It's the time of year when magazines and web sites are publishing their "best of" list. This year we not only have to hear about the "Best Books of 2009" but also "Best Books of the Decade" even though the decade doesn't officially end until next year. As December wanes, it's the traditional time for women everywhere to scan the names on the "Best Books" list, realize they are woefully underrepresented, and complain. In Publisher's Weekly's list, none of the top ten were written by women, and only 29 of the top 100 were. Hmm, what a shame.
As Juliana Baggott pointed out in her Washington Post OpEd yesterday, "Amazon recently announced its 100 best books of 2009 -- in the top 10, there are two women. Top 20? Four. Poets & Writers shared a list of 50 of the most inspiring writers in the world this month; women made up only 36 percent." It's an incontrovertible fact: Women writers aren't as celebrated as men.
While Baggott and others call out a sexist bias, Baggott goes a bit farther, asking why this imbalance in artistic recognition exists. Too often feminists and other axe-grinders reel around shaking their little fists and saying "This is bad! Bad list!" Then they totter away, ending the train of thought in comfortable outrage. But this isn't about morality, or whether something is right or wrong. This isn't church, and we don't get points for being right. It is what it is. The interesting question is "Why is it the way it is?"
Baggott suggests the lists favor men because they favor male themes: "war, boyhood, adventure." She says that she was discouraged, early in career, from writing about motherhood, a female theme, because "it would be perceived as weak." So, maybe the reason women aren't "Best of" is because they don't write about "Best of" things.
I have to agree with Baggott's theory. Women generally do not write about war and adventure. The female purview may be, as Baggott posits, emotion and motherhood, love and feelings. Faced with the undeniable evidence of the "Best of" phenomenon, we have to ask ourselves, how important is motherhood? How important is emotion? Let me ask you something. When have you ever heard motherhood immortalized in a historical date? Probably only when it coincided with the birth of... a man. And probably only if it was a man who participated in war and adventure. When has emotion left a mark on history? History is war, sex, and violence. The female issues do not make it onto the calendar.
The list is real. The numbers are what they are. As I see it there are three possible explanations:
1. The list is sexist, purposefully oppressing women. The solution in this case would be, I guess, to burn down the list. Make a new list. Get those bastards. This seems kind of weak and paranoid.
2. The list is false, reflecting a lame and lingering cultural bias that is on its way out. The solution is to wait. After all, we didn't count the black writers, or the South American writers. It will all come around, given more time. I guess this is what I would like to believe.
The third possibility is more alarming than the others, because it is the simplest explanation, and therefore the most viable:
3. The list is right. The things that women write about are neither culturally nor historically significant, and the books that women write are not the best books.
Baggott mentions the deification of Faulkner, Chekhov, Hemingway. I have to ask: In the last decade, what woman would you put up against these giants? Maybe there were moderns that could carry the torch -- Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, or others from the 20th century: Harper Lee, Willa Cather, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison. But now? Where is my Gertrude Stein? Who can stand up against Junot Diaz and Khaled Hosseini and Kazuo Ishiguro? Is it really supposed to be Alice McDermott?
The lesson of the list is that nobody's going to do us any favors. We're not going to get prizes just for showing up and writing our little books. Girl books are great; I like to read them and write them. But if we're writing girl books, we're not getting on "Best of" lists, and that is the reality. Do with it what you will.
I'm writing this as a woman who has spent the last ten years working on a novel that is about motherhood. Yes, it's also about death, space, humanity, and artificial intelligence, but mostly? It's about motherhood. And I have to say, as that woman, that I'm looking hard at the book I'm writing, at the things I'm saying, and wondering, "Is this going to make it onto the calendar?" Yeah, motherhood is important, we wouldn't be here without it. But we wouldn't be here without eating either, and I don't see a lot of cookbooks winning Pulitzers. Maybe it's not about writing about "man themes" but about human themes. Maybe it's not about pandering to the list, but evolving, as a gender, into people who address the important stuff, the big stuff: death, war, sex, adventure, as it pertains to women and men. Where is our Cold Mountain? Where is our Kite Runner? Seems like the greatest innovation in female writing in the last decade is the mainstreaming of Chick-Lit. And that is a little embarrassing.
Comments
I don't want to write about war. But I don't plan on getting on any best list. Depends what you mean by best. What is the standard? Men's themes are universal and women's themes are not. Apparently. A friend of mine has her book on a best list. (I tried to include a link but this site won't let me.)
And her book is all about women (Ami McKay's The Birth House). Then again, it is a narrow list. I prefer narrow lists. They make more sense than trying to fit the world on one list. Because even if you have women in the list, what women? Black women? Asian? And who says women aren't writing books about war and adventure? But who publishes them? Who reads them? Thousands of books published, I suspect some great ones get lost. Because not only does the book have to be great, it has to be published & promoted.
Lists say more about the people who make them. You make good points as always
"And who says women aren't writing books about war and adventure?"
Nobody says there aren't women doing just that. It can be answered with: "The things that women write about are neither culturally nor historically significant, and the books that women write are not the best books."
Marta, I agree. Smaller lists are better. The bigger a crown the list-maker tries to wear, the less his/her brain seems able to function.
I'm not interested in disputing or revising the list - mainly because I probably haven't read half of those books! (and not because they are man-books, either, only because my reading and my education have been random.) But I would put Time Traveler's Wife or Ahab's Wife or Brick Lane up against Oscar Wao any day... (I *have* read all of those books!) and I don't think it can be explained away by theme. Women write about war and politics and adventure, men write about famiy. The list, like my education, seems random. That said, I think women making up 36% of a list is pretty good! Maybe I've had to lower my feminist expectations along the way.
I'm at work on a similar piece, actually -- gathering data, trying to test theories to argue the other side as well -- and, in the end, debunk it. A few points here. The ChickLit comment is of interest. We've lost a lot of serious women's fiction because it was marketed as chicklit or mommylit. There are some beautiful books in the last few years wrapped in misleading jackets, most of which is out of author's hands, but those choices in jacket affect overall perception... I look forward to your book, Lydia. From me to you, write motherhood. My metaphorical fists are big -- not tiny.
I'm enjoying the discussion.
www.juliannabaggott.com
Richard Russo writes "domestic novels" and he wins a Pulitzer Prize. Isn't Anna Karenina chick lit? I agree with Tiff--Ahab's Wife is a good one, as is anything by Alice Munro, Jhumpa Lahiri, Margaret Atwood. Jayne Anne Phillips writes beautifully about war in Lark and Termite. Phillip's Shelter was as good or better than Cormac McCarthy's Child of God. Andrea Barrett? Toni Morrison? Pat Barker? Joyce Carol Oates? Gayle Jones? Edwidge Danticat? Louise Erdrich? Come on...
I'm at work on a similar piece, actually -- gathering data, trying to test theories to argue the other side as well -- and, in the end, debunk it. A few points here. The ChickLit comment is of interest. We've lost a lot of serious women's fiction because it was marketed as chicklit or mommylit. There are some beautiful books in the last few years wrapped in misleading jackets, most of which is out of author's hands, but those choices in jacket affect overall perception... I look forward to your book, Lydia. From me to you, write motherhood. My metaphorical fists are big -- not tiny.
I'm enjoying the discussion.
www.juliannabaggott.com
Marta, I agree. Smaller lists are better. The bigger a crown the list-maker tries to wear, the less his/her brain seems able to function.
Marta, I agree. Smaller lists are better. The bigger a crown the list-maker tries to wear, the less his/her brain seems able to function.
Marta, I agree. Smaller lists are better. The bigger a crown the list-maker tries to wear, the less his/her brain seems able to function.
Something else to ponder (and I'm not sure why my comments are posting in multiples): Commercial juggernauts Harry Potter and Twilight were both penned by women. What man has J. K. Rowling's commercial success?
What determines relevance?
<i>The lesson of the list is that nobody's going to do us any favors. We're not going to get prizes just for showing up and writing our little books.</i>
Especially not with attitudes like this one. "little books"? So every woman writer is a hack, and the things we write about are not compelling or interesting? According to whom?
I recommend you read more books by women. And stop referring to us as "girls."
Massive logic fail.
<blockquote>The things that women write about are neither culturally nor historically significant, and the books that women write are not the best books.</blockquote>
If women cannot write culturally or historically significant books, then how is it that any of them could make the long list?
The list is real in exactly the same way the Bible is. It exists, yes. If you choose to believe that it was handed down from on high without the involvement of fallible human beings, living in a sexist society, that's your lookout. But there's something a little bit crazy about suggesting those top ten were the only ones possible as determined by some objective standard. There's more disagreement about which are the ten commandments.
Ursula Kroeber le Guin
Massive logic fail.
<blockquote>The things that women write about are neither culturally nor historically significant, and the books that women write are not the best books.</blockquote>
If women cannot write culturally or historically significant books, then how is it that any of them could make the long list?
The list is real in exactly the same way the Bible is. It exists, yes. If you choose to believe that it was handed down from on high without the involvement of fallible human beings, living in a sexist society, that's your lookout. But there's something a little bit crazy about suggesting those top ten were the only ones possible as determined by some objective standard. There's more disagreement about which are the ten commandments.
Let's see: Mary Shelley's _Frankenstein_, George Eliot's _Scenes of Clerical Life_, Edith Wharton's _Ethan Frome_, the novels of Jane Austen, the many books by Ursula K LeGuin, and even the odious Ayn Rand: no universal cultural influences there? I mean, who hears about the monster of Dr Frankenstein these days? _Pride and Prejudice_? Lost, lost, all lost. And the UK's Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy: nope, no cultural influence there. "Against stupidity, even the gods fight in vain" but ignorance is curable. Get thee to a library!
Got something to say?
Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!