Again, we offer a two-fer. Blame it on slow mail. (The second issue arrived Saturday.) For those new to the feature, we're keeping a running tally of the number of women featured in The
Nation magazine compared to the number of men. (See last paragraph.) It hasn't been pretty. Mindy e-mailed last week to note that she now looks at the table of contents when determining whether to purchase or not "and I haven't bought an issue since January. 'Point,' as Ava and C.I. would say, I've learned not to judge a magazine by the cover."
The two issues this installment are the April 23rd issue and the April 30th issue.
April 23, 2007
Editorials & Comment
"Time to Act on Inequality" -- unsigned editorial
David Corn's "Trying to Stay out of Iran"
Juan Cole's "How To Get Out of Iraq" -- don't point out that he'd earlier advocated staying unless you want to hear him (wrongly) correct you as he did Steve Rendall recently on CounterSpin.
John Nichols' "Protecting The Vote"
Philip Weiss' "AIPAC Alternative?"
David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz' "Getting The Lead Out"
6 pieces.
Score: O women, 6 men (2 on one piece)
Columns
Calvin Trillin's "Romeny Finished First in Fundraising"
Patricia J. Williams' "Colorstruck"
AlterPunk's "The Politics of Pundit Prestige . . ." -- another column where AlterPunk makes like a diva Garland and tells tales of . . . being AlterPunk. We're waiting for the double disc set of AlterPunk at Carnegie Hall.
3 pieces.
Score: 1 woman, 2 men
Articles
Laura Flanders' "Bottom-Up Power"
Eyal Press' "The New Suburban Poverty"
2 pieces.
Score: 1 women, 1 man.
Critics:
Carmen Boullosa's Bolano pieces (which note no women artists in Mexico -- that's one way to ensure publishing in The Nation)
Andrew J. Bacevich's various reviews (it's rather obvious but if they've never seen the periodical guides, they need to create real titles for these pieces)
Martha Serpas' "Lying in the Middle of the Field (poem)"
Stuart Klawans on Black Book and Zodiac
4 pieces.
Score: 2 woman. 2 men.
Score this issue: 4 women, 11 men
Year to date score: 165 men, 41 women.
Turning to the April 30, 2006 issue.
Editorials & Comments
"Pelosi and Diplomacy" -- unsigned
Ari Berman's "Making Elections Fair" -- it's like Campaign Politics for Dummies
Jordan Stancil's "The French Connection"
John Ghazvinian's "Testing Time For Nigeria"
Victor Navasky's "Hiss in History" -- someone thought it was a cute title (part of the problem)
5 pieces.
Score: 0 women, 4 men.
Columns
Calvin Trillin's "On McCain's Trip to the Market . . ."
Alexander Cockburn's "The Ho Industry"
2 pieces
Score: 0 women, 2 men
Articles
William Greider's "The Establishment Rethinks Globalization" -- a sweet dream
Lawrence Goodwyn's "The Coming Party Realignment" -- more Campaign Politics
Scott Sherman's "Sun-Rise In New York"
3 pieces.
Score: 0 women, 3 men.
Critics
Gyan Prakash's on Dalrymple
Maya Jasanoff's on Green (the only female in the entire issue)
Mark M. Anderson on Kehlmann
Score: 1 women, 2 men.
Total score: 1 women, 9 men.
Year to date score: 42 women, 174 men.
The Nation has published 174 men this year and only 42 women.
That's 4.14 men for every woman.
The illustration to this piece is Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of the magazine, surrounded by the magazine's staff. Consider the percentage of women featured in the magazine and you'll understand why she's surrounded by men.
Let's be really clear that, in 2007, 2 men for every woman wouldn't cut it. Let's be equally clear that there are more women in the US than there are men. But there's apparently a tokenism at play at The Nation which is why they have, thus far this year, printed pieces written or co-written by 42 women while publishing 174 pieces written or co-written by men. To give an equal number of bylines to women at this point, they would have to run 132.
The Nation is supposed to be the leading magazine of the left. Of course, it's easier to spout that belief if you don't read it. But how do they kid themselves that they are in any way reflective when the proportion of males receiving bylines is that much greater than women?
It's still breaks down to one woman gets a byline for every four men. We think that's not only non-reflective of the society we live in, we think that's disgusting.
The lack of women being featured in the magazine was brought to C.I.'s attention by a group of women late in 2006. For a column at Polly's Brew, C.I. went back and compiled the stats for that year. What we had discussed was following 2007's issues each time they arrived in the mailbox. Ava and C.I. were in charge of the December 24, 2006 edition and that was the first week that a 2007 issue had arrived (January 1, 2007 issue). They immediately started up "The Nation Stats." "The Nation Stats" ran again in our December 31st edition (covering the magazine's January 8, 2007 issue -- a "double issue"). January 21st, we covered the January 22nd issue in "The Nation Stats." January 28th, "The Nation Stats" covered two issues since two arrived the same day for three of us participating in this feature. February 4th, we covered the Feb 12th issue in "The Nation Stats." February 11th we covered the February 19th issue in "The Nation Stats." February 25th, we coved the February 26th issue in "The Nation Stats." March 4th we covered the March 5th and March 12th issues of the magainze in "The Nation Stats." March 11th, we covered the March 19th issue in "The Nation Stats." April 1st, we covered the March 26th and April 2nd issues in "The Nation Stats." April 8th, we covered the April 9th and April 6th issues in "The Nation Stats."
