Pat King: OK, panel, I'm really excited about this week's roundtable topic, "Is there a gender bias in the small press/underground?"

Carol Novack: As a female publisher/editor, I'm well aware of the acute tip of the scales. Far more men are publishers/editors than women. In my "field," offbeat/"experimental" lit, there are far more men than women submitting appropriate prose and poetry, which bothers me. There was mention of that at the Averyanthology blog -- the dearth of women knocking on their doors (the editors are, I think, 2 or 3 men and one woman). I see this in other journals and presses, both offbeat and mainstreamy. Take a look at McSweeney's, for instance, and from what I can tell, the latest issue of Bust Down the Doors & Let In the Chickens had NO women writers in it. Six Gallery Press has published one woman so far -- I hear another's on the way. Not atypical. The publisher of another press told me they were getting tired of publishing only white males, but that's what they're doing. Yes, there's definite gender bias, and I think many serious, quality women writers can't be bothered submitting to publications ruled by male sensibilities, getting rejections over and over again For me, there's the additional issue (as a writer) -- many journals and presses are ruled by academics or at least MFA grads who want to be academics. I don't have an MFA, don't play by the rules.

Gender bias exists in the underground just as it does in the establishment. Anyone who believes otherwise is ill informed.

Kathy Polenberg: I think there is bias on the marketing side. I think the consumer is objectified first, profiled as a young male within a class and the product is fashioned that will appeal to that target. I think the consumer and the supplier then evolve a third identity through symbiosis.
I believe this is mainly unconscious and cyclical and to be expected as unavoidable when an industry has become established as this "underground" has become.

Michael Grover: Yes there is most definately a gender bias in literature. You can put Diane DiPrima next to your big beat writers Ginsberg, Kerouac. She was probably better than either of them, but if not heavy into literature, people have no idea who she is. True there were a lot of great beat writers that most people don't know who they were, but her case would be great evidence of a gender bias. As for today in my oppinion Ellyn Maybe is one of the most brilliant poets alive. Sure she's had a couple of books out, but few people know who she is. I can remember 10 years ago being at a reading in Los Angeles, she walks in the room and I was the only person that recognised her.

Kathy Polenberg: I need to ask what context we're considering this question within- the here and now, or the 1950s- before I can develope my opinion further.

Michael Grover: Yes things were a lot different in the 50's, but if we have progressed so much as a society why is Diane DiPrima not known as a great writer now? I mean she is still alive. After many years of partaking in literary scenes I can honestly say they are macho testosterone dominated from what I have seen. That's just my experiance. Females that are around had better look good and show some skin. It doesn't have a lot to do with talent.

Misti Rainwater-Lites: I agree that Ellyn Maybe is one of the most brilliant poets alive. I'll be honest here. I was in a bookstore with my husband on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley in April of 2006. We had flown into California 'cause Christopher Robin invited me to read my poems at the Wired Wash in Santa Cruz and the 540 Club in San Francisco. I was in the poetry section and I mumbled to my husband,"All the usual suspects. I want a kick ass book of poems by a woman! No, no Sylvia Plath. No Anne Sexton. No Diane DiPrima." Well, I bought My Wicked, Wicked Ways by Sandra Cisneros because she is my favorite female poet. But I wanted something new. Then I met Ellyn at the Wired Wash. I was lucky enough to hear her read her poems and buy The Cowardice of Amnesia, which she signed for me.

I don't want to generalize here but there are a few women in the small press, and god knows I am one of them, who use marketing for all it is worth. I think the marketing/sexuality tends to overshadow the poetry. At the end of the day all I care about is putting out some solid lines but I've definitely used my physical appearance and bawdiness to promote myself. I'm biting my tongue so hard it's bleeding but nope, I'm not going to name names. I'll just use myself as an example.

Yes, a gender bias exists. I have bitched about it to my husband and pretended to everybody else that it does not exist. I have noticed that mostly men write the experimental stuff, or at least men are the ones who are mostly featured in the experimental zines. I can only speak for myself...I've tried my hand at experimental poetry but I feel that my strongest poems are the straightforward ones that read like journal entries from my life. I do try to expand and have some kind of range, though.

I can rattle off a long list of my favorite male poets in the small press. I can only name a few women. I am not proud of that.

Aleathia Drehmer: I am pretty new to this small press scene, so I have had less experience at noticing which women are great and missing from most zines. I have seen many places that the line-ups will be mostly men and the thing that bothers me the most is that some of them will not be very good writers, and I wonder if a woman was overlooked for the spot based on gender? It is hard to say.

The other problem that I see is that female writers tend to get labeled with a fluffy, romantic quality, and don't get me wrong, there are lots of ladies out there writing that type of thing, but what about the women that take very personal things and bleed them onto the page, where is there recognition?

I guess I take my bottom line to be that this writing deal is a boys club and if I want in, I know I am going to have to bust my ass double time to do it. There are zines I try to get into, that I know I won't not based so much on my writing, but on the fact that I hardly ever see women writers published by them. I make those places my personal challenges.

Misti, you say that you have used your feminine guiles to market yourself, and it is unfortunate that it has to be done, but are our choices limited to either being sexually overt, hardcore bitches, or mild-mannered and left on the cutting room floor? How do we go about changing this?

Misti Rainwater-Lites: We go about changing this by doing the work. Pulling honest, authentic, bleeding poems out of ourselves and not cleaning them up too much, if at all. I censored myself for a while, worrying about how I would be perceived (what a whore/skank/slut/bitch/cunt...all those yummy words that get thrown around so much)...then I said,"Fuck it. This is who I am." I first started putting my poems online back in 1997 at a site called The Blender of Love. There is a forum at that site called The Blender Board. I cannot tell you how many times I was attacked at that forum, mostly by other women. A lot of the women there wrote (and continue to write) sappy, flowery poems that really don't reveal anything. Hell, most of them rhyme. There was one female poet I encountered at the Blender who blew me away. Her name is Zoe Alexandra, and she is just now starting to rack up the publication credits. I respect anyone who can write down their life with no holds barred honesty and style.

In short, we have to write the truth. The truth is not immutable. We can create boxes (hardcore bitches, sexually overt, whatever) to appease certain editors and then blow the boxes to smithereens. "ha ha! you only THOUGHT you knew me. I have all kinds of cards up my thrift store sleeve!" Something like that...

Michael Grover: I have to say that I am doing what I can to put everyone in the spotlight and keep the playing field as even as I can. So far in the outsider of the month section I have featured a straight male poet, an overtly gay black poet, Misty was the third feature, John Hall is the feature now who is a straight white male, and the next outsider of the month will be a woman. I see it as a good opertunity and I try to spread it around. As for my personal website there are a couple of women on the site from when we first started, but all of the submissions that we get are from males. It's something I would like to change. Maybe I need to start soliciting stuff.

Misti Rainwater-Lites: I have found that I've had to solicit most of the female poets who have appeared in Instant Pussy. The male poets come out of the woodwork. Mike, thank you for featuring diverse poets. I try to do that with Instant Pussy. If a lot of the same poets keep showing up in my zine it's just because I'm a huge fan of their work.

In Pussy Lickin' Good, my Instant Pussy anthology, there are twenty-five male poets and only six female poets. I'm going to start publishing Instant Pussy monthly online. At the end of each year I'll publish an anthology at lulu.com. I'd like to see more female poets in the next anthology.

Kathy Polenberg: I agree in the here and now there is gender bias based on profiling or stereotyping the consumer. I AM the consumer and I don't want half of whats out there!

I question the efficiency of conducting our forefathers outrage in 2007 though. This online thing is a virtual underground by definition, and the ground we are under is therefore virtual. It isn't real to me. It isn't our predesessors historic context- so we can't virtually fight their fight.

I got accepted at a male egocentric zine when I learned there was some outcry for more women in the line-up. I submitted a second time and was rejected because the ed said "the guy comes across like a wimp" or something like that. Too fucking funny!! An editor looking out for the rep of a ficticious virtual "guy!!"

Women at live monthly readings in NJ are well represented and some nights out-number the guys. And I'm not even the oldest female there (age 48.)

But my point about how marketing image is self-perpetuating the bias product is the same way cigarettes had been sold to a target way back (for example.) First the future consumer was identified and boiled down to skinners rat- then the marketing targeted them- then they each come to believe they freely choose the other. Habituation. "I'll make what they're buying- I'll buy what they're selling"

The third entity this practice births is the "industry" (seller and buyer in a comfortably numb skull.)

Misti is amazing. And a "here and now" figure. As a consumer (and poet) I have followed with some awe what has been the ripple effect of stubborn selfhood.

Zachary C. Bush: I am not a female writer, so I cannot speak for them. However, I do not think that there is a gender bias within the small press. I am also not an editor, so I do not have experience in publishing others work. Regardless, I have seen a few fine female poets...would like to see more, but I can only read so much. I think that Kristine Ong Muslim, Misti Rainwater-Lites, Lyn Lifshin, Aleathia D, and Zoe Alexandra are pretty damn fine writers in their own unique styles.
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As I said, I am sure their are many more. But, yes, you do see more male poet/prose writers in the small press. Maybe this has to do with not enough woman submitting their work? Misti mentioned something about her situation at Instant Pussy. So, who knows...but I think you tend to see more female writers getting published in the commercial/academic press than men. So it seems to balance itself out. WE NEED MORE FEMALE WRITERE "HERE" in the small press though. Cheers, my friends. That is all I've got for this one.

Oh, satan! I forgot Michele McD. I enjoy her work. All of the poets I mentioned-- that is just my opinion of work I like.

Karl Koweski: yeah, editing for zygote, we receive roughly eight male submissions for every female submission. I honestly prefer poems from female writers. Their voices and subject matter tend to be more varied, . Too many male writers voices tend to bleed into each other. Is there a gender bias in the small press? Sure, in certain corners there are. There are publications that publish the same five white guys over and over again. I'd hate to point fingers and shout vaginal prejudice though. There's been publications edited by the penilely bereft who publish far more men than women. I think it's just a matter of what's available in the submission box. More men submit than women. That's what it comes down to. I think the question itself also begs the question. If there is a gender bias: which journals and websites are guilty of it?

Michael Grover: Well we need to ask ourselves why so many more males submit than females. Is there that many more male writers than females? Or are the females insecure because of the gender bias?

Kathy Polenberg: I've gotten the impression from a few editor rejections that the editor(s) decided I had stuff that thier readers wouldn't want. Editors' prejedice regarding who they think thier readers are apparently can be foundation for editorial opinion in choosing content. That makes some sense - except I wonder how editors determine who the reader is when it's online journals. If it's based solely on the activity and feedback of some vocal characters on message boards it's flawed and inaccurate. If it's based on who submits and sends fan mail it is incomplete as a profile of the readers. If it's personal taste and the editor publishes what he/she likes then no foul- but he/she is only looking to accumulate readers and expose writers to like-minded consumers, and so he/she self-limits the zines range and potential (and the contributers as well if they don't spread thier wings sts.)

Pat King: Thanks a lot to everyone who participated in this roundtable.  We’ll see ya’ll next week!

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Last update : 25-11-2007 21:37

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