This from VIDA on intellectuals/ thought leaders:

New York Review of Books’ Summer 2013 issue. So, VIDAs, wouldn’t you say it’s time to cancel your subscription or write to the editor or something? I mean, WTH??

A couple things really get me about this snobby sexism:

(1) Progressive does NOT equal feminist. A couple weeks ago a study came out that the New York Times, that bastion of liberalism, quotes 3.4 men for every woman. Slate reports:

The endless trend pieces about how women accessorize, parent, and hook up today have failed to materialize into equal representation across the newspaper. In the Times, men are individuals who are quoted to represent countries, corporations, academics, and citizens; women are quoted to represent other women.

 

The UNLV students who did this study conducted a similar study in 2010 about NPR with similar results. Did you read that part about NPR?

I write a lot about how PBS, the “education/ liberal/ progressive” station is just as male focused in its shows for kids as Disney.

(2) Feminine does NOT equal artsy unless absolutely no status is involved. If you are in kidworld, you deal a lot with stereotypes about how boys are active and girls are artsy, as if this is a biological truth. This “reality” has nothing to do with biology and everything to do with raising, affirming, and validating quiet and well-behaved girls. When it comes to artists in the grown-up world with big shows who make lots of money, they’re almost all men. J. K. Rowling, already hiding her gender with one name, just used a made up male name to write a detective story. Don’t get me started on “chicklit” versus literary geniuses. Who decides who is a genius? Why, the New York Review of Books, of course!

To complain email editor@nybooks.com or Tweet:  @nybooks Where are the women? #NotBuyingIt