I wanted to write a quick response to Kamy from She Writes and the PW debacle. PW debacle = no women on the list of the top 10 books of 2009. Gross, right? For those of you who have met me, even for 5 minutes, you know all about my lady-passion. Women’s issues get me going, and getting pissed about inequality is a regular (read: daily) occurrence. Now, I could go on and on about all the effed up shit us ladies have to put up with, but this is a publishing blog, and Kamy’s post was in regards to Publisher’s Weekly being douches. So here’s a little snippet (she’s funny, I like her, btw):
“…the opinion of Publishers’ Weekly, which published its “Best Books of 2009″ list on November 2nd and could not see its way to including a single book by a woman without destroying its integrity or betraying its unassailable good taste. Apparently books by women just aren’t as good.”
Now, Kamy suggested a Call to Action, where we buy a book by a woman, write a list of our top 10 books of ‘09. Here’s the thing: on my nightstand right now is a pile of books (no surprise there). Guess what? They’re ALL by women. Hm. What I’m currently reading:
- I just finished Christina Baker Kline’s Bird in Hand
- I just bought C.M. Mayo’s The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire
- Am currently rereading Michelle Goodman’s Anti 9-to-5 Guide
I’m really not okay with this no women on the top 10 list. Really, PW? You’ve read them all and established not one of them is worthy of proper acknowledgment? Are women not as good writers as men? Are you sexist pigs? You say you felt really bad about it, which is funny to me. My favorite quote that you said: “It disturbed us when we were done that our list was all male.” LOL. You just happened to notice at the end the list was all male? Again I say, “Really, PW?”
I don’t doubt the “judges” of PW picked the books they thought the best. I don’t think the purposefully left out women. I do, however, think that subconsciously, women writers just aren’t taken as seriously.
What pisses me off even more is the fact that the Call to Action will no doubt result in lists upon list of the top books BY FEMALE WRITERS of 2009. It pisses me off that we need a separate group. That we still can’t sit in with the big boys. Why do women and minorities need a new list if we’re “just as good”. The answer is: apparently we’re not.
