tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7109378176648403566.post846812944039407999..comments2023-12-26T04:46:33.026-05:00Comments on The Unexpected Twists and Turns: CBC: Elephant in the RoomHeatherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10864934440190894300noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7109378176648403566.post-42703149609722022092011-03-06T19:22:03.878-05:002011-03-06T19:22:03.878-05:00Thanks for stopping by. I liked the books this yea...Thanks for stopping by. I liked the books this year, but definitely not the panel. I didn't hear Michael Enright, but he could very well have been talking about the VIDA 2010 count. They've tallying those exact figures in publishing, such as how many women are being reviewed and how many women are actually reviewing books. VIDA also looked into how many stories were actually written by women from cover to cover. Pretty dismal, but with figures at least we have more of a leg to stand on. HHeatherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10864934440190894300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7109378176648403566.post-73144574351110361762011-03-06T18:30:08.989-05:002011-03-06T18:30:08.989-05:00Great piece. I found Canada Reads a little maddeni...Great piece. I found Canada Reads a little maddening this year because of Georges Laroques. I don't know how many times he commented on various books saying that they weren't interesting because they were either about women or written by women. Sure, he got some arguments in return but really - someone needed to smack that ex-NHLer up against the boards.<br /><br />Did you hear The Sunday Edition with Michael Enright a couple of weeks ago? He had a woman talking about how all the major magazine publications in the US (Harpers, Atlantic, etc) overwhelmingly publish men. It was depressing.<br /><br />Great blog!Leilahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03438591281630293844noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7109378176648403566.post-34272395185190175032011-02-16T07:15:26.529-05:002011-02-16T07:15:26.529-05:00You're very welcome Loucas.
I understand your...You're very welcome Loucas.<br /><br />I understand your arguments, and because I don't work in the publishing field I can only speculate and look for red flags.<br /><br />One red flag is the overwhelming number of men walking away with awards, prize money and book sales. Another is the press men receive for their books. Another is the sheer number of men reviewing books (I'm guessing that only a minority are reviewing books by women).<br /><br />There's also the prestige of men's book. Read my post "Reads from Men," and listen to what Jonathan Franzen (Time Magazine's the novelist of the century...?) and why he didn't want an Oprah sticker on his book.<br /><br />All these red flags signal that we need further investigation into the publishing industry, its practices and standards. We can both agree that from what I have dug up cries out for serious consideration. It's up to the CBC to prove its hands are clean.Heatherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10864934440190894300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7109378176648403566.post-13424374578740111002011-02-16T01:54:16.514-05:002011-02-16T01:54:16.514-05:00Thank you for your response Heather. The numbers a...Thank you for your response Heather. The numbers are overwhelmingly in favor of male presence and involvement in the domain of books (both regarding those who write them and those who publicly talk about them and promote them - given that award-winning helps a book's popularity and sales).<br /><br />The statistics you have given raises a topic of discussion that cries out for serious consideration. I agree with that. There is something here that suggests things are out of sorts.<br /><br />Yet, I don't see how these numbers by themselves necessarily suggest sexism in the publishing industry. That may very well be the case, but we cannot draw that conclusion from these numbers alone. Particularly when the readership base has a very powerful female element that is in the position to make or break a male-biased authorship base.<br /><br />It is also simplistic to assume that the whole publishing industry operates under the same motivations or readership targets. Beyond mainstream publishing, there are influential book niches focusing on male readers and there are those focusing on female readers. You'll be hard-pressed to sell a romance novel to a guy or get male authors to dominate the romance-writing field - I assume. I used this stereotype on purpose. Stereotypes exist because they have receptive markets that support them.<br /><br />If there is a case for discrimination to be made here, I suspect that the answer will most likely come from the behavior and preferences of the readers and not necessarily from the practices of the publishing industry - they are only responding to what has proven to be good for them.<br /><br />I have not worked in the publishing industry, but I have worked for corporations (same thing), and the underlying survival moto of a corporation always is "promote and sell what people want to buy."<br /><br />Thank you for giving me the space to participate in this discussion.Thomas Marselloshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15879899762458380374noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7109378176648403566.post-8307048533405698322011-02-15T21:07:14.925-05:002011-02-15T21:07:14.925-05:00Of course, I'll answer your questions. I don&#...Of course, I'll answer your questions. I don't know the relationship between the awards and bestseller lists. Your assumption makes sense, but I don't ever recall any publication/organization disclosing the criteria for determining a winner. This list comes from VIDA.<br />Here's the link to the full list. You might find your answer there:<br />http://vidaweb.org/best-of-2009<br /><br />Here's an interesting link to how they calculate bestsellers. Please note that it's possible to cheat and "double-count" books: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_Sense<br /><br />I'm sure if there was an investigation into the publishing world we would find out a lot of interesting things about gender and book preferences.<br /><br />As for your question: How could they deliberately favor and promote a male-biased authorship base if it doesn't pay at the bookstore? I can only speculate (maybe someone can weigh in here) but from what I found in my research today, it looks like publishers go after both men and women readers by putting a good part of their promotional money into books by male authors. Here's some of the info I found. For a full list, check out the link at the end. <br /><br />At Harper's Magazine in 2010: <br /># of women book reviewers-6. <br /># of men book reviewers-27.<br /># of reviews of books written by women-21.<br /># of reviews of books written by men-46.<br /><br />At the London Review of Books in 2010: <br /># of women book reviewers-47.<br /># of men book reviewers-168.<br /># of reviews of books written by women-68.<br /># of reviews of books written by men-195.<br /><br />At the New York Review of Books in 2010<br /># of women book reviewers-39.<br /># of men book reviewers-200.<br /># of reviews of books written by women-59.<br /># of reviews of books written by men-306.<br /><br />At the New York Times Book Review in 2010<br /># of women book reviewers-295.<br /># of men book reviewers-438.<br /># of reviews of books written by women-283.<br /># of reviews of books written by men-524.<br /><br />Source: Vida http://vidaweb.org/the-count-2010#more-809<br /><br />What I think is obvious (the elephant) is that men keep walking away with the awards and the book sales. Remember in 10 years of Canada Reads, only two winners have been women.<br /><br />I know that there are men out there who read books by both men and women. My criticism is not of men. My criticism is of the sexism in publishing and our publicly-owned CBC pandering to it, instead of questioning it and doing something about it.Heatherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10864934440190894300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7109378176648403566.post-20033463493155724922011-02-15T13:33:07.755-05:002011-02-15T13:33:07.755-05:00I am a man too, so I may not be able to convince y...I am a man too, so I may not be able to convince you that my question is addressed from a thinking reader's point of view and not from a male reader's point of view, but here it goes anyway:<br /><br />If women do most of the reading ("women make up the lion's share of readers" as you say, and you give the numbers to prove it, and I definitely believe that), do the bestsellers lists reflect the same male bias as the awards lists you have researched and provided? If the two are in tune (which I suspect they are), then the male author bias could also reflect a female preference, not just a publishing industry male favoritism. If the bestsellers lists tell a different story, then I think the publishing industry (from a marketing and business perspective) is sleeping at the wheel. How could they deliberately favor and promote a male-biased authorship base if it doesn't pay at the bookstore?<br /><br />Also, I would think that to indirectly imply that women read what's predominately available to them (chosen by men-biased publishers) would be not only patronizing, but certainly offensive to women. <br /><br />In any case, although I do think there is some truth to your thesis, the elephant in the room may not be as obvious as it seems.<br /><br />And to close, I favor 5 top authors at the moment (that's all I can handle). Three are women and two are men. But to tell you the truth, until you brought this subject up, I had never even thought about it.Thomas Marselloshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15879899762458380374noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7109378176648403566.post-80075263159461609862011-02-15T09:08:02.767-05:002011-02-15T09:08:02.767-05:00I have to say that this isn't about the panel....I have to say that this isn't about the panel. They came across as ill-prepared and occasional readers at best, and obviously, a CNN commentator can spin anything to the public and make it sound reasonable. But that's spin! I didn't tune in to listen to spin. I tuned in to listen to the literary merits of five books, which did not transpire.Heatherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10864934440190894300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7109378176648403566.post-88899832030955941772011-02-15T08:38:04.985-05:002011-02-15T08:38:04.985-05:00Very interesting perspective. And I agree. Unfor...Very interesting perspective. And I agree. Unfortunately, this year's debates encouraged all of this. It was shocking that Lorne Cardinal chose Unless, because he is a man. Obviously, The Birth House is a book written about and for women and men would not find it readable. And although The Bone Cage isn't geared towards women, it is directed towards the athletes of our society, something non-athletes won't understand.<br /><br />In fact, I think almost all of the books got pegged into a category and if the defender couldn't talk his or her way out of it, then the book failed. Essex County was labeled a book that was inaccessible because of its form.<br /><br />Although the debaters tried to label The Best Laid Plans as a political novel, Ali did a good job spinning it into a book that is accessible to all Canadians because we all live in a democracy and we all are affected by Politics (which in my opinion is nuts. It is certainly no more accessible to Canadians than any of the other books written by women. Ali just did a better job of it).Laurahttp://miraclesofamily.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7109378176648403566.post-76027185727039373182011-02-13T19:19:20.293-05:002011-02-13T19:19:20.293-05:00Yeah, but...you're a man. It works in your gen...Yeah, but...you're a man. It works in your gender's favour.Heatherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10864934440190894300noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7109378176648403566.post-67863492208110398152011-02-13T19:07:12.034-05:002011-02-13T19:07:12.034-05:00this smacks a little too much of being PC and the ...this smacks a little too much of being PC and the nanny state. i read as much or maybe even more than you do<br />and the sex of the writer does not influence me one bit.<br /><br />DadJWLhttp://jayward.posterous.com/noreply@blogger.com