[Quincy Lehr]

Shaun--

Of course the forum has an agenda! That's kind of the point of it. And the question of women's underrepresentation in poetry journals is quite real--and from what I've seen, the agenda of what is a fledgling board is not anti-male, though some comments have been understandably indignant at some of the remarks made here.

Frankly, I organize a reading series with a woman, have a woman for a publisher, and edit a magazine with a woman, so the question of why women aren't getting the same exposure as male poets strikes me as an important one. The causality may be a complex question, but there has been a tendency to treat the topic as unworthy of serious discussion here on the part of a few posters, with a sort of "I see no color" justification for it. And, sorry, the numbers I posted indicate that only about a quarter of the Raintown's submissions come from women. Rather curious, don't you think? And given that, according to the editorial tastes of the editors, the women and men seem to be publishable in roughly equal qualities (with a statistically slight advantage to the women, actually), that it might not be due to inherent disparities between men and women, but rather (dare I say it?) social in origin?

Quincy

[Mark Allinson]

and Mark Allinson, whose well-judged observation that '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' really hit the nail on the head for me. Indeed, this last remark reminded me of my six year old twin boys, who TEND to like nothing better than creating CHAOS, while their older sister is trying to read.

Thank you, Jane - and welcome to Eratosphere.

I am glad to see that you support my assertion, since you acknowledge the significant and innate differences between your male and female offspring.

I am sure you don't socialize your boys to behave in this way – perhaps they are picking up the wrong role model behaviour from school or television. They must be getting this behaviour from some social source, since we know that it can't be anything innate. Nothing from Nature, surely.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Friends, this is becoming ad hom. I am going to delete relevant parts of this conversation and I hope we can keep further debate on a polite level.
thanks
Janice

[Shaun J. Russell]

The allegations were that the men on Eratosphere are "blustering chauvinists." I have little doubt that there ARE some men here who bluster, others who are chauvinistic, and a few that do both.

But is the solution, then, to take the exact same approach, but from the female side? Intolerance and prejudice in any shade is bleak. I find chauvinism reprehensible, but I also find the female equivalent equally appalling.

It is true that women have faced centuries (millennia even) of oppression at the hands of men. Misogyny has run rampant throughout mankind's history. But it's a hell of a lot better these days than it was even two generations ago...and I believe it's gradually getting better all the time. Chauvinism still exists, to be sure, but it is no longer prevalent as it once was.

The non-chauvinistic men among us along with the empowered women in society need to work together to help bolster gender equality. But based on what I read on your site, you don't seem interested in equality. You seem interested in engaging in the same misguided pettiness that has plagued humanity for all those aforementioned centuries. You are putting a wedge in the ever-closing gender gap...and it saddens me to see that, when a forum geared toward the empowerment of female poets could be such a wonderfully positive force.

[Terese Coe]

Lawdie, lawdie. I didn't want to get into this thread, but a few passing remarks:

Shaun, without having read every single post in this thread, I'd say the second quote presupposes the reader has a sense of humor.

Thank heaven for Roger, Alicia, Jane, Susan and possibly some others along the way.

As for the "one hour" of time to herself, I'm afraid writing demands a hell of a lot more time (in one sitting) than that--unless you're doing ditties and limericks. Or taking notes.

Motherhood and writing from the Sixties on: well, my personal experience is that you had to be canny, improvisatory, even ingenious to pull it off. Ha. And even then there wasn't enough time. Too much time spent being in love: another major time consumer for young and not-so-young women, whether pre- or post-feminist (perhaps equally so for young/not-so-young men? I can't say). But this is too huge a subject to tackle here.

I find the word "sacrifice" sounds an artificial note here. Way too melodramatic. You choose your priorities and take responsibility for them (stoically, one would hope). On the other hand, sitting in an office for 40 years and trying to write in your "leisure" time really is a sacrifice, as is giving up all thought of having a child because art comes first (I mean for those who would otherwise want a child).

[Michael Cantor]

Jane -

Instead of throwing around labels like "blustering chauvinists" (and, yes, we all agree Mark Allinson qualifies, and tell him so regularly, but that was one voice out of many), and quoting Shaun out of context on a post where he is actually far more critical of men than women, why don't you (a) pay enough attention to the thread to recognize that most of it was a rational discussion, with any number of men indicating positions supportive of women, and some women appearing to question the need for woman-only publications - an open an even-tempered exchange of ideas - and (b) comment on the various statistics presented, all of which appear to indicate that the primary reason that far more men are published than women is that far more men appear to submit poetry to be published? (I think I just won the longest-sentence -of-the-year competition.)

[Michael Cantor]

Originally Posted by Carol Trese

Most writers on Eratosphere are intelligent and thoughtfully engaging, but I want to remind people that if certain posters offend you, you can block their posts:
http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/faq.php?faq=vb3_board_usage#faq_vb3_troublesome_us ers

Is somebody sending you offensive posts, Carol? If not, what is the reason for the reminder?

[Jan Iwaszkiewicz]

It seems that the arguments here could be used to get more women into gaol and thus address the gender imbalance.

[Mark Allinson]

Yes, that's right, Jan.

As you can see from this graph, we still have a long way to go to achieve parity:

http://www.prisonpolicy.org/graphs/gender.html

but the figures are indeed equilibrating.

Which reminds me of Leunig's famous cartoon of the feminist banners at a march, which read:

All men are bastards

And we will not cease from struggle

Until all women are bastards too

[Eva Salzman]

The statistics gathered compiling Women's Work are to do with the shocking imbalance within anthologies in which, given limited room, there are inevitably far more men poets deserving of the space there. The glass ceiling, in the fairest of collections, is 1/3. Mostly it is far worse and definitely not some accident. I don't believe for one minute there's some conspiracy, but this quite beyond the point.

The editors here in the UK at publishing houses and of journals are almost entirely male. Furthermore, in defining the canon, many of them don't even do so from knowledge. They just don't know many of the women poets, including leading ones from the US, while they often know the men poets. These figures are indisputable and should raise questions.

By the way, although this issue gets everyone hot under the collar, I do find the way some men address it, and women, highly insulting, perhaps even provocative in order to then attack the response as being - dare I say it - hysterical. Apart from this, I noticed (I think on another discussion) a very reasonable man insisting on how important it was that household things be shared: if he were asked he'd like to think he'd do his share, and that his wife-to-be should certainly be "allowed" time to herself! Why should she have to ask? Because it's her responsibility it goes without saying? And "allowed"?! Male writers' lives are supported and shored up to an unbelievable degree by having a support system most women can only dream about.