Andrea Levy has won the Orange award. As I'm sure we're all well aware by now, this is an award specifically for women.

What you many not know is that the award was founded in 1991 because no women writers made the Booker Prize shortlist. Now, allow me to rant briefly - if the Booker Prize shortlist had consistently refused to acknowledge women writers, the conception of this award might be acceptable, but given that, in 33 years, 12 women have been honoured by the Booker, it seems daft and reactionary.

Seriously, a prestigious award with a history of recognising female authors one year doesn't list any, and suddenly women think that there is a resurgence of sexism in the ranks? Codswallop.

My personal view is that if women want to continue with the Orange award, that the Booker should be made a male only recognition.

Really, if some given year, the Booker shortlist was composed entirely of women, would we see new 'men only' awards popping up everywhere? No. We'd see male authors redoubling their efforts in a competitive environment.

All this nonsense does nothing but enforce differences between the sexes that women have been actively trying to erase for more than a century.

Cue slow handclap.

Rant over. Any other views on the Orange award, beyond my clearly misogynistic red mist?

Hi IB, I have to say I see your point (for once!). I love the Orange ads at the cinema though (partly because the studio head reminds me of an old boyfriend, but that's another story), and think that their sponsorship of the arts is only to be applauded.

Back to the women only question though. I shall now out myself as a Hildabeest, meaning an Old Girl of St. Hilda's, the last single-sex college in Oxford. As well as having only female students, only women are allowed to be fellows of the college. I always wished that there were men there when I was a student, for social reasons apart from anything else. But the strongest argument, in my view, for staying single-sex came from one of my French tutors. Talking about the fellowship, she argued that many women lacked the confidence to put themselves forward for these jobs in mixed colleges (women are massively under-represented in Oxford fellowships), and not having the fear of potential sex-descrimation helped their advancement.

I'm not sure though if this applies in book publishing, as I don't know that world well enough. But there seem to be no shortage of female authors with books on the shelves of my local Waterstones.

What do other people think?

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make that discrimination

I'm with you 100% IB.

I hate discrimination in any form.

Dee.

It sets a dangerous precedent. Soon, we'll have book awards for only gay males under thirty, girls with dimples, overweight men and vegetarian dyslexics!

IB is right. I hate all this reactionary shite. Gays, whatever. People really need to start seeing themselves as individuals, rather than part of something or someone else! These female writers haven't done themselves any favours with this award. Instead, tehy've made themselves look mas if tehy're taking their ball home from the game because, quite simply, there writing isn't as good as theirounterparts.

Sorry if that sounds harsh. I'm just saying it looks that way, before you hang, draw and quarter me! There are a great many fabulous women writers.

JB

Interestingly, we have a new interview with the Wild Women Press on the site. For women only, it seems. Don't we already have Virago for that?
Is there a blokes-only publishing house out there? Or even better, a blokes-called-Sion-only publishers. If there is, they're not marketing themselves very well.

Best
Bloke called Sion

Interestingly enough, men ARE involved in the Wild Woman Press. (I took a look at the site when the interview was posted.)

Ani

What about the Betty Trask award? I think that has an age limit 25? 30? Whatever it is, I'm too old but no more experienced for it (writing wise!)
Elspeth

"Don't we already have Virago for that?" To be fair to dear, sweet Virago, at the time there was a need for it. Women were being described in literature by men, and badly.
As the need for Virago has lessened, so has its profile.

I didn't know that was the origin of the Orange Prize. Whatever, I can't take it seriously, because it marginalises women and their writing. Almost as if we're such feeble souls that we have to be allowed to take refuge in a soft, pink place where the nasty boys can't be mean to us. There are environments in which women need protection from men, but writing isn't one of them.

Andrea

Well said Andrea. Can we keep sexism and segregation out of writing please?

JB

And in 33 years, 21 winners were men. That makes just under two thirds of the winners of the Booker men since it started. Which is interesting when you consider that more than half the population of the world are women. Surely some of them can write a good literary novel! Women haven't been trying to erase the differences between the sexes, we've been trying to make people aware of and address the inequalities which are still very apparant today. No-one's saying there's been no improvement but the fact is women writers of literary fiction still have an uphill battle for recognition. The Orange prize wasn't just started because there were no women on the Booker shortlist that year, but because one book in particular was glaringly absent, Angela Carter's Wise Children - a novelist of literary and political fiction of over twenty years before that book was published.

If we want to question prizes, then question the validity of them in a world more obsessed with marketing than with quality of writing. If we want to question sexism, question where the power still lies. Yes, by all means debate what the Orange prize is doing, but don't dismiss it as a prize created to take women out of the equation - it was created to make people recognize the equation was significant to women writers and to expand it as far as we can.

Thanks for making my point that the Booker has a solid history of awarding women writers. 1 in 3 is hardly prejudicial. The Orange award is reactionary at best, and reeks of dummy spitting.

Tolkien's LOTR books were slammed on initial release, but did he start the Elven Wish award to pat himself on the back? No. Ultimately, the decision as to who wins awards is not down to the entrant, which is why the Oscars become increasingly baffling with every passing year.

If you want my honest opinion, there are far more awards than decent novels to deserve them, and those that do often aren't in the running anyway.

Dreaming up new prizes for gratuitous back-patting serves no real purpose but to dilute the meaning of such honours.

Mathematically, 21 out of 33 ain't that different from 12 out of 33 - 21/33 is 0.63% and 12/33 is 0.36%, so if you round 'em off to 0.6% and 0.4%, the gap ain't that large.

But again, maybe it's just that the whole 33 deserved it.

Dave

I really don't think the power in publishing lies particularly with men. I read the other day that 40% of books bought (or was it published?) are romantic fiction, which suggests that plenty women (I think it's safe to assume they are written mostly women) are making a fine living out of writing.

Each genre has its prize. I think it's fair to guess that men are hugely under-represented in the lists of romantic fiction prize winners. I'm guessing it's even-stevens in crime, and possibly in sci-fi? (Not clear on nobel prize winners. Don't know if anyone knows the statistics there.)

Taken as a whole then I would guess men and women are fairly equally represented in publishing prizes. There's only a bias if you count the literary fiction prizes as carrying more weight - which personally I don't. In redressing any power balance between men and women in fiction, I'd suggest that it'd be more useful to demand equal respect for the genres that have been dismissed as "women's" (which are, let's face it, the most ridiculed), than from setting up gender-based prizes. For my money, so long as women are making a fine living out of writing, and getting plenty out of it as readers, I'm happy.



Take care
Andrea

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Oops, forgot to mention children's fiction, where women are amply represented.

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And I don't think it's any coincidence that the areas women have been particularly active - romantic & children's - are dismissed as lesser arts. To me, that's the real sexism.

Going off on a tangent here, did anyone see the comments from some chief medical officer (female), about her concern that, with the increasing percentage of women in the practice, medicine would slowly be downgraded in priority as it would be considered a female dominated industry?

Given that women are increasingly handed senior roles in modern times, the only feasible conclusion I can reach is that the problem stems as much from female insecurity, lack of confidence and delusions of persecution as anything else.

And she's probably right. In which case, she's not paranoid, she's clever.

Take care
Andrea