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[identity profile] nenena.livejournal.com 2010-05-10 08:03 pm (UTC)(link)
From first grade all the way through twelfth and beyond in higher education, the majority of books that we teach in school are written by men. For centuries men have controlled the defining boundaries of what the Western cultural canon is, literature-wise. The majority of teachers are women, but the majority of administrators are men, hence men mostly control the curriculum in our schools. There's a male-centric attitude about what is and isn't "literature" that starts developing in freakin' grade school. See: What people think about paperback romances.

The majority of published writers are women (romances make up the financial backbone of the publishing industry), but men still dominate the upper tier of every major publishing house, and they still control the major bookstore businesses as well.

Has this person never looked at a New York Times bestseller list? It never drops below a 50/50 ratio for men and women authors. Most of the time there are more male authors on the list than not.

[identity profile] redbrunja.livejournal.com 2010-05-10 08:14 pm (UTC)(link)
This is exactly the kind of comment I was hoping to get. Because I had an instinctive 'cry more' reaction, but I didn't want to just knee-jerk it.

[identity profile] hungrytiger11.livejournal.com 2010-05-10 10:15 pm (UTC)(link)
From first grade all the way through twelfth and beyond in higher education, the majority of books that we teach in school are written by men.

This is particularly interesting considering a common thing to blame the supposed "reading gap" where "boys are falling behind" is that educators do not choose books that are aimed at or appeal to boys. The arguments are that there's too much about emotion and boys are not good at verbalizing emotion (to be fair, the part of the brain that processes emotion moves up from the back of the brain to up right next to the verbal center whereas in men it stays further back where it is in children of both genders). Or there's arguments that men won't like stories, only nonfiction which isn't read enough for kids. (and that bothers me because it implies girls don't need nonfiction or something).