March 18, 2011
Female author wins award, still gets ignored
by Melville House
Jennifer Egan: winner
Earlier this month, Brooklyn-based novelist Jennifer Egan was awarded the National Book Critics Award for her most recent novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad. However, as reported on Jezebel, instead of celebrating Egan’s achievement, the LA Times decided to interpret the story from a somewhat different angle. They instead chose to highlight the fact that Jonathan Franzen did not win the award. Not only did the story focus on his loss, but the main photo used was of Franzen himself, rather than Egan, the winner. In the UK, we roll out the word ‘gobsmacking’ for instances like these.
This decision to focus on poor J-Franz rather than celebrating Jennifer Egan’s victory is especially worrying considering statistics published last month by VIDA, the organisation for Women in Literary Arts. Their analysis reveals that not only are male authors more likely to be published in the first place, but that books written by men are much more likely to be reviewed in major publications in print and online, and furthermore, the people writing these reviews are also overwhelmingly male.
A woman wins a literary prize, and yet a man gets the attention? This state of affairs is frustrating and deeply troubling, and reignites the question, what do female authors have to do to get recognition for their work? It seems if you take the same view as the LA Times, not even winning an award is enough.
The picture to the right shows the LA Times story as it first appeared several days ago. They have since changed the photo used in their story to a headshot of Egan and her novel. For those interested in more information and analysis, please refer to Bookslut’s excellent series of posts on the VIDA statistics.
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16 Comments
Read Freedom. Read Goon Squad. Goon Squad was better.
Headline should have been “The good book by a woman wins a prize, for once.”
Read Freedom. Read Goon Squad. Goon Squad was better.
Headline should have been “The good book by a woman wins a prize, for once.”
What we women have to do is have a boob job and then take our clothes off, or even just some of them. That will guarantee that pictures of us are published in the media. But then there is the danger that the story will not be about our books, but about our cellulite, weight gain or wrinkles (compared to our author portraits). Egan is quite startlingly beautiful, the whole thing is baffling. And when you think women read far more books, it is not even a sensible marketing decision.
What we women have to do is have a boob job and then take our clothes off, or even just some of them. That will guarantee that pictures of us are published in the media. But then there is the danger that the story will not be about our books, but about our cellulite, weight gain or wrinkles (compared to our author portraits). Egan is quite startlingly beautiful, the whole thing is baffling. And when you think women read far more books, it is not even a sensible marketing decision.
Highlights a disturbing trend of misogyny in the media – films, music, news and books.
Highlights a disturbing trend of misogyny in the media – films, music, news and books.
It happens in sports news, too (I’m thinking of tennis).
It happens in sports news, too (I’m thinking of tennis).
I am sick of the Franzen discussion. It is stupid and time wasting. And all sides are stupid and add nothing. And Jezebel–really? It is a site owned by Gawker–a celebrity obsessed waste of time. What is the real issue? Answer–coverage of certain women artists (literary, high art) is lacking in the elite and intellectual media. I completely agree. Then this is what we should be focusing on fixing. But perhaps, I think the real issue is that the people who don’t like Franzen, for whatever reason, need him more than people who appreciate his work. He has become a raison de pleurnicher. Why worry about healthcare, global warming, lack of government support of the arts, the possible destruction of PBS and NPR, when you can keep talking about the media coverage of Jonathan Bloody Franzen. No wonder why people don’t look to intellectuals anymore.
I am sick of the Franzen discussion. It is stupid and time wasting. And all sides are stupid and add nothing. And Jezebel–really? It is a site owned by Gawker–a celebrity obsessed waste of time. What is the real issue? Answer–coverage of certain women artists (literary, high art) is lacking in the elite and intellectual media. I completely agree. Then this is what we should be focusing on fixing. But perhaps, I think the real issue is that the people who don’t like Franzen, for whatever reason, need him more than people who appreciate his work. He has become a raison de pleurnicher. Why worry about healthcare, global warming, lack of government support of the arts, the possible destruction of PBS and NPR, when you can keep talking about the media coverage of Jonathan Bloody Franzen. No wonder why people don’t look to intellectuals anymore.
This discussion has nothing to do with Franzen. He didn’t choose to pair his photo with this story; the LA Times journalist did. This discussion is about the fact that even when a female author deserved recognition for the prize she won, they made it about his loss, instead.
This discussion has nothing to do with Franzen. He didn’t choose to pair his photo with this story; the LA Times journalist did. This discussion is about the fact that even when a female author deserved recognition for the prize she won, they made it about his loss, instead.
I bet right now she’s thinking to herself, ‘I shoulda got a boob job!”
Oh course have you noticed how the NYT book section is lavishing its attention on a Blonde Bosnian Babe who wrote a memoir of some sort.
Egan is quite startlingly beautiful, but she ain’t 25 any more.
Even aside from the obvious misogyny angle, I shows how fricken in-the-box the LA Time reviewer is.
I bet right now she’s thinking to herself, ‘I shoulda got a boob job!”
Oh course have you noticed how the NYT book section is lavishing its attention on a Blonde Bosnian Babe who wrote a memoir of some sort.
Egan is quite startlingly beautiful, but she ain’t 25 any more.
Even aside from the obvious misogyny angle, I shows how fricken in-the-box the LA Time reviewer is.
As a male book reviewer for publications in the states and canada, as well as online ones, I’ve lately taken the route of trying to review more books by women (most often fiction) than I did in the past in the hopes that, over time, an imbalance in my reading will be much less marked.
That being said, there are still houses that push male writers more than female writers, even though both appear in their catalogues. Book review editors sometimes do this also (male and female). Each reviewer can have a hand in changing how things are done; though those who get by for paid review writing sometimes don’t have a choice.
It doesn’t help that certain writers are always preferred over others. In the fall, in canada, a national magazine lamented that there were no big titles coming out. The authors they were referring to were “Philip Roth, Margaret Atwood, Hilary Mantel, A.S. Byatt, Jonathan Lethem and John Irving.” Just one canadian writer in that list. But the article writer had decided the fall season was a wasteland even though she hadn’t read a single title. Now, what does one do about that kind of mentality?
Jeff Bursey,
author of _Verbatim: A Novel_
http://www.jeffbursey.com
As a male book reviewer for publications in the states and canada, as well as online ones, I’ve lately taken the route of trying to review more books by women (most often fiction) than I did in the past in the hopes that, over time, an imbalance in my reading will be much less marked.
That being said, there are still houses that push male writers more than female writers, even though both appear in their catalogues. Book review editors sometimes do this also (male and female). Each reviewer can have a hand in changing how things are done; though those who get by for paid review writing sometimes don’t have a choice.
It doesn’t help that certain writers are always preferred over others. In the fall, in canada, a national magazine lamented that there were no big titles coming out. The authors they were referring to were “Philip Roth, Margaret Atwood, Hilary Mantel, A.S. Byatt, Jonathan Lethem and John Irving.” Just one canadian writer in that list. But the article writer had decided the fall season was a wasteland even though she hadn’t read a single title. Now, what does one do about that kind of mentality?
Jeff Bursey,
author of _Verbatim: A Novel_
http://www.jeffbursey.com