Literature still a male domain, it seems

Another article circulating among us thinking women (and men) lately is the Guardian report on a shocking new study showing that leading literary magazines favour reviews written by men about books by men.

Fellow reader/writer Danni -- who calls herself my "newspaper article stalker", which is a very self-deprecating way of saying "one seriously on-the-ball woman feeding me great material" -- sent me this article for blog comment.

It's taken me so long to get round to writing anything that I suggested to Danni that I may as well just post the emails she and I sent back and forth on the issue... So, here we go...

DANNI: I'm sure it comes as no surprise to female writers that males dominate the literary world. This research has given the issue some coverage. All the major outlets in the study say they will make changes but it will be interesting to see who actually does.

Some of the comments are ... I can't even begin to think of a way of describing them without expletives. From the TLS: 'Not too appalled ... authorship is not 50/50...' and this piece of patronising gold: 'And while women are heavy readers, we know they are heavy readers of the kind of fiction that is not likely to be reviewed in the pages of the TLS.' Utter bullshit!

The idiot continues with this lovely morsel: 'The TLS is only interested in getting the best reviews of the most important books.' The not so hidden meaning there that women not only don't write important books but are actually incapable of doing so (and reading them too so it seems!)

The whole tone of the article reeks of a thinly disguised antipathy ... or perhaps I am over-reacting because I am tired, because my son is sick and I was awake all night ... oh no, it wouldn't be that, it must be 'cause I'm on the rag!

RACHEL: I promise I will write something about this ASAP. I am still shell-shocked by juggling my new 4-day working week (UGH! Creative life? What creative life?!) and my youngest's first week at school, so know exactly how you feel.

But the article definitely deserves a response. Apart from the bullshit quotes you mentioned, what I thought was most telling was the last quote, about women perhaps not having the confidence. That, to me, is getting at a real hidden problem.

DANNI: It's the confidence thing and its also a time thing. How much of a lack of confidence can be attributed to lack of time to spend on work? The majority of women just don't have the time, even those without kids seem to be constantly obligated to others (not allowed to be the brooding artist). I think generally there is the confidence in ability but because there is just not concentrated time available so many women think that their work will be inferior ... but I am not sure that that is the case as your book pointed out on so many occasions. Having copious amounts of time does not necessarily equate to quality work (although it would make life a lot easier!).

And beyond all those things, is the pure and simple fact of ingrained institutional discrimination ... not the old-fashioned kind: it's not malicious; it's unconscious. These publications don't have women writers because they don't ask for them. There are plenty of women artists available for consideration, who would be honoured to contribute to these magazines, but no one thinks to commission them.

Anyway enough of this! Got to go do the bloody shopping!

RACHEL: Yes, I completely agree! When I read the mention of confidence, that's exactly where that took me, too: why does no-one ever mention the fact that women have so much less TIME for such things; that they are so obligated elsewhere... which affects everything women are in a position to do? I might just post our convo on my blog. But first, I'll finish emptying the dishwasher...

As you can see, Danni pretty much said it all. But to go on (as I do)... there are all sorts of invisible issues here. Certainly I know for myself that I would love to be reviewing more books, but barely get time to read the things, let alone write about them.

It's entirely plausible that fewer women are putting their hand up for these (let's admit it, usually badly paid) tasks because non-work time is spent doing housework, buying school uniforms, driving little people between football clinics and swimming lessons... Down time, if any, is ideally spent asleep (or, preferably in a bath, if not feeling too guilty about the water-use).

I, sadly, find it almost impossible to justify time spent on activities that are about more elusive, long-term goals, like establishing a name as a writer.

As one insightful commentator put it: "Novels, poems, plays-----labours of love extracted in the hours between near nonstop other jobs."

That said, I was still gobsmacked by the the stats showing that, among authors reviewed by the New York Review of Books in 2010, 83% were men. As for the London Review of Books, 74% of books reviewed by in 2010 were by men, and their reviewers: 78% male.

Perhaps publishers should start sending their books out wrapped in brown paper!

Interestingly, Granta claims it commissions equally between men and women, but still ends up with a bias (featuring 65% male writers).

We know women read and write quality literature. So is it that women writers are still dismissed more readily; or is it that less women are submitting their work to journals because of these other, less tangible barriers, i.e. lack of confidence, lack of time?

Statistics start the conversation, which is good, but the causes can be harder to get at...

And then you get comments like the one we've mentioned above, from the ed of the Times Literary Supplement -- "And while women are heavy readers, we know they are heavy readers of the kind of fiction that is not likely to be reviewed in the pages of the TLS" -- and you realise that sometimes it's just a plain old case of overt sexism, alive and well.

You can check out the full study, conducted by Vida, US organisation for women in the literary arts, here.

Writing the child's voice

Have any of you read Emma Donoghue’s Room?

The difficulty with talking about this book is that there’s almost no way of doing so without giving away key plot points.

Nevertheless, I can say that I can’t remember the last time I read a book that had me so gripped, and affected me so physically! At one stage I was reading in the bath and was so utterly compelled to keep reading, the water went completely cold around me and I didn't even notice.

I had some small misgivings — perhaps only to be discussed with those who have also read the book, in the comments, with a ‘spoiler alert’ — but they didn't take away from its overall impact.

The main reason I am mentioning the book here, though, is because I think it’s a great example of a novel written by someone who has used their access to a child's way of talking and seeing the world as material for writing.

Some of us have more access to our ‘child selves’ than others — or at least memory of what it was like to be young — and I’m not trying to suggest that you cannot understand or write from a child’s perspective unless you have kids… but it sure does help.

The authenticity of this book’s five-year-old narrator’s voice — with it’s cute grammatical errors and limited perspective — suggests close observation of her children.

I also felt great admiration for the 'Ma' character, who shows such remarkable creativity and discipline in raising and educating her child, under the most horrific and potentially damaging circumstances. And at the same time, this focus and need for routine that he requires has been her saviour.

Admittedly there were moments when I felt frustrated by the five-year-old narrative — not the character himself, who remains loveable throughout (quite a feat in itself), but the way his viewpoint kept you at a distance from the central horrors of the story.

But then I realised that this avoids the sensationalism that its theme could easily have exploited, and that this book is much more about the force of the parent–child bond. It raises all sorts of questions about the nature of freedom and about a child's needs. Also their capacity for fierce love and courage.

I’m sure many of you have read it, so would love to hear your thoughts...

(And sorry not to respond to the very thoughtful comments on the previous post yet... will get to that ASAP).

Parenting: East versus West

My friend Sally Rippin today sent me this extraordinary article by lawyer and writer Amy Chua, called Why Chinese Mothers are Superior.

This story has attracted more comments (nearing 7,000 at last count!) than any story previously published by the Wall Street Journal, and has set off a fierce debate on so-called Eastern versus Western parenting styles.

It has waded into parenting territory at a time when there are various hot-button debates going on about whether modern kids have too little freedom, too much praise, too little real competition, too much pressure, too little responsibilities and so on, and so on.

Funnily for me, Chua's article is the first thing I've read since returning from a beach holiday (yesterday) where I deliberately focussed on being less controlling and less fearful in how I deal with my kids; to give them more trust, more room to explore their own boundaries and learn from their own mistakes. Holidays are a good time to work on that stuff!

I don't really understand the motivation for the kind of parenting Chua describes. While I sympathise with the need for discipline, and the role parents play in helping their kids to learn the benefits of hard work, her approach seems dangerously extreme to me.

Doubtless her "Eastern model" is a way to create children who have great technical proficiency. But for what? Where is the fun and the joy? And what of the role of creativity and the imagination?

Surely without that, you risk shaping an immature child, confused about their true motivations, who might be able to pay a note-perfect Rachmaninoff but can't invest it with any real emotional sensitivity, let alone create anything original of his or her own.

I'd love to know where you guys sit on this issue... And, while you're at it... on this one too!

The Unspeakable

"I shouldn't have had them." ...It's such a huge thing to admit. And perhaps it was only a fleeting regret. Or perhaps it wasn't...

These were the words spoken by a friend of writer SA Jones, which led her to write a very interesting guest post for the Kill Your Darlings journal website. It raises the "taboo subject" of feeling regret at having children.

If you can snatch yourself a few moments to check it out, it's worth reading on through the comments, where readers have cited some stunning poems on the theme of maternal ambivalence...

Divided Hearts on the radio

Hey there loyal friends

Apologies for the lack of recent blogging. Rest assured, I have not run out of things to say yet... so watch this space.

In the meantime, Clare Bowditch is interviewing me (there's a little role-reversal for you) next Monday at 8.30pm on local ABC Melbourne 774AM.

She's doing the 7-10pm slot every night next week, BTW, so tune in.

We are going to have (yet another) chat about how to juggle family responsibilities with creative urges; the value of passing on creative expression to our children; the social benefits of creativity... That kinda thing.

It's a talkback, so please do call in if you can and tell us your own experiences/ideas on these matters. Be lovely to hear you (kind readers still checking in on me).

Dads and domestic labour

Yesterday the winner of the Most Mentally Sexy Dad comp, which I helped judge, was announced on Radio National’s Life Matters program.

I think it’s great when something started as a bit of a lark among friends finds, quite by accident, that it has tapped in to the cultural zeitgeist — and that is definitely true of this comp.

It has offered a really positive way in to discussing what can otherwise be such a banal, bogged-down issue for couples — i.e. who does what around the house.

Here is a bunch of couples changing the blueprint for what constitutes a contemporary family life; men who are fully up to negotiating with their partners how things are going to run in terms of work, housework and childcare.

In fact, I think the Most Mentally Sexy Dad competition might be one of the more powerful campaigns we’ve seen in calling on men to move beyond the lip service that gets paid to respect and equality towards acting like they mean it. Not for some abstract ideal, but because it is meaningful to the women and children they love, and gives their relationship a better chance of long-lasting passion.

What was so touching about most of the entrants was their basic awareness that to show true love and commitment to their partners meant sharing the load. In fact, they took this for granted.

These men aren’t just “babysitting” the kids or “helping out” around the home, but fully engaging in the realities of keeping the family juggernaut afloat, emotionally and practically, so that everyone has more time for their own interests and for each other.

Hopefully it won’t have to be such a conscious shift for the next generation, and there won’t be a need for such a competition, great as it’s been.

I also have an article on this subject — the division of domestic labour — in the latest issue of Kill Your Darlings.

The editors have ensured me my next copy will arrive in a plain brown paper bag after the previous one gave my son terrible nightmares. The poor darling thought I was reading a manual on how to kill off him and his sister!

It took me days to convince him that he could trust me enough to tell him what his bad dreams were about. Oh dear…

Ms Bowditch and the PM

Among the many great achievements of the women featured in The Divided Heart, the smokin' gun that is Clare Bowditch recently scored an interview with our first female PM.

You can watch an edited version of that conversation here.

She says her approach was to use the most of her "lay-persons status", and try to talk from the heart about all the same things we talk about at our thinking-people dinner parties.

"So yes, I did grill her on most of the big ones, as respectfully as I could (we had about an hour together in total)," she said. "On a lighter note, she touched my Lucky Cricket Ball, and even showed me how to improve my impersonationa of her with the "Karate Chop Talking Technique": see!"

Hope that cricket ball is secretly magic...

And while you are under the spell of our bewitching Ms Bowditch, please consider purchasing her new album "Modern Day Addiction" at your local record store or with two bonus tracks via itunes--that'd be here.

If you want to read a little about the album's design (another collaboration with Kat McLeod), Lucy Feagins has a great interview with Clare on her fabulous blog, The Design Files.

But the album is not all style. In fact it's all about substance!