[Michael Cantor]

Eva - the Sphere is an active Workshop site with a high percentage of regularly published poets among its regulars. so these numbers might be of interest. I compared the number of poems submitted for workshopping on our various Boards during the past 20 days by men and women:

Metrical Forum: 31 men/9 women
The Deep End: 40 men/7 women
Non-Metrical: 19 men/6 women

And I also looked at the Gazebo, another site (primarily free verse) where I sometimes workshop:

The Gazebo: 35 men/18 women

Combined Total: 125 men/40 women

These numbers are obviously not a broad survey, but they indicate that on some well regarded and utterly gender-neutral (anybody who disagrees please do so) web sites - sites where members with names like Pat and Holly have to correct erroneous assumptions about their gender - over three times as many poems are submitted by men as by women.

Furthermore, the statistics provided by Quincy - the one editor who responded with both submission and acceptance data by gender - for Raintown Review (edited by a woman) are almost identical - 155 poems submitted by men/48 by women - also more than three times as many submissions by men. Admittedly, these are not huge data bases but there are three of them, they are consistent - and they would appear to indicate that there is a very valid arguement to be made that the primary reason that many more men are being published these days is that many more men are submitting poetry for publication. As a matter of fact, this admittedly small sample seems to indicate that, if anything, women are published in a higher ration than men, based on the submission pool.

These are statistics. They are not opinions. I would appreciate it very much if you or Joan would comment on these numbers, and explain why they don't negate the thrust of your argument. And if you want to argue that the data base is flawed, or that there is a reason why many more men submit poetry for publication which shouldn't affect the male/female publication ratio, or that just because many more poems are published by men doesn't mean that many more should be included in anthologies - I'd be very interested in what you have to say. But please, don't point me to your lengthy essay, or to private letters, or to a closed forum - and don't quote the two-to-one anthology ratio again because it is meaningless-meaningless-meaningless unless you also look at the other side of the equation - the gender breakdown of the base of work from which the anthology was drawn, and, if necessary, the gender breakdown of the submissions that formed that base.

Apologies if a note of frustration is evident. I presented this analysis on the first page of this lengthy thread - as did Quincy - and I have been pushing for a response ever since, and I am still waiting for an answer that looks at both side of the equation.

The breakdown I presented makes a very clear and simple point - I am still waiting for a response that addresses the ratios we see. Please.