Michael reports:
I checked the first two pages of threads in TDE and Metrical. 68 poems were posted by men, 14 by women.
Quincy reports the figures for Raintown:
Number of submissions by men: 43
Number of poems submitted: 155
Number of poems accepted: 8
Percentage of submitted poems by men accepted: 5.2%
Number of submissions by women: 14
Number of poems submitted: 48
Number of poems accepted: 3
Percentage of submitted poems by women accepted: 6.3%
David Landrum, editor of Lucid Rhythms says:
I can say--and I hope people will believe me--that gender bias plays no role whatesoever in the selection of poems for the magazine.
Please, ladies, tell me - do these figures and statements mean nothing?
What editor (of any gender) who claims to love poetry is going to screen out fine poems merely because of the gender of the writer? It's just crazy. Do you believe that male editors get together for a drink and say things like - "how many female poets have you discouraged this week, Harry?"
Please, ladies - that way paranoia lies.
First of all, their mag is going to go down hill fast, because others will be getting the good stuff they won't publish.
just that numbers on the publishing end don't mean much of anything without statistics of submissions
Exactly - if women (for whatever reason) are submitting at half the rate of men, why should they expect equal representation in the mags?
Alicia, I really don't believe that ANY of your things have been rejected on the suspicion that your initials might mean that you are a woman. I believe you would have the same degree of success whatever name you used.
I have spent most of my life so far looking for great poetry - why, because I just LOVE the stuff - why the hell would I want to reject anything good just because of a gender issue. And I believe that most (if not all) male poetry editors think the same way.
The great fact of the matter is that men - for profound emotional and psychological reasons - TEND to be more driven to create THINGS (of all types) than women.
It's NATURE, not a male conspiracy to keep the women artists down.
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