Wednesday, 10 July 2013
The Bipolar world of Book reviews
During one my lazy weekends I recently found in The Guardian newspaper a feature on the world of book reviewing and whether it was sexist or not. Through a collection a statistics over a period of two years a series of graphs had been made showing in different newspapers the ratio of male to female reviewers in non-fiction and fiction, which you can go have a look at here. The report came to the predictable conclusion that women were under represented in the literary world, with only 29-36% of non-fiction reviewers female. However in fiction it is generally 50/50, with some papers going one way or the other, but a large amount at a fair ratio. So, should we simply assume that the non-fiction world is more sexist in terms of reviewers?
With some papers questions should perhaps be raised, such as The London Review of Books which inexplicably only has male reviewers for fiction, and only ten per cent women reviewers for non-fiction. But on the whole it evens out male to female reviewers when you merge the ratios of fiction and non-fiction. And the presence of women in non-fiction reviewing shows that the path is no barred to them, so should we be annoyed at the papers for not forcing their female reviewers to review non-fiction. Furthermore, by simply creating ratios like this, are we actually doing more harm than good?
Let me explain, although these statistical outlooks might be productive for individual papers, in making sure there is a lack of discrimination, by publishing these statistics and placing blame on the world of literary criticism The Guardian is risking discouraging equality in reviewers by saying that it is harder to women to get a role as say, a non-fiction reviewer in The Mail on Sunday. Similarly, men are being told it is hard for them to get a role as a fiction reviewer in The Times. This wouldn’t particularly encourage the average person to try. A better way forwards might be to advertise for and encourage more female or male reviewers in certain sectors as oppose to telling them how unlikely it is they'll manage to gain a job there.
Even this ignores a problem. While these exposés are essential at times, should we even be judging the reviewers based on their genitals? By publishing this feature The Guardian becomes guilty of encouraging the bipolarity of the sexes. The entire concept of the feature suggests that male reviews are somehow different to female reviews, and reviewers should be hired according to their sex rather than their ability. I fail to see this as a positive thing. Yes, encourage gender equality, but don't degrade the quality of the institution for the sake of it. By doing that the idea will flourish that, say, the introduction of female fiction reviewers in The London Review of Books has ruined this once great paper. So, overall I'm saying we should stop putting men and women at odds and just see them as people. Nothing more, nothing less. Then maybe we can get some of that much desired equality.
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