I seriously considered entitling this post ‘Gender Blind My Arse’ but was worried it might be too…ambiguous…and I wisely held off from commenting on John’s Saturday post for fear that I might come across as some half crazed loony, or worse…a feminist…that’s right, that terrible eight letter word (I know, it’s amazing, I can count!)
But before I start pissing everyone off already, let me say that the PW top 10 list doesn’t bother me all that much. Why not? Because it’s not surprising. Because all lists are subjective. Because at least on the extended list women are (sort of) represented. So why, do you ask, am I pissed off? I’m angered by the reaction it has garnered – because it feels like we’ve been down this road so many times before and it’s always a dead-end. Reviewers will always say they were gender-blind, that they tried their very best not to be influenced by anything other than the writing itself (what lies beneath the covers, not what lies between the legs to paraphrase from John’s post). To this, groups like Sister-In-Crime will always counter by saying that gender bias is systemic in the publishing industry – from the books selected for review, the level of critical ‘gravitas’ bestowed, and in the awards handed out. As far as I’m concerned it’s a no-win situation and this is what drives me nuts – I mean, after all that we have fought for, I can’t believe we’re still having this debate.
What I don’t get is how women, who buy the overwhelming majority of novels and dominate the publishing industry (at least in terms of editors), don’t just proudly denounce all the nonsensical crap that comes up around the gender issue:
- Women do not write ‘small’ ‘domesticated’ books. So what if the traditional cozy doesn’t have zombie dismemberment, it can still be well-written and it can still deal with important ‘universal’ issues surrounding the human condition. Just because there’s a picture of a cat with a ball of yarn on the front does not mean the book has to be marginalized as ‘chick-mystery-lit’.
- Romance does not equal brainlessness or crappy writing.
- There are no inherent gender traits in writing. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I write emotions well and action scenes badly. I may write a traditional historical mystery but that doesn’t mean that (as a woman) I couldn’t write a gruesome, psychologically disturbing book (Val McDermid, anyone?) .
- White men don’t write better books…
The final point seems spurious to me…but in light of PW’s list…I guess I had to say it.