Co-written by Cate Marvin and Carol Muske-Dukes (Cate Marvin - Poet and Assoc. Prof., College of Staten Island and Co-Director, VIDA)
The recent attention given to what can only be described as an outburst by two very talented lady writers, Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner respectively, with regard to the glowing review of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom in the New York Times Book Review (a book we're both sure to add to our Christmas shopping lists) admittedly made us uncomfortable.
Picoult and Weiner claimed, via respective tweets, as you no doubt already know, that the New York Times Book Review predominantly reviews white male writers. Media outrage ensued.
As female writers, we're not really accustomed to receiving this kind of attention. We'd only just recovered from a bout of nerves caused by Anis Shivani's recent "Top 15" list published on The Huffington Post, in which we were, for the first time, prominently represented... and what a relief it was to discover he'd placed us among the "Most Overrated Writers"!
As such, we've been deeply grateful to be provided with the term "chick lit": we can either try to fit our work into this category; or, if we have a particularly masochistic bent, us more literary gals can let chick-lit make us feel like the ugliest girl in the ninth grade. With braces. Why be "literary" when you can wear the textual equivalent of a padded bra? Why be so serious? It's just so... off-putting.
Yes, some of us write books. Well, a lot of us have done so, and for that we're sorry. We're sorry for all that time we spent writing our books (which aren't any good, we admit), when we could have been beautifying gardens, cooking exquisite dinners, and raising our offspring.
Sisters, let's be honest. We write books. But our "books" are not, if you look at all the prizes awarded to our better-halves and the fact that so many more works by men are reviewed in major journals... well, they aren't what the establishment deems noteworthy. Sisters, we're sorry to be the bearers of bad news, but we're also sure you saw it coming. As the somewhat lackluster novelist Flannery O'Connor (who was also a woman!) reminded us, "The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." Since when were you encouraged to write your novel? Your book of poems? Your memoir? (Being encouraged by other women writers doesn't count.)
As far as "artistic" pursuits, there is always needlepoint (an exacting task, to be sure) and knitting, and many other crafts that are more appropriate outlets for our energy and time. Many women in the past have found solace in keeping a private journal.
Please know that these are only recommendations. Indeed, we hope that you'll forgive us for imploring you to consider the various limitations of literature (if we can call it that) written by women (if, in fact, you ever considered the topic in the first place).
In fact, we regret having ever made an imposition upon your time by bringing up this topic in the first place. We hope you'll forgive us.
Sorry,
Cate Marvin & Carol Muske-Dukes
Koa Beck: In Defense of Good Writing: Where Are the Strong Female Writers?
Seriously, though, why is there still a need to demand/assert/claim respect for women writers in the year 2010? It's tiring. And too familiar. It makes me feel like it's 1968.
Also, the writers who wrote this article were writing, obviously, so your admonishments that they spend their time writing instead of writing is silly, and fairly hypocritical from people bothering to post comments.
You know what will? Good writing.
Someone once asked Marion Zimmer Bradley, an early female pioneer in the sf/f market, why only the absolute best female writers got published while so many lesser-talented men got published. She looked at the person and said, more or less, "are you honestly making an argument for mediocrity?"
Something to think about.
You seem too smart to actually believe what you're saying. What's your real issue here? Seriously, I see people making comments similar to yours and wonder why you need the issue to be so uncomplicated? Why the lack of complexity when you are clearly capable of thinking such things through? What's at stake for you here?
The publishing world has its head in the sand about new media, and no place is that sand deeper than the NYTRB. When a good writer can make a royalty of 90% on lulu.com and reach virtually everyone on the planet in several formats, just what do you "need" the big publishers for anyway? Validation? Legitimazation? Big advances?
In the modern age good writers, male or female, will sell based on their own merits, not what the critics say. This thing you call "literature" is as archaic as speakeasies and spats. If you're really that good, save the irony and sarcasm in this screed for your work, quit whining, and write something people want to read. Or don't want to read. Since when do you need permission, validation or legitimacy? Write good books and people will buy them. Write bad books and slightly less people will buy them. But venting your spleen on the NYTRB is petty, whiney, bitter behavior, regardless of your gender. Don't you believe enough in your work to see it stand or fall on its own?
One has to wonder . . .
"Write good books and people will buy them?" Really? I've got a long list of beautifully accomplished books in my library that have gone or will go out of print because they didn't get enough critical backing to spotlight them. To say that literature sells according to its merits is pretty short-sighted. Literature doesn't sell according to its merits, it sells according to its hype, its publicity, and to the value the culture places on it.
It's one thing for us to believe in our work. We do, or we wouldn't be engaged in this conversation in the first place. It's another thing entirely to trust that the literary establishment is behind us when the numbers are making clear that it's not.
The question is, can most people write like writers?
thesidetrek
Real equality comes (aside from when you stop whining) when you sit down and make a serious attempt to differentiate among Alison Lurie and Joyce Carol Oates and Jodi Picoult. And if you insist they are all the same, and that each deserves the same consideration as the others, you are not being serious.
Chick lit is a sub issue--the larger issue is that the literary establishment's quite subjective biases are shaping how and what we as a nation read and determine what we value most as literary.
I wonder, though: in the age of pseudonyms and internet anonymity, where no one knows you're a dog, how will this issue play out in the future? And much longer do you think the economic fate of the writer as a profession is going to stay with New York and the "literary" crowd?
And I'll stop considering it whining when women are in the same number of dangerous and life-threatening jobs as men. Women are far, far less likely to be maimed or killed on the job than men, statistically. Let's see some parity on that, too, shall we?