Comment by Skye Loneragan on March 13, 2012 at 16:09

Such an interesting discussion. Imagine for a moment we were talking about a racial issue, not a gender-based one. Would we say, 'there is just no response from the (insert appropriate race crushed by colonialism here) community? I've put a call out there for artists, and all have them have been (insert anglo-saxon, or appropriate).... I have to actually go out and search for their voices." I am curious. Because, like our history of racial discrimination, there is a history of discrimination.

I went to a playwrights conf in Edinburgh once on this topic and my mentor, Zinnie Harris, on the panel, said she wanted to be seen as a playwright, not a 'female playwright', which is Robert's point in his judging of the anthology. However, she also recognized there was a reason for the conference - that things were not starting off equal, or becoming so, and therefore we needed to talk about it/ look at it. I too want to be judged as an artist, not a female one. With bits of both inside of me.

Also very important is GL's point about the judge's criteria reigns supreme- one person's perspective, prejudice, point of view, taste etc. I don't think any of us can separate ourselves from our cultural upbringing and that includes our contructs of value and gender. I don't believe any judge, male or female (cross fingers) sees a name and reads it with a conscious anti-female bias. But I am bawking all the time at how many positions I would like to fill, artistically are already filled by not just one, but a group of men. (In the positions of programming/publishing/directorial power). Women have a lot of opportunity in the administrative field. (Cheeky comment, there are plenty of female incredibles contradicting this)

On another note, though, I have often considered entering my work as S.C Loneragan rather than Skye Loneragan. And still might. Just so I can hopefully avoid, skirt, circumnavigate this insidious bias, spoken or not, even conscious or not, that both genders are steeped in - (AutoPilot's point) - 

One that is not healed by a pie chart, but perhaps  - and here we are doing it! yay! - discussed because of one. If you've made it to the end of this post, let's paint our own pie chart of aspiration and publish it till it becomes a reality. And continue to question it. Always. 

I wish I could share with you a show in which I tried to question this, it's gone now:

 Unsex Me Here (after the Lady Macbeth quote)....tying all these arguments to a symbol of mobility difference between the men and women, in so many cultures -  the Raised Calf, the chosen high heel...( you can walk but you can't run) ....might have made you laugh. 

Comment by Lou Steer on March 14, 2012 at 8:23

Susan Sleepwriter, there was a woman poet at Newtown Festival -me! I wasn't in the Writer's Tent at Newtown Festival. I was on the street performance stage, taking poetry to the people! Done the same thing at Taylor Square markets too. Poetry isn't only in books,it's on the stage, in the bars and in the streets - and women are really appreciated in those venues!

Comment by Paul Giles on March 14, 2012 at 13:28

As a balance to the shock value of the opening pie chart, while perusing the poets featured in another recent major anthology, Motherlode, I could not find ONE male poet included!!! And, in an even more shocking chart at the link below, I couldn't find a poet of EITHER gender represented!

http://flowingdata.com/2008/09/19/pie-i-have-eaten-and-pie-i-have-n...

Comment by Skye Loneragan on March 14, 2012 at 14:13

I believe Motherload is specifically an anthology of female poets, like there might be an anthology of Indigenous writers. It exists because there is no level playing field to begin with. Disturbs me that this discussion has become a debate about whether or not there is any trend to discriminate, as if the history of repression of women weren't fact. Is it not like seeing climate change panels stuck on 'debating' what is, rather than how we can affect what is?

Comment by Justin Lowe on March 14, 2012 at 14:28

It all seems a bit old. The argument could just as easily be made that women dominate the Oz poetry scene, in both quality and quantity. In a two horse race one or the other gender is always going to be first past the post. Naked stats have a way of turning accident into design and increasing the pressure on editors to consider factors other than the quality of the work in front of them. If the selection process is anonymous, however, which it should be for reasons other than gender in a community as small and incestuous as ours, then it's all down to happenstance and the aesthetic predilections of the editors.

Comment by Rochford Street Review on March 14, 2012 at 15:06

Reading these sorts of debates I also think of Tillie Olson's book Silences. In it she takes of the literary silences, the poems, novels and stories never written because there simply wasn't the opportunity to write (think of Virgina Woolf's a room of one's own). So effectively over the centuries we have lost work by entire classes and within classes, gender and ethnic goups.....

I also believe just looking at the number of males or females published in anthologies or journals is only half the story. Look at who are editing the anthologies, and then which are the 'major anthologies'. It is a complicated picture but I'm sure most would agree that over the years female writers have come off second best

Comment by Justin Lowe on March 14, 2012 at 16:36

"Over the years", certainly. But we live in an age different to any that has gone before. Whether or not it is a bubble is up to us, but there is vigilance and there is this kind of atavistic labeling that only distracts writers who surely need no more avenues of distraction. If there is a line of demarcation here it is between those who anthologise and those who do not. The last anthology I bought (as opposed to those I have been given by people who turn a deaf ear to my rants) was Seamus Heaney's brilliant "Rattle Bag" as a gormless waif living on the streets of London 20 years ago. I have dipped into it almost daily ever since, something I doubt I would ever do with these kinds of annual anthologies with their uber-presumptive titles.

Comment by GL on March 14, 2012 at 17:19

Of course quality work should be published, BUT very many top quality works have not been appreciated at the time by those deciding what is quality - only later have they been recognised as such. Minority and different voices (women are not a minority in the population, but are still a minority in decision-making positions)  have often been silenced because those judging did not appreciate their merit. It's not enough to have have work to be judged presented anonymously because content and style of expression will likely differ according to background; judges need to come from a range of backgrounds and experiences. There's a real debate still to be had around how we value difference. I don't know what the reason is for the current situation re women's/men's representation in anthologies, etc. It would be interesting unravelling the criteria used to judge, as well as personal preferences of judges and judges' backgrounds, etc - there's no such thing as an objective judgement. This isn't about women versus men - it's about creating the  richest, most diverse and inclusive culture we can (given any anthology, publisher, etc, will always omit some voices). 

It would be good to have a conversation that enables us to consider the grey areas, rather than getting lost in a stuck debate (see the Public Conversations Project). Of course some men's poetry is better than some women's poetry and vice versa. I only say that this (gender) is probably part of the reason for the discrepancy. I'm sure there are other factors that come into play as well.

Comment by AutoPirate on March 14, 2012 at 19:30

Fascinating and I have bitten in - thanks Paul Giles. Justin Lowe's points sounds gildedly obvious like the old Chinese curse "may you live in interesting times." I don't mind uber-presumptive titles, they maybe gauche, but what's in a name?

I love rugged waif and urchin poetry as well but I sense a reverse snobbery and I'll flash the torchlight on it.

There's a beautiful fabric here. Even though there be mismatches, if it were all consilience, we'd probably be better off dead.

In terms of said pie, to use the hackneyed taxonomies of male/female or racial bias to find leverage into a clam of disparity, let's have the imagination and will to find new assemblages.

To be flippant, but this stands as a model - calling a publication something like 7 letters. 
Featuring people who have seven letters in their names. 7 correspondences in the spirit of "Mine Own Jon Poynz". Evoking the everyday pub meat raffle and the Australian free punt.

Not the best example but the model of creating other frames, shapes where poets can be served custard pie sans the mote in the eye of outmoded political correctness.

So, mix up the old stale divisions, create pools where other forms of synchronised swimming can happen, 

Thematic connections, technological connections (poets whose niche are online) anything! but  the 20th century J'accuses which were even a pain back then.

Yours, in a post-self parodic joy, eating a slice,

AutoPirate.

 

Comment by Dermott Ryder on November 12, 2012 at 17:54

 

Adrian, what a wonderfully whimsical way to kick-start a discussion, or to put it another way, you must be joking…

 

The book used as the source for this highly satirical pie chart is - according to the over-the-top marketing hyperbole - edited, authored, compiled, selected and anointed by one much lauded, illustrious, industrious wunderkind.

 

So, tapping into one source only, how can you possibly claim this body of work as empirical support for any argument?  After all, if the argument is worth a cracker it is surely worth the support of adequate research and persuasive analysis.

 

Gender… The properties that distinguish organisms on the basis of their reproductive roles:

 

Poetry: A form of literary art which uses the aesthetic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning.

 

However: Is this, once again, gender poetry or gender politics?

 

Regards

DR

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