But feminism ... gender equality ... these concepts would appear to be a serious threat, judging by the efforts made here to discredit them.
Being a long-time equity feminist, who helped raise a daughter to believe that she could accomplish anything she turned her talents to (which she has done and is doing), I am as interested as anyone here in understanding the reason why women poets have less representation in contemporary anthologies.
My daughter shows all the signs of becoming a fine writer (including poetry) and I would be fiercely against any social force which sought to restrain her and/or women like her.
And the reason for this discrepancy must be discoverable, surely.
The one thing I have trouble with is the hypothesis that there is any sort of conspiracy among male editors (and perhaps male poets) to keep women's work down or out of anthologies.
The editor-class (I am sure Clive would agree) tend to be the same class as full-time writers and professors - that is, the university educated intellectual class.
Now, as we know from recent reports, there is no current suppression of women in our universities, in terms of access and assessment, at least.
So why should there be such a problem with editors (or poets) when it comes to selection for anthologies? The same mind-set of accepted gender-equality is current across all members of this class, as far as I can see.
Also, given the reality (I believe) that editors are lovers of fine work, why should they be depriving their readers by rejecting valuable material merely because it was written by a woman? I really do have trouble with that one.
Can anyone explain how they could see this (editorial misogyny) being a real factor in this issue?
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