Random
Bitches Be Trippin’
I love the Urban Dictionary because they seem to have a definition for everything. I spend a lot of time looking up dirty words and phrases. I learned what a snowball was via Urban Dictionary. It has nothing to do with the snow, that’s for sure. I love the phrase “Bitches be trippin’.” I don’t know why. On a whim, I decided to look up the phrase on Urban Dictionary. Sure enough, there was a definition. According to them, the phrase is “used primarily by heterosexual males to justify the irrational behaviors of women.” For example, when women bring attention to certain pervasive and longstanding disparities, one might say, “I don’t know what all the fuss is about. Bitches be trippin’.”
I wasn’t going to write about this at length but then Matthew Simmons e-mailed asking if I was going to write about this. I guess I am. There has been a lot of talk over the past week about VIDA’s new set of statistics revealing some insight into the status of women in publishing. Go take a look, if this sort of thing interests you. The numbers are startling and yet they aren’t. With very few exceptions, women are published far less than men at some of the most influential publications in the country, both large and small. Of course, statistics never tell the whole story and it is easy to whip up some numbers to tell any story you want. Last year Charles Seife wrote a book called Proofiness about statistical manipulation and in the book, he writes, “In skillful hands, phony data, bogus statistics, and bad mathematics can make the most fanciful idea, the most outrageous falsehood seem true. They can be used to bludgeon enemies, to destroy critics, and to squelch debate.” Throughout history people have always used numbers to their advantage hoping that the gravity of statistical proof would help them sway a debate in one direction or another. I understand why people might look at the numbers VIDA has presented and regard them with some skepticism and want more information.
In this day and age, we are inundated with statistical information, often incomplete, and one more set of numbers isn’t necessarily enough to make us believe the matter of gender and publishing is as dire as the numbers would have us believe. We are also talking about a really complex topic. There are many historical, socio-economic and institutional factors that have contributed to gender inequities and statistical information cannot adjust for those factors. I also think more could have done with the presentation of the data. The VIDA post is just a long list of pie charts without a lot of context or discussion. Then again, is it VIDA’s responsibility to do that work above and beyond the exhaustive data compilation they already conducted?
Whenever this conversation, this tiresome talk of women and men and fairness and parity, comes up, everyone immediately becomes defensive and morphs into statistical experts, trying to find ways to discredit the numbers or to manifest parity when clearly there is little or none. People belittle the issue, make jokes, dismiss the problem, offer pithy commentary, and otherwise avoid engaging the issue in any sort of meaningful way. I get it. That approach is easier. People also like to say publishing is run by women, citing the many women working at publishing houses, working as agents, etc. as if that somehow brings more balance to a reality where men out publish women, often at a rate of three to one. There is no correlation between those things. The gender breakdown of who is submitting might help to get a clearer picture of the disparities we continue to talk about year after year after year but we cannot lay the “blame” for the lack of gender parity in publishing at the feet of the submission queue. We cannot dismiss this issue by catering to the notion that men are simply more willing to put their work out there because that’s what men do. I had an entire rant planned but then I realized I’d either be preaching to the choir or preaching to those who could never be converted.
This conversation is stalled. We keep trying to find ways to “prove” there is a problem. Many people want to understand why this disparity exists instead of working to address the disparity itself. I’m not going to do that anymore. There is a problem. I am comfortable with that making me a bitch who be trippin’. There is work to be done—let’s get to it.
Until today, I had not checked PANK’s numbers for gender parity across issues because I was confident we were pretty even in the number of men and women we publish. In PANK 5, there were 44 women (or writers who identify as women) and 33 men. In PANK 4, there were 32 women and 37 men. In PANK 3, there were 31 women and 35 men. In PANK 2, there were 13 women and 17 men. In our first print issue, there were 11 women and 14 men. We have too many online issues to tally them all but in the January issue there were 8 women and 11 men and in the December issue there were 14 women and 7 men. I don’t have the time to run the numbers on submissions but in general, we receive about 70% of our submissions from men and 30% from women. Lest you think because I’m a woman I am more open to women writers, my co-editor ran PANK alone for the first two issues and the gender ratio was still close to 50/50 and he is a man. We have never considered gender when trying to assemble an issue or accept a given submission. These numbers have happened naturally. If I look at an upcoming issue and see a strange imbalance, I will move things around across future issues but that kind of work never happens during the editorial process itself. What do these numbers mean? I’m not sure but I think we’re doing pretty well with trying to represent men and women equally despite the character of the submission queue. Why? I’d guess it’s because we’re open to all kinds of writing and we make it clear we’re open to all kinds of writing.
Sometimes, people need to be explicitly told they are welcome. Last October at PANK, we had Tim Jones-Yelvington guest-edit a Queer Issue. Since then, we’ve received many submissions from queer writers who explicitly stated, in their cover letters, that they were submitting because of the queer issue, because they felt welcome, because they had a sense that queer writing was welcome in PANK. Until we started receiving these submissions I would have never guessed that some writers needed to be told, in no uncertain terms, that their writing was welcome. I know now and can make sure we continue to create an open atmosphere for writers from all walks of life.
Some of the solutions are going to be as complex as the problem itself. We have to think about how women are socialized and educated and how we can ensure that both women and men are encouraged to be ambitious, to write, to be creative, to experiment, to be the best. I assumed this to be the case because I have always been encouraged in these ways but since these new numbers were released, I’ve read so many accounts of women who have not had that experience, and I wonder how we can change that for women. And of course, there are the people who will say, “Well I put myself out there and I was never encouraged,” and that’s great but that doesn’t address the needs of those who work differently.
Editors have a great deal of responsibility here. Until we can address some of the more systemic issues embedded in this problem, editors have the most responsibility because they are on the proverbial front lines. If publications aren’t receiving enough submissions by women, perhaps it is time they start aggressively seeking more women out. It certainly troubles me to think about assembling a magazine using a checklist of some kind to ensure diversity among contributors. Where does the tallying stop? It feels antithetical to editorial vision and common sense to take a Noah’s Ark approach to publishing a magazine where we ensure there is one of every kind of person but the more I think about this problem, the more I see parallels to segregation and how schools had to be desegregated by force, with police and military protection because people were so unwilling to educate their children with children of different races and ethnicities. Schools had to be desegregated by force because it was the right thing to do. It was the only thing to do. It is 2011. We don’t need guns. Instead, we need editors who take a stand, editors who say, this is the only thing to do, who say, “I will not publish a new issue until I have an equal or close to equal number of women and men represented.” Maybe that sounds a little radical, but radical measures often lead to radical and important change.
A while ago, an editor e-mailed me saying something to the effect of that he was not going to publish another issue featuring a white man until he found the right story by a woman or someone from a different demographic. Then he told me not to tell anyone as if there was something wrong with taking that kind of stand. There isn’t. I didn’t know how to respond at the time but the more I thought about that e-mail, the more I believed that editor was doing something great. Taking a stand is important. If we take these stands now, we won’t have to have this same conversation in ten years because gender equity will have become something we take for granted. Perhaps I am reaching for a perfect world but I am ambitious and I believe more editors need to take a stand instead of trying to dispute statistics or justify longstanding disparities.
This is not to say editors should compromise on quality or editorial vision. It drives me crazy when people imply that “the best work” can only come from men or that to try to achieve gender parity would somehow mean compromising editorial standards. That can only happen if you allow it to happen. Beat down the doors of women writers until you find what you’re looking for. Editors might not be able to always have gender parity in their publications but it would be great to see more editors trying and putting in genuine, concerted effort to make it so we can talk about the words rather than the writers. I’d rather talk about the writing than gender, race, sexuality, and such. We all would. We’re not there yet even though sometimes we convince ourselves we are.
We also have to look at the editors themselves. Is there gender parity on the editorial staffs of the publications VIDA analyzed? Women have to be included in cultivating a magazine’s aesthetic and the decision making processes. This is not to say women are going to be naturally inclined to accept the work of other women but I believe editorial diversity will translate well into contributor diversity.
How do we create more parity between men and women being published and in whose books are being reviewed by major publications? That’s the question we need to be dealing with because until we find reasonable answers, bitches are going to continue to trip and rightly so.
P.S.
Here’s a roundup of people currently talking about the VIDA numbers and the gender disparity in publishing:
Hairpin
The New York Times
Bitch
Double X
Beyond the Margins
The Missouri Review
The Southern Review
We Who Are About to Die
The Bark
Tags: gender, Proofiness, Publishing, VIDA
I’ve always liked the definition for “Balconey beezies” (sic) at Urban Dictionary.
It’s sweet.
That is fantastic.
I so appreciate all your comments — it is true that numbers can be manipulated and that the conversation can stall. I hope w/more editors like you and the anonymous mensch you spoke of, things will improve. I’ve also written about the VIDA info in a tongue-in-cheek blog post: http://pamparker.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/what-if-book-clubs-only-selected-books-by-women-authors-now-theres-an-idea/
“Awhile ago, an editor e-mailed me saying something to the effect of that he was not going to publish another issue featuring a white man until he found the right story by a woman or someone from a different demographic.”
I’m curious what he meant by this. Does he mean he won’t publish stories about white men characters that are written by white men?
I think it simply meant he wanted to diversify his magazine. Based on what I can remember (it was a very brief exchange), it wasn’t a never again thing, but rather, I need to mix things up thing.
I’ve thought about buying a shirt with the definition of “blue woowoo” on it.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=blue%20woowoo&defid=1123240
Great analysis here. I agree completely. And I think if higher ups in the industry want to push the blame farther down the ladder (as is, the problem is in the educational system, etc.), they should do something to try to fix that. How about some outreach, people? Or, if not, they should just come out and say that they don’t really care, or that they don’t care enough to do anything. At least that’s honest.
Great analysis here. I agree completely. And I think if higher ups in the industry want to push the blame farther down the ladder (as is, the problem is in the educational system, etc.), they should do something to try to fix that. How about some outreach, people? Or, if not, they should just come out and say that they don’t really care, or that they don’t care enough to do anything. At least that’s honest.
so if your submissions are 70% male and your issues are right around 50/50 male/female, if not more female, i guess you’re saying in general, the submissions by men just aren’t cutting it? or…??? but you also say, “because we’re open to all kinds of writing and we make it clear we’re open to all kinds of writing.” i don’t really know what that means but if 70% of your submitters are male, it doesn’t seem to be saying what you think it’s saying.
also, “We have to think about how women are socialized and educated and how we can ensure that both women and men are encouraged to be ambitious, to write, to be creative, to experiment, to be the best.”
this sounds great. if you’re a parent or an educator. but an editor? really?
and you’re going to equate this with segregation? women are ALLOWED to submit. they aren’t submitting (at as high a rate) by choice. now you can make all the excuses you want for that choice, but it’s still a choice. and comparing it to segregation is a bit of a stretch. and a bit appalling, frankly.
look, my daughter wants to be a rapper. she’s white and she’s female. you think i’m going to tell her to bitch and moan about how there aren’t more white women in rap? of course not. i tell her to write the dopest verses she can, to work on them every day, to perform as often as she can and to be ready to get her ass kicked for the next ten plus years.
so if your submissions are 70% male and your issues are right around 50/50 male/female, if not more female, i guess you’re saying in general, the submissions by men just aren’t cutting it? or…??? but you also say, “because we’re open to all kinds of writing and we make it clear we’re open to all kinds of writing.” i don’t really know what that means but if 70% of your submitters are male, it doesn’t seem to be saying what you think it’s saying.
also, “We have to think about how women are socialized and educated and how we can ensure that both women and men are encouraged to be ambitious, to write, to be creative, to experiment, to be the best.”
this sounds great. if you’re a parent or an educator. but an editor? really?
and you’re going to equate this with segregation? women are ALLOWED to submit. they aren’t submitting (at as high a rate) by choice. now you can make all the excuses you want for that choice, but it’s still a choice. and comparing it to segregation is a bit of a stretch. and a bit appalling, frankly.
look, my daughter wants to be a rapper. she’s white and she’s female. you think i’m going to tell her to bitch and moan about how there aren’t more white women in rap? of course not. i tell her to write the dopest verses she can, to work on them every day, to perform as often as she can and to be ready to get her ass kicked for the next ten plus years.
“We have never considered gender when trying to assemble an issue or accept a given submission. These numbers have happened naturally. If I look at an upcoming issue and see a strange imbalance, I will move things around across future issues but that kind of work never happens during the editorial process itself.”
seems like you are considering gender during assembly then?
This is good, Roxane. I think you succeeded in your goal of moving the conversation past the stuck place. If nothing else, I don’t see the haters being able to pull out that tired canard abt highlighting problems w/o proposing solutions.
How does one get a job at the New York Review of books? These are not mags that are going to select from submission. They are elite publications who publish the same elite journalists and reviewers over and over. New Republic has the reputation of being a political magazine. Many of the articles in Harpers are reprints from other magazines. Tin House might select one writer from submits per issue. It’s kind of an odd mix there and not a very broad accounting.
Among literary magazines of the stature of Pank there’s quite a bit of parity. And a submissions pile might be the only democratic way. Though not entirely. In literary journals the submissions aren’t exactly anonymous and nepotism is pervasive.
What you are identifying as a contradiction is I think really abt taking representational politics into account w/o reducing the issue to one of representation alone, a way of fostering about diversity and equity (there is a critical distinction between equity and equality) that is more complex/rich than quotas.
What he said. I see where you see the contradiction, Darby but I guess I would simply say that gender is never a consideration when assembling an issue but if I see a wild imbalance, like 18 of one and 2 of another, then I will try to spread things out more effectively without compromising our vision for that issue.
i agree, and dont have a problem with that. but taking representational politics into account in this way is sort of enough to move numbers to the middle i think. in the post, i felt Roxane was showing Pank as a model of diversity without any meddling. a better way of conveying all this would have been to say, look editors, it doesn’t take much meddling, just a little.
I would say, in general, that women seem to pay more attention to the magazine when submitting their work while men will send any old thing as if they’ve never read a single issue. I hate to make generalizations but the evidence bears this out. This is not to say that women don’t send wildly off base submissions. They do, but less frequently. I don’t know why.
It does seem to be a big responsibility for an editor to continue the work that is normally the purview of a parent or educator. Really? Yes.
I don’t think I equated anything with segregation. I suggest that a similar approach to addressing gender disparity in publishing could be useful, one where radical ideas are used to address a serious problem. Is the disparity women face in publishing the same as a little black girl requiring a soldier escort to attend school the same thing? No.
Discussing these issues isn’t bitching and moaning. I would think, if your daughter wants to be a rapper, its not only about telling her to write the dopest rhymes and bust her ass (which is the key to success for just about anyone in any field) but also working to create change in the rap industry so there’s a little less ass kicking she has to deal with when she’s ready to bring her lyrics to the mic.
or is that getting too close to “proposing a solution” ? its funner to rebel rouse i guess.
It really wasn’t all that long ago when you WERE asking for numbers:
Htmlgiant.com/random/a-bit-of-a-follow-up/#More-51156
So some numbers are easily manipulated while others?
It’s my response in the comments you refer to as what “some people” like to talk about. But honestly, seriously, women are not being discriminated against in publishing. There are far far too many women who make a living at writing as teachers, freelancers, editors, novelists, and agents that it seems like an all-too-narrow focus. I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t be upset about what is going on at Granta. But it’s Granta. God knows what is going on.
Walk into any bookstore, any mfa program, any editorial office and you won’t find women absent. It’s not 1979 anymore. Of course it makes a difference that there are more agents, junior editors, and debut novelists who are women. Of course it makes a difference that the perception in publishing is that men don’t read and that the large presses are mostly marketing to women.
There’s also something really bizarre and slightly distasteful when editors and agents blog about their selection process. It’s too revealing.
PS America’s schools are still deeply segregated across the country. It’s illegal and we should be marching in the streets.
Although we’ve publicly disagreed in the past over our particular aesthetic differences, I stand in solidarity with you on this issue, Roxane. I’m glad that you took the time to write about this issue, and I’m especially glad to see you “be radical” as you put it, when you assert:
I am currently in the process of putting together a series of interviews with women writers responding to questions about experimental literature, which I hope to begin running here on htmlgiant by the end of the month. One of the questions I’ve asked is explicitly about gender inequality, arising from Amy King’s VIDA research.
I feel like one way of moving toward balancing the disparity demonstrated by those VIDA figures is by persistently initiating the conversation and insisting on its relevancy – as you’ve done here.
I agree with you wholeheartedly when you say:
because I also think that many who seem to be unwilling to accept the evidence of disparity or “get annoyed” that these conversations continue to recur — we can see an example of this in a comment made on Blake’s recent post about inequality where a particular commenter wrote something like “here we go again” – I think they really agree with you when you say:
but fail (or refuse) to acknowledge your very next line:
This can be seen as a political discussion, which might make some folks raise an eyebrow at my taking a stand here, given that I have in various articles and interviews fairly consistently, perhaps notoriously, denied interest in or even the appropriateness of entangling art and politics. I continue to believe in the necessary separation between art and politics vis-a-vis the consideration of the object qua object. But — and it is a big but — I do think it is not only appropriate but necessary to consider the production and dissemination of the objects being considered. Asking questions like: Who is being heard? Who is being silenced? Those are important questions to ask.
And here is where I think even those folks who, like myself, tend to want to focus on aesthetics rather than ethics when it comes to art can find common ground with those who would rather not take ethics off the table:
Difference.
Difference is good.
Difference is what makes art unpredictable, rich, engrossing.
We should all want to promote difference because it is in our best interest.
Sameness is bad.
Sameness is what makes art predictable, bland, boring.
It seems that if journals are publishing a predominately similar group of people, then we as readers suffer because we are being denied difference.
Heavens, this response has gotten longwinded. Sorry! All this to say, good post, Roxane! Viva la radical assertions!
And I think too, maybe I prefer to see it more in a “asset-based” rather than “deficit-based” way? As having the potential to enrich and contribute? Editors do all different kinds of “meddling” to craft an interesting issue, and this is just another thing in the mix. I suppose there are plenty of publications that take “the best of whatever comes through,” (whatever that means), but those are not the publications that most interest me, I like a more curatorial approach.
John, I was referencing a very common commentary about publishing that I’ve seen thrown out this week and in the past, the idea that women dominate publishing. That statement did not originate with you and though you did use it in that thread, I wasn’t thinking about it. I was asking for numbers in those posts. I think numbers do tell part of the story. In the previous threads, we both threw out numbers that supported our arguments. Both sets of numbers told a story that was accurate which is why, at some point, we need to move beyond numbers and talk about solutions.
Roxane, thank you. Top to bottom, this is probably the best thing I’ve read on the gender problem in publishing in ages. There needs to be more willingness to think through the fact that while aesthetics aren’t sociological, the ability to develop them in public is. You write: “We need editors who take a stand, editors who say, this is the only thing to do, who say, “I will not publish a new issue until I have an equal or close to equal number of women and men represented.” Maybe that sounds a little radical, but radical measures often lead to radical and important change.” This sounds radical and right – right because it is radical. And it’s not just about a segment of women either: there needs to be a real effort to hit parity proper. The idea that minoritization (a sexist word when it comes to gender anyway) somehow saps independence of judgement is bogus: a sort of scare tactic that makes us think we’ll all be reduced to accountants, when the point of equality is not to balance the books on every single unit but to create a properly representative fluctuation between groups over time. In the specific case here, the idea that equality is sidebar to the real enjoyment of literature is not a little bit sexist too precisely because it also ignores the way that sexism is something that doesn’t only effect women but lies in the objective difficulty of finding women to publish or submit: in other words, how it impairs our independence of judgment in advance through its sociological quarantines. If we want to be real readers, not to mention real writers, we should want to read the styles that aren’t getting to use easily and often, even if the styles that do get to use easily and often are smart and grand. Thanks again, Roxane, for such an eloquent and nuanced breakdown of the issue.
doesn’t absolute diversity equal absolute sameness though? in a way? ive never thought about it in terms of difference and sameness. segregation is a determining factor in things that are different. i think to be pro-diversity, you are actually pro-sameness. im sure someone more well read like you can quote me some philosphical text on this, since i am just thinking about it here for the first time.
but lets say there is like a melting pot of humanity all desegregated and feeding off each other and creating art. wouldnt it all be more kind of like blander and the same as opposed to cultural groups separated from each other, uninfluenced by each other and creating things more from their individual groups points of view, you;d have pockets of art that would be much more different from each other.
i think the driving force behind a desire of desgregation in injustice, not indifference.
okay, those are just thoughts.
(hi chris!)
The reason I said “here we go again” is that Blake’s post was askance. Any serious discussion here about these issues has broken down while ironic posturing deflects.
Chris, you’ve often been dimissive of those who disagree with you. I merely expressed my exhaustion at where the conversation has gone in the past.
Mixing things up is great, and diversity is great, but it worries me that editors are judging submissions by taking into account writers’ names / genders / ethnicities.
I know it’s been said plenty of times before, but I’d like to think fiction submissions are being judged solely based on their content. If an editor receives a great story about a Namibian or a Mongolian or a Canadian character, it shouldn’t make a difference if the story was written by John Smith or Jane Smith or Xiu Chang or Adhra Pohamba.
Thank you for your comment, Chris. What you say at the end is so critical. You articulated something I didn’t really get it at which is that we are selling ourselves and our audiences short if we don’t do everything in our power to encourage difference–difference in who we’re publishing, difference in the content of what we publish, difference in the forms we publish.
Just throwing in a different opinion here. I love it when editors and agents blog about their selection process! I crave transparency!
“There’s also something really bizarre and slightly distasteful when editors and agents blog about their selection process. It’s too revealing.”
Huh?
Button your fly, your selection process is showing.
Hey baby, show me your selection process.
Mmmhmmm, gimme a piece of that selection process.
I guess I don’t really get this, I feel like editors talk abt various elements of process all the time, and most of the time it’s interesting and informative.
I hear you, Eli. That is a concern but I’m confident in saying most editors read the writing instead of peeking beneath skirts, etc. Trying to encourage diversity comes later and if there are gaps, that’s when it is useful to reach out, to get aggressive in trying to close those gaps.
There are a great many editors who read submissions blind or as blind as possible. Submishmash has done a lot to make this possible by instituting a blind reading feature.
Except it’s not transparency. It’s anything but. Mostly they complain about the slush or the writers who make blunders.
to go further with this line of thinking. is it better to have every journal publish a perfect mix of gender/racial/etc. equality, or is it better to have in existence journals who publish only women or only men or only latino or only etc., as long as there are an equal number of journals publishing each group?
but what if an editor is reading all their submissions blind and then they publish an issue of a magazine that is entirely male, and then they go back and see that all the submissions are from men? of course they published the best writing, and the gender didn’t matter, but maybe there’s a problem if women aren’t submitting. and that’s just a subset of the problem, maybe. I think Roxane was getting at this when she mention’s PANK’s Queer issue and how some people in minority groups didn’t submit until they felt encouraged to, etc.
I don’t know, I see the response “only the quality of the writing matters” a lot, and it sort of makes sense, but also there can be other ways that the gap presents itself besides just “tons of women submit but I reject them”
I will not publish a new issue until I have an equal or close to equal number of women and men represented.
I will not publish a new issue until I have an equal or close to equal number of tall and short represented.
I will not publish a new issue until I have an equal or close to equal number of elderly and young represented.
I will not publish a new issue until I have an equal or close to equal number of disabled and nondisabled represented.
I will not publish a new issue until I have an equal or close to equal number of introverts and extroverts represented.
:)
OK that’s hilarious.
I only mean that the process is extremely subjective and the more they talk about it the more they make that clear.
I remember an interview where Ellen Parker said (I’m paraphrasing) I pick the stories I like. The magazine is whatever I want it to be. No apologies there, no pretending and I really admire that. Because any editor who says anything different isn’t being honest. And often they complain, as in “we get a lot of writing that isn’t right for the mag”. Read: too many writers send me work I don’t like.
And here you start to pull a Noah’s Ark. You cannot slide down the slope from matters of gender (or race) to height or introversion and extroversion, but you know that and think that somehow doing so reinforces your point.
I’d like to see online submission systems offer an option to hide/show submitters names and email addresses from readers/editors (I don’t believe submishmash does this? I’ve never used the other systems from the editorial side). I’ve read both anonymous and non-anon submissions and much prefer the total initial concentration on the words with anon.
Submishmash does this now. There’s a thing you can do to pass work on to readers stripped of identifying information. I’m not explaining it well but the feature has been there for a bout a month or two.
okay, seriously though. why does this not get pushed as at least something small that editors can do then if it makes that big of a difference. the problem is Roxane’s framing of the situation as that it needs a “radical” solution. that the only way to change is by punching people in faces. while this little simple thing editors can do gets pushed aside.
i bet if you made a petition that editors could sign that said somthing like “I will remain aware of gender and racial diversity to the extent that I’m capable, and if it doesn’t get in the way of an artistic vision, I will go ahead and make a change toward diversification.” i would sign that. and im like the last person in the world who signs shit like this.
Yeah, I guess I don’t mind that, maybe even appreciate it, esp. when it comes from Ellen Parker, because pretty much everything that comes out of that woman’s mouth slays me. She’s wicked underappreciated.
ah… (scrolls up, reads upstream reply, slaps forehead for not refreshing before commenting)
I haven’t noticed that feature, and I submitted something via Submishmash recently, but I’ll definitely use that feature if it exists.
The feature is implemented on the back end. As a writer you just keep submitting normally. The submishmash guys can better explain the feature. Essentially, within the settings, you can set blind levels for any or all staff categories.
actually i might not sign that. id have to be in the right mood to sign that.
Just jokes, Roxane. Just pointing out the potential absurdity. But you’re right, maybe it’s not a slippery slope. I don’t know. The world is far from perfect, but it’s better in many ways than it was a couple hundred years ago. Women don’t necessarily feel the need to submit and publish their work under male pseudonyms, as they did in the 19th century, and that’s a sign of progress. I just hate to think that as writers, we have to impress curatorial editors with our Otherness, that our Otherness or lack thereof becomes as important as the quality of our work. Cuz we’re all the same. We’re all just trying to tell stories, to tell them as well as we can, and to be heard.
I do agree, Eli. It can quickly get out of control. We are all trying to be heard but the VIDA count implies that women, in general, have to fight a hell of a lot harder to be heard. I want to change that.
I hear you, and I’m down for the cause. John Smith, Jane Smith, Xiu Chang, and Adhra Pohamba are, too.
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“I just hate to think that as writers, we have to impress curatorial editors with our Otherness, that our Otherness or lack thereof becomes as important as the quality of our work.” This is where ideology really steps in, though. We’re all the same, formally, but in practice it’s proving that we’re not. And the tendency to reduce this to an opposition between quality as against representativeness is the problem: what if, for argument’s sake, there’s an abundance of quality work right now, too much, and yet it totally underrepresents the work of particular minorities, not to mention half the human population? The response to this worry is to try and pretend that quality isn’t being squeezed out via this gendered grid, when it absolutely is. The quality of work among artistic minorities and women is not being represented by the way publishing practice just randomly happens to fall. Because there’s nothing just random about it. In other words, then, the argument for equality is to sacrifice a monopoly of quality for a commons of quality. Really, to think that devising mechanisms to represent gender, or race, or sexuality ends up with curatorial editors abandoning their aesthetic judgment just to accept any old minority writer is kind of the problem: it just assumes, again, that allowing for equality isn’t expanding the field of your aesthetic judgment; instead, it’s narrowing it. So a shockingly consistent, overwhelming representation of male writers somehow represents the “idiosyncracy” of quality while introduction of minorities threatens us all with “sameness” of vision: this gets things totally backward. And moreover, the argument that it leads to absurd ends – we’ll have to include the near-sighted! the left-handed! the red-headed! -plays a game of moral algebra: where the differences that are freighted with particular histories of discriminatory relevance are made to disappear behind the basic ability for people to be assholes to anyone on the basis of a difference. There’s no allowance for the shadowy organization that’s been marshalled behind a subset of class, bodily, racial, sexual and gender particularities that were made to define not just the difference but the secondary status of certain beings. Justice is really what it’s ultimately all about: not just some idle moral hobby.
David be trippin’.
because she is proposing a solution if you look hard enough. Pank has an impeccable record of keeping diversity issues in check because Roxane “looks at upcoming issues and if she sees a strange imbalance, she will move things around across future issues.” But instead of seeing this as a solution, she would rather tout the fact the Pank is diverse naturally, and they are not aware of gender during selection processes etc.
but isnt what she’s doing kind of like a wonderfully subtle solution? i mean it doesnt get into maybe more underlying things, but it at least gets the numbers in check, right? i’m being completely serious here. why does this entire article keep playing on the idea that solutions are complex and only matter if they are hard fought.
fuck this. im so tired of rhetoric. i feel like no one really wants a solution because then there’d be nothing to be angry at. so long yall.
lol
Darby you seem to be arguing with yourself. I wouldn’t say our record is impeccable. There are areas where we could be more diverse. In terms of gender, we’re doing well. I had not really thought of rearranging the deck chairs when necessary as a solution but it is definitely one way of dealing with disparity. That said, we can rearrange content because the content is there, already accepted, waiting to be slotted into an issue. We’re not going into the submission queue looking for balance. We’re going into accepted submissions and that has come naturally. I don’t know why. It just is what it is.
Oh, you’re going into accepted submissions. Okay. I didn’t see that before. So you’re saying like, across multiple issues, it would even out, regardless. You’re just making issues themselves more even. Gotcha. Okay, you can disregard all my comments about this then. Thanks for clarifying!
Probably someone has already said this in the comments I didn’t read, but wouldn’t the more comprehensive approach be to find the gender breakdown of the total submission-sample to a given journal over a given period of time, then compare that ratio (say 60-40) to the ratio of men-women showing up in the issues corresponding (obviously roughly) to that submission period? If there’s real discrepancy between the two ratios, then maybe the editors need to start reading blind, or STOP reading blind, if they’re really intent on leveling things out a bit, or . . . actually I don’t know what they need to do, but I would say that if the ratios are not wildly divergent, then there’s not much an editor can do short of altering policy toward actively choosing more pieces submitted by women for publication, which, IF this meant turning down desired submissions from a handful of male submitters in order to bring the ratio closer to 50-50, seems like it would be a pretty self-defeating approach for a publication aiming to put out the best work it possibly could with every issue.
Roxane’s mention of Pank’s special Queer issue struck me as an excellent way to shake things up at the level of a single issue, and I think there are probably a lot of different directions you could take that concept in, but on a larger scale, if it turned out that, say, 80% of your submitters were male, then even if that’s regrettable, I don’t think it’s to anyone’s advantage to try to get the gender-distribution in a given issue (or even spread out over multiple issues) as close to 50-50 as you can — unless the submitters making up that surplus 30% are doing MARKEDLY inferior work (which may be the case; I don’t edit a magazine, so I really couldn’t say).
Tim, I think these phrases are evasions.
The “parallels” to fighting segregation might indeed be illuminating. The effect – in my view: the point – of busing was never really desegregation; busing was always a form of countersegregation.
Rather than pulling from the “asset” side, by talking white families into sharing resources, authorities resorted to pushing from the “deficit” side, by using busing to force a sharing of resources directly – which was achieved by enforcing quotas in racial representation in public schools (or, at the university level, by enforcing the qualification quotas (already in effect) across the racial board).
Here’s the point, as I see countersegregation as a tactic that one hopes will strategically evolve out of ‘needing’ to exist: if one sees a quota in effect – pro-white, pro-male, pro-straight, pro-x – , as a concrete, albeit invisible, reality, and one wants a counterquota put into place so as, over time, to dissolve the historically given quota system, then DEMAND that counterquota!
‘Oh, you’re asking for a quota system.’ ‘There’s already a quota in effect; I’m demanding redress in the form of a counterquota. So what? If you oppose it, you’re supporting the quota that’s already at work. My quota is better, because more just, than your quota.’
As I understand it, that was the “de”segregation argument in education, and that’s the gender-in-literary-publishing argument several people have made on this thread – except without the flinching.
I would think the biggest problem I’ve observed with strategies to counter disparities, and this coming as somebody who is neither published nor female, is the lack of connection between discussion and action. By that I do not mean to imply anything about you or your post(s), as I think because they are social discussions, rather than meaningless assertions, they have weight and potential in evolving. I also think it’s probably more important than any of us know, and probably also important in ways we don’t quite know yet, to somehow address this issue, so long as ‘addressing’ it means sorting through, rather than merely speaking at. The problem is, as you’ve mentioned, that the change hasn’t happened yet. Change has happened, but not ‘the’ change. How fast should the change be happening? What signs will the change give off of happening? Could we be moving any faster on this?
Probably. I do think it’s a change that’s going to occur, and that it’s maybe not going to occur any faster than it is, but that we could be moving faster I do not doubt: for everybody (regardless of gender) seems to want the change, but nobody (regardless of gender) ever seems to address it beyond talking about it. I think, in this instance, the problem is dual: 1. It’s all good and well for an institution like the Times to speak about it, and it may in fact be very ‘liberal’ institution mostly comprised of very progressive men, but the traditions of journalism are so steep that (by tradition’s very nature) it would rather the change come through the world that already exists for it, that it change while not having to change, that any disparity correct itself by increased action and presence from the members of the disparity, and even if a large chunk of this institution does want to somehow help impact the change, they have no idea how to do so.
The second part is that the primary tool of choice for advancing or constructing any change in America is still ‘outrage’. Outrage works for the broad stuff, for legalities, for getting the right to vote, and desegregation. It’s perfect for those things because there’s an obvious moral choice involved, and because the solution involves a white guy signing a document; when under pressure, white men sign documents with alacrity. However, rager is not a precision instrument, and these issues require one. So, in approaching these well-meaning but rather bumbling institutions (or the ones who are less well-meaning and more insidious, or those merely neutral), we still primarily think that the way to get things done is to shame them for their actions, their non-actions; our first instinct is still to lay blame, when at this point it should have already begun evolving toward more civilized methods for advancing itself. So far, our culture does two things: say it wants more equality, gets angry when there isn’t.
A good point was made back in the time of the passing and (not yet then) repeal of Prop 8, about the role the black vote played. Exit polls showed a sharp 7-10 turn-out voting in favor of its passing among black people, and there is a strong, deeply rooted culture of homophobia running through aspects of African-American society, but obviously black people didn’t ‘make’ the vote go through; they didn’t have anywhere near the numbers for that. Some people, nevertheless, got rather upset about the numbers, and the typical cultural response to any kind social issue asked who do we blame? Well, someone responded, you ‘blame’ the people whose job it was to get Prop 8 passed. Rather than just picketing, protesting, and demonstrating, there are aspects of society which need educating–and it’s not like black people just wouldn’t understand at all the inherent inequality, if you showed them the language that was being used was exactly like the language used to support the ban of inter-racial marriage, if you show them that the paranoia and fear being exhibited then, and now, are almost completely identical. Black people by now have a very good understanding about how separate-but-equal is code for a legal inequality, and could see that giving gay people their ‘separate-but-‘ ‘marriage lite’ option is condescending at best, if anybody had bothered to point it out to them.
If we have two problems, then we need two results: the institutions to evolve, and the ways in which we hold those institutions accountable to evolve. It is no longer enough, in fact it is quite detrimental, to just be ‘angry’, and it is no longer enough to just be ‘well-meaning’. If the Times is a ‘liberal’, ‘progressive’ institution, they will want to be reflective of change, but in addition to being a society which is not yet fully equal, we are not yet a society which is nuanced enough to meaningfully approach how equality may occur. Because just saying, over and over and over, that there is an equality has all the motivational power of rote education: we’ve gone past the 18th century Catholic school, are now at the 19th century knuckle-slapping phase, and need to somehow come to a point where we are expanding rather than filling what we are approaching.
I personally happen to think reaching out, as you’ve outlined, is as practical a method as I’ve seen, in a field with few truly practical methods; and I think we as a society have been conditioned to think of this in terms of the first, more indelicate approach to the subject, which were just ‘higher women’, ‘higher black people’, ‘higher x.’ In any case, I’m sure I’ve gone on long enough in a thread full of people going long.
(also, we’ve been saying ‘bitches be tripping’ in a way which can include more than just women since at least the early 90s; way to be the Man, urban dictionary)
The problem with judging solely by content is that the idea of what content is important has been shaped in large part by white men. War is taken more seriously than romance, which isn’t to say that women can’t write about war and men can’t write about romance, just that that isn’t usually what happens.
Love this. Thank you, Roxane.
I think it’s at least anecdotally true that men seem more comfortable with a “spray-and-pray” submission strategy generally but then I look at the submissions I read for Uncanny Valley and honestly I think we get more submissions from women who haven’t made any effort to figure out our tastes — a lot of the sort of stuff I explicitly argue against in the blog on a regular basis. And at Puerto I would say it’s about evenly split, in terms of who sends ludicrously inappropriate work, FWIW. Not that I care — I want everything.
Worth remembering that men are about 1,000,000% more likely to “not get” social conventions, etc. in a fundamental way, also. Women are more socially constrained but also more socially literate. (Would count myself among those men who don’t get it.)
I’m not sure a good ‘content-based’ selection system takes content to just mean ‘subject of the story’. Also, your examples don’t strike me as relevant to the publishing world as it is today, but rather as it was when we started thinking about these problems, decades ago. Since you were just sketching a general point, I don’t think it’s a big deal, and would hate to take you out of context, but those seemed like things worth noting.
Hey, Darby!
I see what you’re saying about the potential for pure diversity to become pure homogeneity. That’ a valid concern. But I guess what I envision is not a melting pot, a metaphor that does imply the dissolution of difference, but rather a backyard full of dried leaves. In other words, each retains its singularity, therefore contributing individual difference to the overall landscape. (Wacky metaphor, I know, sorry, my morning coffee is still percolating.)
As for your question about which is better: the perfect mix or a proliferation of individual instantiations of different perspectives, I think the point for me is to encourage difference as much as possible, as often as possible, however it should happen. But I haven’t given this aspect of the issue much thought until now, so excuse the rudimentary answer.
In terms of actual practice, I think this could manifest if editors became more conscious of the disparity and actively worked toward changing it, toward diversifying. (Which is why I think conversations like this one are important. Awareness can lead to change.) So, for instance, say an editor notices that their forthcoming issue is skewed toward men. And say that the reason for this is because the journal did not receive as many quality submissions from women. There is a very easy solution: solicit material from women. Don’t wait for them to come to the journal, take the journal to them.
In terms of other underrepresented groups, I think the issue becomes even more fraught with complexity. Issues of numbers come into play, for instance, when we try to figure out the appropriate distribution of allocated space for Latino American writers or African American writers or Asian American writers, etc. But when it comes to gender disparity, the fact of the matter is: we’re talking about roughly half of the human population, half of the American population. This makes it a different sort of conversation, to my mind.
Anyway, thanks for responding. Always good to communicate with you!
I wish Pank would do a deaf queer issue.
http://www.amazon.com/Eyes-Desire-Deaf-Lesbian-Reader/dp/1555832040
Could you do your next post on “Bitches ain’t shit but hos and tricks”?
A useful constructivist argument.
What “shaped” white men? – is it white men ‘all the way down’?
“A while ago, an editor e-mailed me saying something to the effect of that he was not going to publish another issue featuring a white man until he found the right story by a woman or someone from a different demographic. Then he told me not to tell anyone as if there was something wrong with taking that kind of stand. There isn’t. I didn’t know how to respond at the time but the more I thought about that e-mail, the more I believed that editor was doing something great. Taking a stand is important.” Yes, taking a stand, ANY stand, apparently is important. That editor had good reason to want his name kept quiet. What a ridiculous plan, and it is so not something great.
The author doesn’t even quote the most famous line about stats, the one by some dudarino named Stalin.
I would love a journal that invited a writer like me – white, rich, entitled, heterosexual (YOU KNOW IT, BITCHES!), self-important – to submit. Go white boy, go white boy go!
“A while ago, an editor e-mailed me saying something to the effect of that he was not going to publish another issue featuring a white man until he found the right story by a woman or someone from a different demographic. Then he told me not to tell anyone as if there was something wrong with taking that kind of stand. There isn’t. I didn’t know how to respond at the time but the more I thought about that e-mail, the more I believed that editor was doing something great. Taking a stand is important.” Yes, taking a stand, ANY stand, apparently is important. That editor had good reason to want his name kept quiet. What a ridiculous plan, and it is so not something great.
The author doesn’t even quote the most famous line about stats, the one by some dudarino named Stalin.
I would love a journal that invited a writer like me – white, rich, entitled, heterosexual (YOU KNOW IT, BITCHES!), self-important – to submit. Go white boy, go white boy go!
darby, a common metaphor for the integrity of particulars in a diverse assembly is the tossed salad.
Each particle in a salad, when eaten separately, tastes like itself: a flap of lettuce, a slice of carrot, and a sprinkle of parmesano aren’t, for most people, mistakable for each other, bitten alone.
But the whole salad, tossed together, is all equally “salad”. Each forkful of “salad” might have a slightly different flavor, texture, and taste, because each constituent won’t be included at the same amount in each forkful; the consistency of the salad will be ‘lumpy’. But, as one eats the dish, each forkful is equally “salad”, because it’s all equally “salad”.
– this relationship between ‘part’ and ‘whole’ is a concrete, everyday instance of the dialectical unity and coherence of particular and universal.
Do you see how the sameness – “salad” – does not contradict the diversity – the differences between the ingredients – ? — how, in fact, the heterogeneity and homogeneity of a “salad”, seen in this way, are mutually dependent?
But. The relationship between the ingredients of a tossed salad – within margins of taste and chance – is relatively static. One knows, as one is making (or eating) a salad, that this is not enough cucumber, that is too oniony, the other dollop of dressing is enough-to-taste-but-not-so-much-as-to-dominate.
It’s not precise, not dogmatically enforcable – but there’s a ratio of parts that makes a salad to one’s taste: a recipe. — a quota.
It’s a shame that the concept of proportional representation is all over this thread, and these perspectives generally, but the words fairly to describe the desideratum have been boogerized (in my view) by the empty thinking caps on the political Right.
What is the qualitative distinction between “half” and 15%??
Is it simply that ‘male/female’ is a harder-and-faster difference than those of ‘Latino/European’ or ‘African/European’ or ‘gay/straight/etc.’?
Most literary editors aren’t earning anything for their troubles. Now you want them to continue putting out journals while solving the world’s gender “troubles”? Maybe that “dude” at Virginia Quarterly can bring his immense talent to this quandary. He earns enough. And, it will get him SO FUCKIN’ LAID.
I don’t think you’re arguing with yourself, darby.
You’re indicating that “‘mov[ing] things around across future issues'” and “get[ting] the numbers in check” and doing anything concrete to ‘encourage diversity’ is, in fact, applying a Noahnic “checklist”.
You’re calling attention to the fact that “taking a stand” in the way the editor is celebrated for doing in the blogicle means pro-active editing – specifically, in adding authorial identity to “quality” as criteria, without necessarily diminishing quality, when, say, composing a magazine issue.
— and why not? why not?? If the argument is – and it is – that some people ALREADY are meeting a selector criterion of identity, before their work is judged – if that’s an empirically compelled conclusion – , why not address the injustice of that criterion directly, with a counterquota?
Anyway, I think you’ve gotten/are getting the defensive reaction you have/are, to the (risible) point of being neutralized by being called ‘defensive’, not because you’re wrong or unkind in your point of view, but rather, because the contradictions you expose are forced by a to-me unnecessary reluctance to call things by reasonable names.
Of the last 100 submissions I have received for Girls with Insurance and dispatch litareview, 67 were from women. Thus it’s little wonder that I publish more women than men. If the scales went the other way, then so likely would the publishing.
I don’t believe that anyone at the New Yorker sits back and says, “We must publish men.” I don’t believe this happens. I think the New Yorker, like any other magazine, publishes what sells and what gets their magazine the widest readership.
You can’t leave out the fact that some of the most influential publications in the country are in fact men’s magazines. Esquire, Playboy, GQ. The three of them combined have readerships of well over a 2 million (according to the colophons). Subscription wise.
That’s a lot of people for just three magazines to influence.
I think that magazines aren’t really the the focus of this discussion, or anyway shouldn’t be. I think journalism is more important. Are women as grossly under-represented in newspapers? What about anchors on television?
Those outlets have far greater influence, and if they are not as grossly under-represented or if it’s even the opposite way, then perhaps the whole of publishing can be forgiven.
Roxane, I think these are excellent points. I’ve noticed that the good majority of outrage toward the idea of actively working toward gender parity in writing comes from men, and it seems grounded in the idea that their phenomenal work will be edged out by a woman’s mediocre work. But so long as editors are accepting work from both genders, that just plain won’t happen. It’s a weird straw man. What WILL happen is that the more mediocre men’s work will sink while the best work from each gender will float. If anything, it should send out a (positive!) message: Men, up your game! Your mediocre will no longer cut it just because you are more visible!
admittedly i did not read every single comment on this thread, so i may be repeating someone’s argument. sorry.
that being said, i agree with what jonathan says above. if you’re getting submission ratios of 70/30 men/women and still publishing issues with nearly 50/50 ratios, something strikes me as odd about that. it seems to me that if there are a much larger portion of men submitting then you’d have a much greater number of quality submissions from men just based on averages. it seems that you’re not publishing some good work by men simply to meet your quota. i’m not sure if that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it certainly isn’t equality. now, if the numbers were reversed and you got mostly women submitting and still published more men than women, that would obviously be a problem. but as i see it now, if pank published more men than women it would only make sense based on the numbers you provided. assuming here, of course, that quality is the important part of this, not the gender issues, and assuming that the quality averages out both ways. perhaps, however, men are sending out much more crap, which goes back to the whole ‘scatter shot’ method of submitting men are apparently more likely to engage in. so it is possible that your 30% women subs actually have, within that 30%, something like 60% goodness, whereas that 70% of men has only like 30% goodness. that would average out to a 50/50 ratio overall (or something like that, i’m just throwing out numbers). but i’m not sure if that’s what happens, and i somehow doubt that it is. but it’s very possible. if your’e getting a lot of men submissions and they mostly all suck, then my little spiel here is totally pointless.
just throwing that out there. i’m probably wrong, or inaccurate, or something. this just has been nagging at me since you posted this.
ah crap this issue has already been raised. i’m just tripping.
Christ, have all you “editors” never heard of soliciting fiction?
[…] is beginning to explode. It's combustible. Roxane Gay stands behind the flames, madly grinning, copies of Normally Special behind lock and key, shoveling […]
Careful man, sharks patrol these waters.
http://trickwithaknife.com/?p=1537
So you mean she did something useful and so we don’t have to remind her that she’s not doing anything useful because she’s actually doing something useful?
Is that all we (I) were (was) doing? Hating? Or could it be that if no one had said anything about the endless bitching and moaning then Roxane Gay would never have gotten to this point?
Are you okay?
Also, fuck M. Kitchell and 2 more who liked that.
Why can’t you be this adorable when you’re taking ME to task? You’re so much prettier when you’re not pandering to breeders.
That’s what it was, and that’s how it happened. Interested parties might note that we have changed the publication schedule as a result.
I just want to make clear that I’m only as retarded as I sound most of the time.
Pank published 2 of my poems in 2008-ish. I went to AWP that year (the free day here in NYC) and met the editor. HE was an utterly heterosexual, happy, brainy, open and the right kind of crazy. Other editors are lots more uncomfortable in their skin and (I posit) this has an impact on decisions. I’m pretty happy to lucky with my journal publications but now I realize it could be better. It could have been better. It will be better. (((As for Threepenny Review, Wendy Lesser is a goddess and not just because she published one of my poems. She really did something in starting that journal. I DON’T agree with all of her choices but I do have to and want to defend her.))) Sarah Sarai
http://trickwithaknife.com/?p=1537
in the spirit of bataille i propose an inartistic publishing venture embodying the highest moral virtue: The Diaper.
any takers?
Talking about disparity and the reasons for it isn’t the same as “Bitching and moaning”.
I’d imagine your female white rapping daughter might take on the difficulties of being a white female rapper in one of her “dope verses”, and why not? And how is that different from a female writer writing about those same difficulties?
Calling data or well-thought-out arguments “bitching and moaning” is incredibly dismissive. What is wrong, with questioning things?
Okay bitches. So I’m a soon-to-be-parent, an underemployed educator, and an editor for a female run literary journal, all be it small, maybe inconsequential… what do you want me to do? Be specific, because I’m really tired of being told I’m part of some big vague problem that started thousands of years ago. Then I’ll tell you whether it makes sense to me or not. (I’ll tell you right now, soliciting simply for gender equality doesn’t make sense to me. I found, after htmlg’s last thread, it took a lot of my unpaid [wo]man-hours and was generally unfruitful.)
Then let me know when I finally get to say, “Women are strong enough to decide for themselves whether they want to submit or not.” Or, “Stop being a pussy and submit for the cause.” Or… [insert comment that gives women responsibility for their own successes here]
alice blue review is not inconsequential. It’s just unfortunately under-appreciated. To change that, you should get a contributorship at HTMLGIANT and spend all your time doing that instead. Hey, it worked for some.
Also, congratulations on the kid thing, Sarah.
Isn’t Roxane just suggesting that editors tweak their practice of inviting awesome writers to specifically inviting awesome writers who are women? It seems to me an overstatement to characterise this as “soliciting simply for gender equality”, kind of like saying the editor of a themed issue is soliciting only for content.
If you could share how/why your attempts were unfruitful–or more specifically, less fruitful than your usual efforts. I’d be very interested to hear, if you’d be interested to tell.
I don’t see the attitude you mention in your second para as incompatible with soliciting female writers. Seems to me an invitation to submit is just a more polite, very targeted version of your second quote–i.e. not coddling necessarily, but a spur to action, a kick in the ass. What makes saying it in e.g. an email, or even just the abr guidelines, so different from saying it in a comments thread?
the difference is that when you specifically solicit women, what you are saying is women need help, and a common interpretation of what you are saying there is women are not able to help themselves if they are needing your help. the problem with this model, and with affirmative action, is it keeps minorities in positions of needing and expecting help. it keeps them in positions of submission. the pride of success is lessened the more you’re aware that road blocks in place for others were moved for you. at least i feel it would be for me. if i was a minority (im a white heterosexual middleclass-income male with average shoe size, so i have never really experienced discrimination like what we are talking about here for anything i dont have some control over except for maybe being a little autistic) i feel like if i was receiving help because of my minority status it would infuriate me. id be like fuck you man, what makes you think i need help from you? i really like sarah’s attitude here and elizabeth’s above. more women should be mad instead of whiny. more women need to stop worrying about all the particular walls in their way and put on helmets and run through them. only the strong survive! (happy darwin day!)
the difference is that when you specifically solicit women, what you are saying is women need help, and a common interpretation of what you are saying there is women are not able to help themselves if they are needing your help. the problem with this model, and with affirmative action, is it keeps minorities in positions of needing and expecting help. it keeps them in positions of submission. the pride of success is lessened the more you’re aware that road blocks in place for others were moved for you. at least i feel it would be for me. if i was a minority (im a white heterosexual middleclass-income male with average shoe size, so i have never really experienced discrimination like what we are talking about here for anything i dont have some control over except for maybe being a little autistic) i feel like if i was receiving help because of my minority status it would infuriate me. id be like fuck you man, what makes you think i need help from you? i really like sarah’s attitude here and elizabeth’s above. more women should be mad instead of whiny. more women need to stop worrying about all the particular walls in their way and put on helmets and run through them. only the strong survive! (happy darwin day!)
This is one of the best things I’ve ever read about the gender disparity in publishing. It’s so hard to get past the same tiresome debate, so I’m glad to see someone trying (brilliantly, I might add).
I think socialization is the crux of the problem, from how many women are submitting to how many books by women are being published to how many books by women are being reviewed in well-known/respected venues to how many books by women are winning awards to how many books by women are considered “classics” or “great American novels.” The male gaze is king, after all.
I’d rather talk about the writing than gender, race, sexuality, and such. We all would. We’re not there yet even though sometimes we convince ourselves we are.
You’re killing it right here, Ms. Gay. We’re just not there yet, as frustrating as it is. It’s just fucking true. We have to face it in order to begin working through it.
This is one of the best things I’ve ever read about the gender disparity in publishing. It’s so hard to get past the same tiresome debate, so I’m glad to see someone trying (brilliantly, I might add).
I think socialization is the crux of the problem, from how many women are submitting to how many books by women are being published to how many books by women are being reviewed. The male gaze is king, so to speak.
I’d rather talk about the writing than gender, race, sexuality, and such. We all would. We’re not there yet even though sometimes we convince ourselves we are.
You’re fucking killing it right here, Ms. Gay. This is so true.
Well, there were a number of issues, and our problem is usually on the “prose” side (Amber talks a little about it here). The bulk of the responses were positive, but most said that they didn’t have anything to give me at that moment. That they write slowly and send things out as they have them, which is fair. I write slowly (carefully) so I get that, but it didn’t help me when I had a deadline and only a couple female prospects for the prose only issue.
Looks like the issue coming out Monday’s a dead split though, and I didn’t solicit anything, so… yay?
I guess the difference between saying it here, and in the abr guidelines is that it feels yucky. I don’t mind feeling like an asshole here, but I try not to when it actually comes to our contributors. It’s why I get all weepy when someone doesn’t recognize literary references (usually O’Hara) in our rejection letters and gives me a tongue lashing for being flippant… and I find it embarrassing, as a woman, to have to beg for women to submit just because they’re women. How would you phrase such a thing and not walk away feeling just a bit like a female writer is like some different, special creature that needs to be lured into publishing, or hinting that they might have a better shot publishing with us than men because they’ve got lady parts.
I mean, no one feels like that’s degrading?
The way you describe it, yes, that’s degrading. I don’t think that’s what anyone is actually suggesting.
As a queer woman of color, I’d say your perspective on affirmative action is the exact opposite of mine. It’s not charity. It’s a recognition of the fact that shit is incredibly unequal in our society and it’s an effort to equalize them because of that fact. (And for the record, affirmative action has primarily assisted white women, not racial minorities.) Without concerted effort, things more or less remain the way things always have been.
Oops. Ignore this one! :P
Ha! I need a secretary just to keep up with everything going on on this site. By inconsequential, I just mean, it’s not making VIDA’s list. We have the smartest, most loyal readership in the world and are pretty damn happy with them.
And lastly, thank you sweetie. I feel alternately thrilled, terrified, then just confused as to why I’m getting so many ‘congratulations’ for something people have been doing rather successfully for thousands of years… ;)
but it doesnt bother you even a little to realize that the government considers you as a lesser person and in need of help? wouldnt it be awesome to succeed in spite of help that others try to offer you? i dont know, maybe im just more independently motivated than other people.
Well, more importantly, affirmative action deals with that the hurdles put out there in the larger world, and workforce, dealing with the general population, and not highly educated, primarily liberal, small press/journal editors…
I keep hitting ‘like’ instead of ‘reply.’ Maybe I do need special help.
It would be awesome, sure, but I’m not thinking about it the same way you are, and I come from a place of extreme privilege, so it’s hard to say how I’d feel otherwise. I think of it like the government making up for the attitude of general society. Like, oops, no one every expected you to amount to anything because you’re a minority, how about trying college? And I’m thinking more about racial minorities right now than me. Women outnumbering men in college generally. Never having seen it happen in the workplace.
So my answer is a resounding “Nope.” At least, not as much as it bothers me that the government thinks that my brain-wave-less fetus is more of a person than I am should it decide to puncture my insides right now…
This tough, straightforward-sounding phrase would more accurately be thrown in the teeth of the people who already enjoy the identity-based advantages that extravagantly imbalanced stats indicate. (- not that uninterpreted stats make any kind of argument.)
What affirmative action says, in the case of adequately demonstrated discrimination, is that it’s the decision-making authorities who “need help” in finding the genuinely meritorious.
‘I think of it like the government making up for the attitude of general society.’
you seem to be saying that the reason why a solution is in place is good enough reason for it to be in place, regardless of the viability of that solution. no one is arguing that action is or isn’t needed. it is needed.
my position on affirmative action is like this. i agree with atleast the sentiment on a macro level. my experience of seeing it actually happen in the workplace has been negative. its impossible to apply practically without shifting inequality somewhere else. it relies on this idea that you can compare the potential of human beings with each other, and somehow conclude that there is nothing different about these people other than that they are different gender/race/etc. i came very close to not having the job i have now because there were enough minorities with lesser resumes who were given positions in line ahead of me. in the end i barely got in by negotiating them to open a new position. then over the next couple of years, i watched all those who were in line ahead of me get fired for incompetence. it seems like minorities are being given a ton of leeway right now and that they dont really take advantage of it is whats so depressing. but i feel also that if someone is given too much leeway, they have less personal conviction to succeed. so when i see these propensities to just complain, it bothers me. i never want to hear about how high the mountain is thats in your way, all i want to hear is a person’s conviction to climb it.
i dont not think that some action is necessary. things are skewed and obviously something is needed. but i feel like that something needs to focus more on what truly motivates people to succeed instead of just giving a person success on a plate.
One could talk about specific cases of “minority” people who outwardly scorn – with the most repellent hypocrisy – the affirmative action they took advantage of at critical moments along their ways (Clownance Thomas, Parrokeezza) – but let’s instead look at the Yale/Harvard/military/business/political career of Hanoi George.
When was Hanoi George “bother[ed] even a little to realize” how much “help” he received – “help” directly proportional to “need” but inversely proportional to merit – at every Deception Point of his life? When was his identity-based assumption of entitlement “bother[ed] even a little to realize” how unqualified he was proving himself to be, every step of the way, to get the breaks he got??
darby, do you really perceive that you’re “independent” of pro-white, pro-male, pro-heterosexual quota systems??
“darby, do you really perceive that you’re “independent” of pro-white, pro-male, pro-heterosexual quota systems??”
no. did i imply that?
i dont think i agree with this. decision making authorities “need help” in finding a more diverse workforce, but not the genuinely meritorious. merit trumps everything, at least in my experience. its why tech companies are going to India, because that’s where all the geniunely meritorious are right now. this completely flies in the face of the idea that companies only care about hiring white males. companies only care about what makes them money.
You say you might be “more independently motivated than other people” – I’m guessing, from the preceding sentence, motivated “to succeed in spite of help that others try to offer you”.
Let me rephrase my question: Do you really think that whatever you do is done in some context other than that world in which you actually get the “help” – whether you want it, ask for it, consciously accept it, or, at some particular moment, even recognize it – of pro-white, pro-male, pro-heterosexual quota systems?
You say you might be “more independently motivated than other people” – I’m guessing, from the preceding sentence, motivated “to succeed in spite of help that others try to offer you”.
Let me rephrase my question: Do you really think that whatever you do is done in some context other than that world in which you actually get the “help” – whether you want it, ask for it, consciously accept it, or, at some particular moment, even recognize it – of pro-white, pro-male, pro-heterosexual quota systems?
i consciously always try to succeed in spite of help others give me, sure. i dont think that’s to say that i’m not aware i am functioning in a system that is designed to benefit me because i am white, male, and heterosexual. i am not pinning my successes on my independence. at least not absolutely. what i am saying is there is virtue in having a feeling that you succeeded independently.
“i consciously always try to succeed in spite of help others give me, sure.”
and this comes with its own wormcan that, you know, i’ll bring up with my therapist next week.
Darby, I’m going to try to be even-handed here, even though just about everything you’re saying is really problematic, even on a language level (it’s not the best idea to refer to minorities as ‘they’, as in, “minorities are being given a ton of leeway right now and they don’t really take advantage of it…” The country is not a meritocracy; the reasons ‘minorities’ are less likely to succeed is complex, but is primarily structural, about the ways that race and class combine due to historical inequality– that is to say, to be born black in the state of Mississippi is in all likelihood to be born poor, in an impoverished community where blacks live on one side of the tracks and whites (who own 95% of the businesses, at least in the Delta) live on the other, where the (awful) public schools are for blacks and private academies serve white children. A child with no choice about the life they were born into, whose entire life is marked by a lack of opportunity, is not likely to be able to just ‘work harder than most’ (as you describe your own work ethic) and shake off the circumstances they come from. An attitude of refusing to be held back is likely necessary to their success– certainly, in my experience teaching such students, it is usually present– but to charge the individual with full responsibility for overcoming inequality, history, and in places like Mississippi, actual racism, is unfair. It’s true that attempts to legislate fairness, or to encourage it through ‘affirmative action’ in higher education are often ineffective– witness how our elite universities today are likely to appear ‘diverse’, but are encouraging almost solely an ethnic diversity (everyone is middle class or upper-middle class). But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try.
To return to issues of representation in literary journals, then, there must be middle ground between trying to prescribe some particular quorum of women or minorities in each issue, and saying to women, listen, ‘girl’, it’s on you to submit more like a man. Certainly it should be incumbent on editors to examine who they publish and why, and to think about the status quo; I don’t know that editors should ever publish anyone in an effort to be ‘fair’ if that means taking work which they don’t feel has merit, but I see nothing wrong with editors seeking diverse voices with the conviction that they may be missing writers who deserve to be published.
what exactly was i saying that was problematic? how do i refer to an entity that i dont belong to other than “they” ? you have to distinguish somehow just to have the discussion.
“but to charge the individual with full responsibility for overcoming inequality, history, and in places like Mississippi, actual racism, is unfair.”
it is unfair. maybe thats why I NEVER CHARGED FULL RESPONSIBILITY ON ANY INDIVIDUAL FOR IT. im just saying there are ways of thinking about things. i essentially am in agreeme. fuck.
“‘affirmative action’ in higher education are often ineffective– witness how our elite universities today are likely to appear ‘diverse’, but are encouraging almost solely an ethnic diversity (everyone is middle class or upper-middle class). But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try.”
i agree. did i say up there that i dont think we should try to fix the problem? im pretty sure im saying we should tr. fuck.
‘saying to women, listen, ‘girl’, it’s on you to submit more like a man’
i never implied its on women COMPLETELY. you know im usually pretty careful about not speaking in absolutes, and im pretty sure i wasn’t here, was i? im just saying, there’s an attitude that can be applied that’s healthy. again,i pretty much agree with what you ar. fuck.
“Certainly it should be incumbent on editors to examine who they publish and why, and to think about the status quo; I don’t know that editors should ever publish anyone in an effort to be ‘fair’ if that means taking work which they don’t feel has merit, but I see nothing wrong with editors seeking diverse voices with the conviction that they may be missing writers who deserve to be published.”
in the end, im not really against this way of thinking if its the best solution. my issues with it remain, but if its what needs to happen its what needs to happen. its more im just kind of sad that that has to happen.
This last paragraph is probably the most concise and sensible framing of the issue these threads have come to yet, from my understanding of things.
So long as quality comes before other concerns, I really see no reason to contend with there being other concerns. In particular ‘seeking’ seems to me a crucial word choice. I would never presume to tell an editor how to run their publication, but the most effective approach to my mind seems to be reaching out and looking for work, if you want to alter your submission pool, rather than just working within your current submission pool, which strikes me as problematic.
Then again, I don’t publish a magazine and I don’t seek publication in them, so there it is.
How ‘virtuous’ can that “feeling” one might have be when it’s contrary to the fact that one in fact did not “succeed[] independently”?
Well, I didn’t mean to put words in your mouth, Darby; I think the other time I got in a discussion with you here, I had the same problem, which is that while you think you’re being clear as to your position, the way you frame your argument doesn’t actually indicate adequate nuance or clarity. I will try not to jump all over you– last time I offended deadgod with my righteousness, and I don’t want to be a dick. But look– take what you’re saying about ‘minorities’ and ‘they’. Quite honestly, as much as you might think there’s no way to have a conversation about this issue or about affirmative action without addressing all minority individuals as ‘they’ and then making generalizations about ‘their’ work ethic, circumstances, merit, and attitudes, you’re– well, wrong. fuck! or, fuck. Or however you say it to indicate frustration.
What I’m saying is that, while I understand you feel misconstrued, you wouldn’t be misconstrued if the way you approached the argument were a little more considered (well, and I’d say, grounded in a lot more experience– not that experience is necessary to enter a discussion, just that from the point of view of one of ‘them’, who spend a lot of time dealing with the monolithic ‘them’, you tend to come across as sounding uninformed and ill-equipped to really talk about ‘them’ and what ‘they’ require to succeed).
While I see that there are reasons for your objections to affirmative action, and while you’re tired of hearing about the mountain and want to hear about people who’ve summited successfully, I don’t think you can talk about getting to the top of the mountain without knowing about the mountain. I don’t think there’s a problem with discussing the lay of the land, or possible routes, any more than I’d suggest you’re not entitled to your opinion that Roxane’s suggested route makes you ‘sad’. There isn’t a simple ‘solution’. But I don’t see any problems with talking about possible approaches given that there’s a mountain.
i don’t know. negligibly lesser? you are conflating the way independence functions on a micro level with how it does on a macro. across a society, independence can work within these macro quota systems you’re talking about. relative to an individual, doing something on one’s own can elevate one’s sense of self-worth and confidence.
The point of diversity as a workplace priority is that its systematic lack in the workplace is a systematic denial of merit. People are excluded on account of their identity, meaning that other people are included on account of their identity – and not their merit.
People who are given an identity-based advantage, one that “trumps” merit, should be embarrassed to exploit that advantage, because it robs them of an opportunity to feel that they’ve independently succeeded, no?
– Well, that’s exactly why white, male, heterosexuals (especially middle- and upper-class ones) should support affirmative action: because its absence leaves in place that system that so cruelly disrespects the independence of white, male, heterosexuals by catering to their “need for help”.
–
Companies have been outsourcing away from America for four decades because of cost, not “merit”, darby. In the religion of Efficiency, “merit” isn’t much more than a kind of Scout badge.
yes, i think discussions with you, and with roxane and others, for me tends to be more a clashing of conversational tactic than actually disagreeing with core issues, i’ll concede to that.
i think my problem with your text is that i get that pretentious teacher-to-pupil feel about how you are addressing me. noting my lack of experience for example. and i have a kind of knee-jerk reaction to that.
i dont think roxane even suggested that route, did she? i don’t even know that she advocates it.
i mean, honestly man, i look back at what’s been written and i can’t think it’s all me just being unclear, you know? i mean i think in a certain kind of way that comes out here. its kind of haphazard, like im looking for inconsistencies, and then i find them and say things about them, is all. its like im having the debate in my head as im writing and wondering how what side im going to end up on. im not in a position to frame arguments here like if i were writing an essay.
i dont think the rationale holds in what you are saying w/r/t the relationship between merit and diversity. first of all, its ridiculous to talk about these as if either are quantifiable. if merit were something that could be quantified, and hence, equated, then whether it existed wholly in one non-diverse group or wholly in one diverse group, the amount of merit is the same. you seem to be saying that the more diverse an organization is the more merit it has. i dont see how.
outsourcing began that way, but, and im only speaking from experience from where i work, which is a tech company, that atleast for the higher end jobs (masters degrees in engineering), the wages are comparable, and the amount of talent coming from places like India far exceeds the US at this point. we pay for Indian citizens to relocate to the US, to pay them a full US wage, because there is no engineering talent pool in the US.
in fact, be an african-american female with a masters in engineering. you could go to any tech company and be hired on the spot.
Yeah, I think that’s it– you’re doing a combination of thinking out loud, and sort of half-playing devil’s advocate, but you’re not really articulating a clear position because you’re both trying out arguments, making objections on the basis of logic rather than conviction, and generally trying to figure out what you think as you go. I can respect that, and will try in the future not to jump all over your shit; if I come across as a bit teacher-to-student, well, I’m sorry, I spend my days teaching college students argument, and these issues are ones I’ve spent a lot of time dealing with, both in the classroom as a teacher at the college level, as a teacher at the 4th grade level dealing directly with kids in the MS Delta, and out of the classroom as a writer who often writes about race and who deals with editors of literary magazines submitting work as a minority writer who sometimes writes transgressively about race. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have your say, or that I have a right to lecture you… I’m just saying that as you try to ‘figure this stuff out’ in these posts, you often take positions (or seem to be taking positions) that are pretty difficult to accept for someone with my particular experience in my particular position, and I think that’s often true for others here. You might want to try to indicate that more clearly. For example, look at what Deadgod ended up saying about the end of the comment string the two of you had– there really are legitimate questions and points you’re trying to get at, but the way you bring them up does make temperatures rise for people who have a direct stake in these issues (while for you, it’s sort of a removed question of wondering how you ought to think about these questions). It’s hard to talk about race, gender, and representation always, and I think it’s good that you’re doing so as someone in the literary world. But you know, you might want to try indicating, as you ask ‘questions’, that you’re trying a position out, or just trying to see what the response to a logical inconsistency is, and that you’re not advocating or necessarily opposing the poster/commenter.
Thanks for sharing the details, and for the link. I wonder if perhaps the payoff might arrive in time?
In any case, the practical matter of having a low hit rate is one thing, and the question of whether it really is condescending/insulting/etc. to specifically solicit female writers is another. Aside from the fact that, in your experience, soliciting just isn’t efficient, what is your objection to it? Just wondering if I’m missing something here.
As for guidelines, maybe this is me being insensitive, but it doesn’t seem to me so hard to phrase inoffensively. “Currently, we receive only one submission from a woman for every [however many] submissions from men. We’d love to reduce the gap. Writers, take note!” Or something. Is that offensive?
the difference is that when you specifically solicit women, what you are saying is women need help
No, what you’re saying is that you know they’d probably not send you their work otherwise. If anything, it’s an admission that you, the editor, need help getting the writing you’d like to publish.
if i was a minority. . . i feel like if i was receiving help because of my minority status it would infuriate me. id be like fuck you man, what makes you think i need help from you?
Wow. Remind me never to solicit work from you.
i really like sarah’s attitude here and elizabeth’s above. more women should be mad instead of whiny. more women need to stop worrying about all the particular walls in their way and put on helmets and run through them.
Setting aside the pretty questionable way you’ve phrased this, I don’t get what in this attitude sets you against suggestions like Roxane’s. You’re perfectly happy, here, to suggest that women venture forth and take what they deserve. So why shouldn’t editors tell their readers that in editorials and guidelines? Why should they not prompt individual writers to do that via solicitation? “Go on, then–charge the walls. We’re waiting.”
i dont think the rationale holds in what you are saying w/r/t the relationship between merit and diversity. first of all, its ridiculous to talk about these as if either are quantifiable.
1) Merit: If it can’t be quantified, how can you claim that “merit trumps everything”? How on earth can you tell?
2) Diversity: Can’t be quantified? Really? There’s a difference between “can’t be quantified perfectly in all situations” and “can’t be quantified, period”. The metric is difficult to work out, but that doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as a more or less diverse group. If a company (or a ToC) is all straight white dudes, I’d feel pretty comfortably saying that it has very little diversity indeed.
you seem to be saying that the more diverse an organization is the more merit it has. i dont see how.
The idea deadgod’s putting forth is pretty simple. All else being equal, the more diverse organisation will tend to have better people because it’s been making an effort not to exclude capable people based on their non-hegemonic identities. Is that so hard to grasp?
i’ll concede to that merit and diversity are quantifiable. you are correct. i shouldn’t have put that line in there.
i’ll concede to that merit and diversity are quantifiable. you are correct. i shouldn’t have put that line in there.
it doesn’t set me against suggestions like roxane’s. (what was roxane’s suggestion again? i still dont think she ever actually suggested a concrete solution. sarah offhandedly suggested this idea of soliciting and then roxane said that it wasnt what the post was suggesting.).
So why shouldn’t editors tell their readers that in editorials and guidelines? Why should they not prompt individual writers to do that via solicitation?
i never said i was against this. im for it if its the best solution.
deadgod’s idea is just mathematically false, or there are at least too many variables unknown to conclude anything. you’d have to consider the total amount of merit spread across everyone in the world, and how much of it is available to organizations, and then how much of it is spread across multiple diversity groups. who is to say companies can’t find the amount of merit they need in one group that they’d be able to find across multiple groups. diversity has no relation to merit. i think what you are saying is that a diverse group just makes people better people for some reason. i dont “grasp” that i guess. how does being in a diverse group suddenly make a person better at their job than they were before? it contributes to making the world a better place, which is why we are all in favor change, but from a company’s point of view, it doesn’t necessarily change anything w/r/t how well their company functions.
First, I think the idea of attempting to quantify and measure ‘diversity’ and ‘merit’ is sort of a stupid idea. Roxane noted this problem early on– instead of talking about the problem, we talk metrics, spend our time speculating about numbers in this and that area. I’m not saying that it’s not necessary to have numbers, and to be sure those numbers are not just being manipulated to say something that serves someone’s purpose, but I don’t know that this focus on theoretically how you might create a model of the world to measure things which more fully belong in the realm of the un-numerical (for fuck’s sakes, this is a online lit discussion) doesn’t seem useful. The discussion should be focused more on what is right and what is not, and how to make it right.
And given that question, your statement that “Diversity has no relation to merit,” seems wrong. Here’s why: because for much of American history, and today, still, in many parts of the country, diversity has been equated with an assumption of meritlessness. To be brown-skinned in the state of Arizona includes an assumption of questionable citizenship. Can you ignore the historical and current relationship between diversity and opportunity when you consider this question?
Someone has actually taken the time to quantify how diversity improves organizations: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8353.html
that looks interesting, roxane. have you read it? i hadn’t thought about it in terms of the benefits of groupthink, and why groupthink works, but it certainly seems like there’s some truth there. thanks for the link.
I’ve only read a few chapters but his ideas are interesting. The guy came to speak at Michigan Tech when I was there, which is how I learned about his research.
It is to me, but then, I don’t submit to female-only journals either. And I like our hit rate fine. Inefficient and ineffectual. …that’s not enough?
What? America works on meritocracy? You’re adorable.
and lucky. Very lucky.
And lucky.
Of course, I’m not in an affirmative action friendly state. So I don’t really know what it looks like.
Oh God. Well, I hate to just throw my weight behind Michael here, because you’re right, he comes off as a little preachy and condescending… but in this case, I do think that the reason why the solution is in place is a good enough reason to have it in place. Imperfect, but right. I’ll prefer that every time.
I’ve seen enough potential marred, motivation beaten out of kids by systemic racism and personal circumstances beyond their control to get behind you on something like affirmative action. Especially when it comes to higher education. A chance to earn a degree ain’t “success on a plate.” Hell, a degree ain’t even success on a plate. Even I’ve got a couple. National Honor Society private school bullshit and all. It just gives you MORE of a CHANCE at success.
Don’t let these people get to you. They tend to gang up. It’s why I haven’t posted here in years. I’m really, very sensitive.
Oh God. Well, I hate to just throw my weight behind Michael here, because you’re right, he comes off as a little preachy and condescending… but in this case, I do think that the reason why the solution is in place is a good enough reason to have it in place. Imperfect, but right. I’ll prefer that every time.
I’ve seen enough potential marred, motivation beaten out of kids by systemic racism and personal circumstances beyond their control to get behind you on something like affirmative action. Especially when it comes to higher education. A chance to earn a degree ain’t “success on a plate.” Hell, a degree ain’t even success on a plate. Even I’ve got a couple. National Honor Society private school bullshit and all. It just gives you MORE of a CHANCE at success.
Don’t let these people get to you. They tend to gang up. It’s why I haven’t posted here in years. I’m really, very sensitive.
In fact, arguments for affirmative action separate, not “conflate”, the discrete, emotional feeling of “independence” from, not “with”, a society-broad perspective.
That’s a common criticism of them – namely, that, in trying to account for society-broad patterns, affirmative-action policies threaten to obliterate the concrete particularity of an individual life — the life of a genuinely meritorious privileged-identity person. (The counterargument to this objection is that the condition for the possibility of this concrete particularity is the equally concrete social whole that it particularizes only partially.)
darby, I think you’re confusing a “sense of self-worth and confidence” with actual “independence”.
A bizarre reading/use of the equivocal “better”, darby.
The point is not that individuals are morally improved; the point is that the pool of talented people is enlarged if aspects of identity that don’t bear on performance are not selectors in entry to that pool. That is, more talented people are more likely to be discovered if aspects of their identity that won’t affect their performance are not causes for filtering anybody out of consideration. You see?: ‘more of the talented people’, not ‘people morally improving’.
Of course, ideally, no aspects of identity that don’t affect performance would ever matter in exercising one’s talents as one “independently” chose.
Affirmative-action policies are “quota” systems. The problems they seek (at least) to address are “quota” systems that already exist – and that won’t be wished, or even shamed, out of existence.
To what ‘mathematical fallacy’ do you refer?
I should have said ‘morally or practically improved’.
Mm, I see.
By “hit rate”, I meant female writers who submit : female writers invited to submit, which you said was unfeasibly low to make it worthwhile.
Of course it’s “enough”. I can totally see how it’s just not possible for you (although it does surprise me a bit–abr has buckets of cred in these circles, so I am a bit surprised at how few writers took up the invitation). I only ask because conceivably not every magazine or editor will find such efforts equally ineffectual. Another mag might have more editors with more time. Or not have to worry about short-term deadlines, so it can afford to wait like a year for pledged submissions. Or it could be, I don’t know, the New Yorker. Pretty sure their efforts to balance the ToC through solicitation wouldn’t fail.
You said it better than I could have.
Man, I don’t want to be mean or anything, but reading comprehension any? From Roxane’s post:
If publications aren’t receiving enough submissions by women, perhaps it is time they start aggressively seeking more women out.
Also:
Beat down the doors of women writers until you find what you’re looking for.
Pretty clear that soliciting female writers is one of the things she was suggesting. And what she said to Sarah was this:
The way you describe it, yes, that’s degrading. I don’t think that’s what anyone is actually suggesting.
Not exactly what you just said she said.
Anyway, glad to hear you’re not against it, but now I have to wonder what exactly you’re objecting to. If you’re cool with editors balancing ToCs through targeted solicitation and guidelines, just what are you not cool with?
Oh. Ha! Sorry. I’m the web editor too, so I heard “hit rate” and thought you were talking about… I don’t know… what would you call it… web circulation numbers?
Of course your right. Everyone’s right. The national magazines… I’m sure they could (and should) make this shit happen. Unfortunately, for me, that’s not actionable information and even though I tend to write very moral/message-heavy fiction, when it comes to philosophy, politics, etc., if there isn’t something I can do about, something concrete, then it’s just more sad information and negative stimulus.
I’m totally going to quote you out of context everywhere: “abr has buckets of cred.” So going on a t-shirt or something.
I hear you.
I’m glad we had this discussion.
[…] sides of the issue simply cannot or do not meaningfully communicate with one another. Both Roxane Gay and Annie Finch have moved beyond such stagnant banter with an admirable approach something like […]
[…] Bitches Be Trippin’ (Roxane Gay) […]
[…] Rumpus has been keeping track of the excellent coverage of the gender gap. I highly recommend Roxane Gay’s article at HTMLGiant; solving this disparity isn’t just about getting more women into editorial […]
sorry. this shouldn’t be here…
sorry. this shouldn’t be here…
One of the best responses I’ve seen to the VIDA numbers so far.
Particularly this: “Sometimes, people need to be explicitly told they are welcome.” I would posit that people need to be shown (through representation and editorial adjustment, as with PANK’s queer issue) as much if not more than they need to be told.
And, thanks for the article round-up.
[…] Bitches Be Trippin’ — Roxane Gay @ HTML […]
[…] and countless others. All over the Internet, writers are compiling lists of articles about sexism, bloggers are commenting, and editors are coming forward to talk about their publishing […]
[…] and countless others. All over the Internet, writers are compiling lists of articles about sexism, bloggers are commenting, and editors are coming forward to talk about their publishing […]
[…] fact that she is right, even when she's wrong. In fact in the biggest debate in recent memory, this gender thing, she opens the article by admitting my stance on gender was two years ahead of her own – though […]
[…] Let’s call is a partnership. As Roxane Gay pointed out, this conversation about women in the arts often falls back to talking points and conventional […]
[…] Gay nails the issue in “Bitches Be Tripping,”: “Whenever this conversation, this tiresome talk of women and men and fairness and parity, […]
[…] Gay nails the issue in “Bitches Be Tripping,”: “Whenever this conversation, this tiresome talk of women and men and fairness and parity, […]
[…] here are some more responses that are worth reading for anyone still interested: Roxane Gay wants affirmative action; Robin Romm notes the cycle of literary awards and accolades; Ruth Franklin shows that the problem […]
[…] to inspire. Last year, in the wake of the first VIDA count, Roxane Gay wrote an amazing piece, “Bitches Be Trippin’,” which identifies, for me, the most depressing part of this whole issue: Whenever this […]
[…] Gay nails the issue in “Bitches Be Tripping,”: “Whenever this conversation, this tiresome talk of women and men and fairness and parity, […]
[…] 9.) Bitches Be Trippin’ — Roxane Gay @ HTML Giant–http://htmlgiant.com/random/bitches-be-trippin/ […]