Affirmative Action for Literature

[queerbychoice]

Only a few months ago, I looked at my intended reading list and realized that the gender ratio of the authors on it leaned disturbingly to the male side. Perhaps if I were reading a lot of 19th century literature this could be attributed solely to a lack of female authors available, but I read almost exclusively 20th-21st century literature, and the majority of what I read was written in my own lifetime. I also observed how many other reading lists (both individual people's and officially compiled suggested ones) leaned even more disturbingly to the male side. I decided it was time to institute an affirmative action policy for literature: I looked for specific lists of female authors and researched which authors on those lists looked like they might interest me. I also looked through the past winners of the Pulitzer Prize and the Booker Prize, and added nearly every woman I hadn't already read who'd ever won either of them, even though this felt very strange since I was skipping over all the men on those lists without a second glance. When I finished, I'd added about two dozen female authors to my reading list, and it really felt like perhaps I'd gone a little too far, and imbalanced my gender ratios in the opposite direction. But I restrained the impulse to make any specific effort to add any more men or remove any of the women.

In the months since then, I've been inspired to add many more books to my intended reading list. These came from a variety of sources, none of which purported to be gender-specific, and all of which purported to be fairly stridently left-wing. I added many books mentioned in Salman Rushdie's book Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981-1991, many books mentioned in Gore Vidal's Palimpsest: A Memoir, many books I found on a website I haven't been able to relocate since that listed writers from around the world who've been persecuted for political dissidence, and several books mentioned in the latter pages of Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present (again, I'm not that big a fan of literature written a long time ago, so I largely ignored the books Zinn mentioned from pre-1950).

So anyway, today I decided to count up the demographic representation of my current intended reading list. In addition to counting the gender representation, I tried to count the race and nationality representation, although this required a little more research about a few of the names. This is what I came up with:

• 92 books by male authors, 75 books by female authors
• 101 books by authors of exclusively European descent, 66 authors of any other descent whatsoever
• 80 books by American-born authors, 87 books by authors born in any other nation

Probably that should be further broken down into individual races and first-world countries versus third-world countries, but that would require me to decide upon a way of classifying authors of mixed race and nations of intermediate economic classification, so I think what I listed above will suffice. (I could also try to count queer authors, but it would be even harder to decide who counts as queer and who doesn't.) The point is that this kind of reading list doesn't allow one to hear all views of the world represented equally. For me to achieve proportionate representation of the world's population, 51% of the authors I read should be female, 83% should be not of exclusively European descent, and 95% should be born in nations other than the U.S. Since it's not my fault that 50% of all the books in translation now published worldwide are translated from English, but only 6% are translated into English, perhaps it's unreasonable to expect to achieve proportionate representation of the whole world on my reading list - but come on, I'm not even achieving proportionate representation of the 20% of people in the world who speak English! For me to achieve fair representation of English speakers, 77% of the authors I read should be born in nations other than the U.S. (I haven't been able to find any statistics on the racial demographics of the world's English speakers.) Why is this so hard to achieve? I'm sure that part of it is due to economic circumstances that prevent as many members of some groups as of others from being able to spare the time to write at all, or to do it well. But I think a great deal more of it, probably the majority, is due to prejudices that prevent society in general from appreciating and promoting the work of authors from some demographic groups as much as the work of authors from other demographic groups.

Anyway, this makes me want to start a meme. Everyone should count the demographics of their intended reading lists. If you don't keep an intended reading list, count the demographics of your bookshelves. If you don't have any bookshelves, count the demographics of your CDs, for all I care. Just pick something and count it. And then ask how the numbers got that way.

Comments

[sammka.livejournal.com]

My reading list consists almost entirely of white men, but almost none of them were born in America. Mostly because I've got this current fixation with Eastern European literature (and music, and language, and so on). I like the style of writing so much that I just keep adding more to my list.

Just counted... my current book backlog is 8 non-Americans, 3 Americans. All male, all white. My guess is that the gender distribution is largely because of the very patriarchal gender roles that are still present in most Eastern European societies (men are free to sit and theorize while the women make sure that all practical matters are taken care of so that the men won't be distracted). And the native non-white populations (such as the Roma) are still incredibly oppressed.

[onetwelve.livejournal.com]

I actually hesitate to buy books by male authors, so the majority of my books are by women.

[rekraft.livejournal.com]

If you don't have any bookshelves, count the demographics of your CDs, for all I care.

How do I get the feeling this was directed at me? :p Anyway, I know my library is overwhelmingly, incurably male, European and 20th century (and I haven't kept track of what else I've read since then), so let's move on the music collection.

Oh wait a minute. I threw a passing glance at one of my shelves by way of affirming that statement - and managed to notice that it is also creaking with Dorothy L. Sayers, Antonia Forest, Mary Renault, Christa Wolf, Susan Sontag, Lieve Joris and Jan Morris, among others. Hm. But they're all unanimously white, anyway.

Since it's not my fault that 50% of all the books in translation now published worldwide are translated from English, but only 6% are translated into English,

Really? I suppose it stands to reason. Being a bit of a comp lit junkie though, I reckon I own much more than my fair share of translated novels while remaining shockingly ignorant of large swathes of English lit (as you've probably already discovered at ADL). This to the extent that I flipped through The Charioteer absent-mindedly wondering if this was the best translation of the novel, before it occured to me that that of course it wasn't a translation to begin with.

But ah, music. This is where I can happily boast that only an estimated 30-35% of my entire collection is in English. Overwhelmingly male though, but we've been through that one. In fact, I did make a post to this effect some time ago but simply haven't been able to find it, not possessing record-keeping superpowers as you do.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Oh, but 8 is too small a number to extrapolate good statistics from anyway! You should count a bookcase or something.

[pure-agnostic.livejournal.com]

Most of the books on our shelves are by Americans, by males, and by people of European descent. That's because most books are about physics, astronomy, history, economics, mathematics, and computer science. And those fields are dominated by guess what demographic.

We've got books on other subjects (theatre, gender stuff, queer stuff, literature, art, etc...) and there is a more eclectic mix of authors among those.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

"How do I get the feeling this was directed at me? :p"

It was not. :p Inspired by your recent comments, sure, but clearly not directed at you, since it was directed at people who didn't have any books to count, whereas you have plenty.

"Anyway, I know my library is overwhelmingly, incurably male, European"

There are few things more depressing than hearing that someone who is neither male nor of European descent, nor even living in country in which people of European descent are the majority, suffers from the same literary biases as the rest of us . . .

"Dorothy L. Sayers, Antonia Forest, Mary Renault, Christa Wolf, Susan Sontag, Lieve Joris and Jan Morris, among others. Hm."

I was assigned to read Christa Wolf's Cassandra in high school, but she's the only one of those people you just named whose work I've ever read. And I only read the one book of hers that I had to.

"But ah, music. This is where I can happily boast that only an estimated 30-35% of my entire collection is in English."

Unfortunately, my music collection is actually much more shamefully male-centric and white-centric than my book collection. It might be a bit less American, but only through the addition of British bands, not much else. Sure, there are occasional exceptions - I have about 6 albums in Spanish, and some laughably bad efforts at English from some bands whose native language is German (plus Kraftwerk, whose English is not laughably bad at all), and a couple of Japanese bands/singers singing in English (Ryuichi Sakamoto and Pizzicato Five) . . . and then there's ABBA . . . but really, very little else from any countries other than the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia. Racewise, there are also one Tracy Chapman album, one Ray Charles album, one Chic album, two Goldie albums, one Macy Gray album, one album by a rarely-heard-of-anymore band called the KLF, one Little Richard album, one Me'Shell NdegeOcello album, one Seal album, three Tricky albums . . . but I think that's all I've got. Everybody else is white. Well, unless you count things like that David Bowie has had at least one nonwhite band member on almost every album he's made since 1975 or so. But I didn't exactly buy those albums for them . . . wait, except for Gail Ann Dorsey! I mean, I still buy David Bowie's albums primarily for him, but I adore her too, and I'll buy any album she makes, which reminds me that I forgot to list the two albums I have by her in the list above.

But mostly I've sort of given up trying to perform affirmative action on my music collection, and resolved to just never let anybody see it for fear of embarrassing myself. :p

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I'm not so sure about the other fields, but there's actually quite a wide selection of history by females, non-Americans, and people not of European descent. It's just that their history books tend not to be labeled "mainstream" history, but rather "specialized, niche history." And really the "mainstream" history is just "specialized, niche history" for white American or at least first-world males.

[killerlidya.livejournal.com]

I was just recently noticing that my past reading has come mainly from western authors. Do you have any suggestions for non-euro/american authors?

[theobscure.livejournal.com]

"When I finished, I'd added about two dozen female authors to my reading list, and it really felt like perhaps I'd gone a little too far, and imbalanced my gender ratios in the opposite direction. "

I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with specialization. It's like saying, "Today I am interested in authors post 1849, so I will read only authors in this category." I'm not sure everyone HAS to read EVERY great book for that book to be great. Sometimes you just need to read what most resonates with you. As long as you don't dismiss entire genres/author categories because they don't interest you (which I don't think you really do), you're still being judicious.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do! Of the authors I've read, I recommend: Jamaica Kincaid (from Antigua); Manuel Puig (from Argentina, and he's queer); Ha Jin and especially Anchee Min, who is queer (both from China); Gabriel García Márquez (from Colombia, and very highly recommended); Julia Alvarez (from the Dominican Republic); Edwidge Danticat (from Haiti); Ismat Chughtai (who was queer, or at least her writing was) and especially both Arundhati Roy and Salman Rushdie (all three are from India); Pramoedya Ananta Toer (from Indonesia); Azar Nafisi (from Iran, and very highly recommended); Kobo Abe, Murasaki Shikibu, and especially both Haruki Murakami and Banana Yoshimoto (all four are from Japan); Laura Esquivel (from Mexico); and Bapsi Sidhwa (from Pakistan).

Other authors I'm planning to read, but haven't yet, who are not from Europe or any countries where the majority of the population is of exclusively European descent include: Khaled Hosseini (from Afghanistan); Luisa Valenzuela (from Argentina); Hanan Al-Shaykh (from Beirut); Isabel Allende (from Chile); Wang Shuo and Jingsheng Wei (both from China); Reinaldo Arenas and Zoé Valdés (both from Cuba); Ama Ata Aidoo (from Ghana); Anita Desai, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Jhumpa Lahiri, Kamala Markandaya, and V. S. Naipaul (all from India); Freidoune Sahebjam (from Iran); Opal Palmer Adisa (from Jamaica); Sandra Cisneros (from Mexico); Nuruddin Farah (from Somalia); Athol Fugard, Nadine Gordimer, and Bloke Modisane (all from South Africa); and Thu Huong Duong (from Vietnam).

[rekraft.livejournal.com]

There are a number of things I'm going to have to say to this, as well as to the post in general, now that there's been time to mull over it a bit. Firstly, that building one's library based on demographics assumes that if a person is born into, or lives in a certain context or circumstance, they would write in a way that reflects only one facet of it. One need only pick up any book by Haruki Murakami to notice that his influences are overwhelmingly Continental, despite contemporary Japan being his almost-exclusive subject matter.

And heavens alone know that writers from many countries have produced much more maudlinly colonial/colonised writing, art or music, and still do, and have been much feted for doing so. And I'm sure there are millions of examples in literature (many which would best remain under the carpet) but the most glaring instance of this which comes to mind is how Youssou N'Dour's most recent album has met with immense, glowing critical acclaim in Europe and the US, even as people back in Senegal and elsewhere are completely unable to recognise it as their own. Contrast this with the Tuareg band Tinariwen who, despite using mostly Western electric instruments, understands and sings about things that matter to sub-Saharan nomads, and is recognised by them for this.

I suppose I should also point out that the modern book as we know it is itself a mostly Western product, and that a number of non-Western cultures (especially those who haven't got the wherewithal to put in place any infrastructure for publishing and distributing books) still have rich oral histories other means of disseminating and perpetuating their literary traditions, for example, through music.

Also, the possibility that white European males can write, or otherwise provide perspectives that differ from what is typically expected of their demographic, should not be discounted. One would only have to read Ryszard Kapuscinski in addition to say, Michael Palin to know this to be the case, despite the fact that they can be classified in the same loose demographic that we've already acknowledged to encompass practically everyone in our libraries anyway.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I think you are missing my point. Ryszard Kapuscinski is also on my intended reading list, and will remain there. I have no interest in "building [my] library based on demographics" with no regard to the quality of the writing; rather, what I am saying is that when a library is visibly skewed toward one demographic or another, then it must be concluded that this library has been built based on demographics: unconsciously, under the influence of one's own biases and/or the biases of the people one gets one's literary recommendations from. And yes, there are instances where one can want one's library to be skewed toward a particular demographic because that is the demographic whose members most often hold the points of view that one values most - but if the demographic that one's library is skewed toward is a rich, white, male, first-world demographic, and one considers oneself to be a political leftist, then something is amiss, and efforts need to be made to correct the skew.

[rekraft.livejournal.com]

(I hope I'm missing your point, that's what ...)

I have no interest in "building [my] library based on demographics" with no regard to the quality of the writing

Nope, you're more discerning than that, surely.

what I am saying is that when a library is visibly skewed toward one demographic or another, then it must be concluded that this library has been built based on demographics (underscore mine)

May not necessarily be true, especially as the demographic in question happens to be the one that most authors of the pool of readily available books fall in.

But all in all, I think it's a very good thing to be conscious of the biases in one's collection(s). Only that they oughtn't always be read too literally, and you seemed for a moment to be emphasising hard demographics like gender, income and nationality when they possibly pale in contrast to more particular details like political/intellectual/cultural influences.

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

"May not necessarily be true, especially as the demographic in question happens to be the one that most authors of the pool of readily available books fall in."

Well, the skewed pool of books readily available is one of the things I wanted to notice. Paying more attention to the books that are less readily available can help to make more such books readily available.

"Only that they oughtn't always be read too literally, and you seemed for a moment to be emphasising hard demographics like gender, income and nationality when they possibly pale in contrast to more particular details like political/intellectual/cultural influences."

That's true; it's just that political/intellectual/cultural influences are awfully difficult to count and create hard statistics about. So I was working with the stuff I could count.