Credit where credit is due: Terry Gross had Jonathan Franzen on “Fresh Air” on Thursday. At the beginning of the interview she characterized the discussion about Franzen’s coverage in the media as a “certain amount of resentment of your success by some writers.”
Here’s Franzen’s response, transcribed from the podcast. “I haven’t been following any of that closely, but the little bit that’s trickled back to me hasn’t sounded particularly ad hominem. It seems like there’s a different critique, it’s a feminist critique. And It’s about the quality of attention that writing by women gets compared to the quality of attention by male writers. And I actually have a lot of those feelings myself and I have over the years.”
And debit where debit is due: If you want to find a media outlet where women are allotted much less airtime than men, then Fresh Air is at the top of the heap. I listen to the podcast now, but two years ago I was listening to it on radio and I noticed something strange, something I couldn’t put my finger on at first. Then I got it: There were two female voices on the radio. Usually, there’s one and it’s Terry Gross.
On a hunch, I chose a month at random and tallied up the guests. The disparity was shocking to me. Fewer than one-fifth of the guests that month were women. Now, I never took statistics, but I think looking at an entire month’s line-up is a pretty good sample. Glancing at the current line-up of episodes in my iPod, these are the writers I see: Franzen, Scott Simon (talking about a book on adoption), Andre Agassi (interviewed about his memoir), Rafael Yglesias, Matthew Weiner, Gary Shteyngart, Harvey Pekar, Atul Gwande, Billy Collins (but he’s talking about Emily Dickinson), a male cab driver, Michael Chabon, W.S. Merwin . . . the only female writers I see in the lead spot are: Lisa Cholodenko, who co-wrote the screenplay of The Kids Are All Right and Lena Horne’s daughter, who I think is talking about a memoir about her mother. That’s out of 56 episodes currently in my iTunes. And if I added all the other women in the lead interview spot, I think the list might grow to a total of five or six. (Dolly Parton, Marisa Tomei, Jackie DeShannon, but I could be missing an unbilled expert here or there. Some segments are described by topic, not interviewee.)
But to review: I looked at 56 episodes, found 14 segments about writers. Only two were women. Jonathan Franzen gets it. Terry Gross doesn’t.
ETA: Because I relied on the podcast’s description of the show, I didn’t realize that New Yorker writer Jane Mayer was on Fresh Air during this period, discussing her piece on the Koch Brothers.
Very interesting. I wonder if Terry gets to choose her own interviewees, or if someone in corporate (there’s always someone in corporate, isn’t there?) is pulling her strings…
This is an important and reasoned post about a serious problem very few people know how to tackle. I salute you for tackling it here. And here’s to Franzen, because he does get it.
Fresh Air isn’t the only place where this happens. There are hardly any exceptions. Most issues are only important if it affects men. A friend coined the phrase “Imagine a world in which women matter” It would certinly be a diferent one. And some people think we’re in a postfeminist world. I think not.
what don cannon said is so true…unfortunately. but what can be done to change this?
I singled out Fresh Air because of the Franzen interview and because I think it’s surprising. I feel obligated to add that while I have never been featured on Fresh Air, I have been interviewed for Morning Edition, the Diane Rehm show and Weekend Edition. (And Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me, too.) NPR has been very good to me. But if an NPR program helmed by a woman has these kind of numbers — yikes.
To the best of my knowledge, Gross has an extraordinary amount of control over her guest list. There’s no one I would bump from Gross’s line-up. I think it’s great she interviewed Yglesias. But one thing that I found particularly irksome was that the shows I examined featured two men who had written about international adoption from a first-person standpoint, Scott Simon and the writer who had a piece about Haiti adoption in the wake of the earthquake. Ann Hood (there I go again) had a beautiful novel out this year about international adoption and has a poignant real-life story to tell about her connection to the subject. I accept that there are some topics where it’s hard to find women experts. I understand that Scott Simon is a big star in the NPR world. But in a world where men inevitably dominate some topics, the story of international adoption provided a chance to feature a woman’s story. Assuming one cares about women’s voices. I get there’s an argument that we should be gender/race blind, that it should be about who has the best story to tell. But if one can feature Rafael Yglesias, then when not, well, Lorraine Adams?
Laura, I’ve noticed that over the years, too, and was intrigued that Franzen mentioned it. I wonder whether Terry “got it” or not.
I haven’t had the opportunity to listen to Terry Gross for a long time. I keep forgetting about downloading podcasts. However, that’s an interesting observation. I wonder why she isn’t taking more women writers seriously.
Sexism – we live under the illusion that there is equality, hard fought for over the last 40 years. But as hidden pockets get exposed, the spotlight broadens. In this case, it goes from NYTimes, to other print sources, to other media, to awards, and it will keep going. What’s unique here is that the sales for women authors is substantial. It is the public recognition for good work which struggles mightily with sexism.
I am glad Weiner, Picoult, Lippman and others are willing to be part of the spotlight process. Change only happens in the light.
Well, there must be a counter-narrative in here somewhere, eh?
The line that most struck me, as I read this thread, was this one:
“What’s unique here is that the sales for women authors is substantial.”
Thinking of the Harry Potter books, and the vampire books, and the hunger games books (just to name the first things that come to mind as I sit here) – female authors dominate the books that our family buys and reads and enjoys.
My wife turns her ear toward Oprah sometimes, but the most influential factor for which books she seeks out (and buys) is the original, non-electronic internet; her friends, extended family, and colleagues (others in the PTA, and the like)
It is safe to say that NPR is not on her radar at all. Major-outlet, printed book reviews have a better chance of reaching her, but of course once a person reads a book they like, then they’re on the look-out for more – by whatever means suits them.
By way of saying – sexism? Well, of course! Any specific outlet (NPR, or the NYT Review of books, etc) will be imperfect – perhaps even willfully so – in any number of ways.
But what is the consequence of the sexism? I’m almost ready to say – the consequences are potentially greater for the sexist outlet than for the ignored authors. It seems that people get more enjoyment from a “surprisingly” good book that they found through their own personal network, than from a “supposed to be” good book that comes pre-packaged with the right credentials and official certifications (sometimes right on the dust jackets!)
Major media outlets that are intent on telling their readers what books they should be enjoying(directly, or indirectly by omission) run the real risk of missing the train, and becoming irrelevant
Anyway – that’s my best attempt at an argument (for argument’s sake!)
I wonder how much influence publishers’ publicity departments are having on the line-up. Are more male writers’ publicists calling up and going “hey I’ve got this great guy who’s got a new book out…” ?
This is important news, Laura. Thank you for pointing it out. The trend, however much some want to dismiss it or turn it into a discussion about Jennifer Weiner, is real…and insidious. I wonder if Terry Gross herself would realize how few women she has on unless it was pointed out?
I started the book last night and am enjoying it. But here’s what struck me: This is a novel, in the early pages, that centers on the life of a woman. In the first chapter, she is an early gentrifier in a St. Paul neighborhood, as seen by an omniscient collective. In the next chapter, which appears to be written as a therapeutic exercise, the same woman appears to be describing her life in the third person. It details her early life, a traumatic experience, her decision to go to Minnesota on a basketball scholarship. It’s my belief, from the reviews I have read, that the POV will shift to other characters. But it’s also my belief that a woman writing a book such as this would, based on the pages to date, be thought of as writing a woman’s novel.
There’s a very, very funny section on the second page or so that captures, in a series of conversational questions, the times and concerns and consumer objects that define the yuppies who are gentrifying the neighborhood. There’s also an interesting passage about how Patty, the central character in the early pages, carries her entire day in the string bags dangling from her stroller handles. The items include a bottle of zinfandel and a copy of The Silver Palate cookbook. These are the kind of details that are sometimes mocked when a reader/reviewer has decided a book is “chick lit” or a “sex and shopping” novel. Yet, as Patrick Dennis’s biographer noted, his work is a social history of the mid-20th century because he included such details.
Let me reiterate. I am enjoying it. And I wasn’t planning on reading it because I didn’t LOVE The Corrections. I admired it, but had reservations. But the fact is, I love novels about families and domestic life and skipping this novel felt a little cutting off nose/saving face. Next up, I think, will be Julia Glass’s latest, in which she writes from male POV, something she does exceptionally well.