Penguin Books, I'm going to repay your cultural femicide with some solidarity

[Bidisha]

I was amused this week to receive a lovely surprise package from Penguin Books, which gave me 4 current books by men and 1 decades-old book by a woman, despite their spring list being chock full of excellent and diverse titles by women writers - including the much-awaited return of Marian Keyes. I wrote a tongue-in-cheek takedown of this 'gift', in which one book namechecked 63 male authors in its bibliography...and just 7 women.

www.bidisha-online.blogspot.com/2012/01/penguin-books-im-going-to-repay-your.html

good stuff.

That's good to know about Marian Keyes having another book coming out. She's wonderful (and feminist....)

The great thing about Bidisha's post is that it highlights that the majority of the behind-the-scenes people who make things happen in the book/meedja/culture world are women... but the people in the spotlight are still mostly men.

My first job was at a company which, like Penguin, was owned by Pearson. We were all invited to the Pearson AGM and I vividly remember sitting in the hall amidst fellow employees who were probably 80% female. On stage was a woman - our ceo, Marjorie Scardino - surrounded by several middle-aged men in grey suits. The disparity between the gender balance of the employees and the gender balance of the top management struck me very forcibly - a key step on my Feminist Journey (TM).