VIDA has once again counted up the bylines in a variety of literary and political magazines in order to compare the contributions of men and women, and the news remains pretty bleak. Among the mainstream magazines (as opposed to the purely literary journals), the most and least egalitarian are the New York Times Review of Books, where 45% of the contributors are women, and the New York Review of Books, where a dismal 13% of all articles are written by women:
This comes via E.J. Graff, who asks:
Why is this important? Because the news purports to be objective, to tell it like it is. The media help create our image of the world, our internal picture of what’s normal and true. And when the news is being written by men about men, a significant part of reality is missing from view.
….We’ve all had plenty of fun mocking [Darrell] Issa’s all-male panel on contraception—er, religious freedom. But you know what? That wasn’t an outlier. The fact that Issa’s panel was about lady business made it particularly egregious. But check out the world around you. All-male and 90-percent male panels convene every day. Sometimes they’re called “Congress.” Sometimes they’re called your newspaper. And they’re giving you a false picture of your world.
More at the link. Here’s a complete list of the mainstream magazines covered by the VIDA project, from best to worst. Sadly, Mother Jones wasn’t part of the project. Perhaps some enterprising intern can leaf through our 2011 issues and come up with a count.
- 45% — New York Times Book Review
- 40% — The Nation
- 31% — Boston Review
- 26% — New Yorker
- 26% — Atlantic
- 25% — New Republic
- 17% — Harper’s
- 14% — London Review of Books
- 13% — New York Review of Books
UPDATE: Ask and ye shall receive. Samantha Oltman checked through MoJo’s 2011 archives and discovered that we ran 41 pieces bylined by men and 41 pieces bylined by women. Not bad! Click the link for more details.
