors who are women to fluctuate much beyond an historic average of around 15%. (As I noted last time around, part of the excuse I have hereabouts is that translated fiction tends to be overwhelming male-authored (also a problem, of course ...) -- around 80% in 2010, apparently, and a very quick and rough count of the books eligible for the Best Translated Book Award puts the female-authored count at about 22% for 2011, barely any better (which is also a reason why women are underrepresented among the longlisted titles for the Best Translated Book Award (see below) -- though less so among the translators of the longlisted books).)
Oddly, coverage has been much more female-welcoming at the complete review recently -- 18 of last 50 books reviewed were authored by women, far above the long-term rate -- even as I don't think I've been doing anything differently.
Obviously, I'm close to the last person who should weigh in on this (though I'm ... pleased ? to see that The New Republic is giving me an impressive run for the money ...), as I've been wondering for nearly a decade now How Sexist are We ? -- and haven't found the rate of reviewed authors who are women to fluctuate much beyond an historic average of around 15%. (As I noted last time around, part of the excuse I have hereabouts is that translated fiction tends to be overwhelming male-authored (also a problem, of course ...) -- around 80% in 2010, apparently, and a very quick and rough count of the books eligible for the Best Translated Book Award puts the female-authored count at about 22% for 2011, barely any better (which is also a reason why women are underrepresented among the longlisted titles for the Best Translated Book Award (see below) -- though less so among the translators of the longlisted books).)
Oddly, coverage has been much more female-welcoming at the complete review recently -- 18 of last 50 books reviewed were authored by women, far above the long-term rate -- even as I don't think I've been doing anything differently.