By now, every literary type who frequents the interwebs has probably seen VIDA’s survey of women in literary publications. The numbers aren’t good. Apparently, of the major publications like The New Yorker, Harpers, and The Paris Review, only Tin House is not sexist. Every other major literary publication has a significant deficit of female writers, whether we are talking about short fiction that appears in the magazine, the authors of books reviewed by the magazine, or the book reviewers themselves.
Saw Palm was not included in VIDA's study, but when we saw these statistics, we couldn’t help but worry a little. Were we just as bad as the big magazines?
Well, we went through all seven past issues and tallied up the numbers. On average, each issue of Saw Palm publishes 37 pieces from 26 contributors -- 12 men and 14 women. So women actually appear in the journal more often then men! Not only that, but of 6 managing editors, 4 have been women, and we have had more women than men hold editorial positions overall.
In a recent article on Flavorwire about the VIDA results, the editors of Tin House described how they did an analysis of their contributors, found women to be under-represented and worked diligently to encourage women to submit. Such diligence is commendable, but it should not have been necessary in the first place. What I'm most proud of is that Saw Palm achieved gender equality both within its pages and in the editorial room without consciously making an effort to do so. This speaks to the leadership of our advisory editor, John Henry Fleming, the culture of the journal that has developed under his guidance, and to our past managing editors: Daniele Pantano, Alicia Thompson, Jim Miller, Jaquira Diaz, Gloria Munoz, and Christine Lasek.
Saw Palm was not included in VIDA's study, but when we saw these statistics, we couldn’t help but worry a little. Were we just as bad as the big magazines?
Well, we went through all seven past issues and tallied up the numbers. On average, each issue of Saw Palm publishes 37 pieces from 26 contributors -- 12 men and 14 women. So women actually appear in the journal more often then men! Not only that, but of 6 managing editors, 4 have been women, and we have had more women than men hold editorial positions overall.
In a recent article on Flavorwire about the VIDA results, the editors of Tin House described how they did an analysis of their contributors, found women to be under-represented and worked diligently to encourage women to submit. Such diligence is commendable, but it should not have been necessary in the first place. What I'm most proud of is that Saw Palm achieved gender equality both within its pages and in the editorial room without consciously making an effort to do so. This speaks to the leadership of our advisory editor, John Henry Fleming, the culture of the journal that has developed under his guidance, and to our past managing editors: Daniele Pantano, Alicia Thompson, Jim Miller, Jaquira Diaz, Gloria Munoz, and Christine Lasek.
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