Women in charge

Female writers may still complain, as Ursula de Guin does in Words Are My Matter, about unfair treatment in comparison to their male colleagues, but walk into any bookstore and you may get the idea that women have taken over the publishing industry. Some bookstores have become almost as girlie as lingerie shops.

Examine displays of new fiction and it may take awhile to spot any novels by male authors. Novels that appeal primarily to men, such as westerns, science fiction and war stories, tend to be hidden in the back. I've seen many paperback tables that were a sea of pastel, suggesting novels written by women for women.

Looking at the last two issues of Book Page, a free monthly book magazine available in many bookstores and public  libraries, I counted 61 novels by female authors reviewed, compared to just 21 by male authors.

Bookstores have become increasingly owned and/or managed by women. More women are publishers, editors and literary agents than ever before.

True, some important literary prizes still go mostly to male writers. Louise Erdrich won this year's Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, but the previous six winners were men. Thanks to Margaret Atwood, Hilary Mantel, Donna Tartt and others, however, female writers have been winning a higher proportion of major prizes in recent years. The Orange Prize for Fiction is awarded only to women. There is no equivalent prize just for men.

Readers of fiction have long been predominantly women. This was probably true even back in the 1950s and 1960s when most paperbacks, even the classics, had suggestive covers designed to catch the male eye.  If sleazy artwork couldn't attract enough male readers, frilly pastel covers are likely to send men running for the exits.