faustus: (Default)
faustus ([personal profile] faustus) wrote2008-11-13 02:00 pm
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Next: The Pope's Toilet and the Religion of Bears

Is the books world short-changing its bright young women?

Do men have an unfair advantage in our literary prize shortlists?


A variation on why don't women write books with big ideas (to which the answer is, I suspect, if they do it doesn't get counted as a big idea) which also then takes in why don't women present big documentaries?

What was the last female fronted documentary - leaving aside Cash in the Attic, Car Boot Challenge and whatever the Channel 4 sex show was called? These clearly don't stand up there with Schama, Winston, Starkey, Ferguson etc. Those art programmes with a nun and Victoria Wood on empire is the best I can do. But authored documentaries? Even when Paglia and Greer are doing stuff, it tends to be one off.

On the short list issue, I confess to a certain amount of "Well Zadie Smith gets everywhere" - but there's the old line about swallows and summers, and I got there by thinking "That Brick Lane woman, whatsername", although I was thinking about Zadie Smith despite going via a book by Monica Ali (Ali Smith was the mental jump).

The writer suggests that we don't like pushy women so they don't get onto shortlists. Or to do documentaries.

[identity profile] buffysquirrel.livejournal.com 2008-11-13 07:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Oooh, yes, oursin on the telly! And I could jump up and down and go, "I know her! I know her!" in true fangirly fashion.