A Little something on Ecotone, Feminism and Publishing, and Feminism Being Sexy

I just published a little piece of creative non-fiction…If you’ like to read about how I’m like the X-Men, or Laurel Snyder’s thoughts on circumcision, or Alison Stine’s earrings, check out the new Ecotone Blog…

As if you needed more more proof that feminists are sexy…see this link to a study, courtesy of Annie Finch…

Chicago Review recently ran an article called “Numbers Trouble” by Juliana Spahr and Stephanie Young which discussed gender iniquity in things like anthology showings, awardsm, and poetry jobs, an the Chicago Review editor included a very interesting statistics supplement that showed that many mainstream magazines have gone from publishing 13-17% women to 30-something percent in the last thirty years (see some of the numbers here)…and this caused a bit of a furor on the Poetry Foundation blog.
Here are some excuses I don’t buy: “women don’t submit enough” (see below and an upcoming post from Annie Finch) and “women are too busy with children to write good poetry” or editors who claim “we don’t look at the gender, we just pick the best poetry” (weirdly, often with a white, male, upper-class author – surprising?)
One of the Chicago Review editors, who compiled the journal numbers, says he only gets 35% of his submissions from women, and that may be true of other, typically male-skewered journals as well. After all, if women don’t see women in a journal, they’re probably less likely to submit. (I’m pretty sure Reb Livingston covered this in her blog a few weeks back)
But I have been saying for years that, especially in circles of power, criticism is written by men, and therefore, they get to be the judges of what is “good” and “bad.” Of course, it doesn’t help that the editors in charge (I’m looking at you, New York Times Review of Books) usually really don’t like women or want to advocate women’s writing at all. Women writers need to put their voices out there in essays, reviews, and other ways that allow them to become equal arbiters of taste. And, though I think “women don’t submit” is merely a lame excuse meant to hide gender bias in editing, and at the three magazines I’ve worked as an editor, I’ve had just as many women submit as men, if not more, please, women poets, take this as a sign that you should be blanketing the top mags with your work. And queries about articles. And interviews. And reviews. Do it.
(Addendum…The Chicago Review recently made the article “Numbers Trouble” available online…so read for yourselves!)