No, that is not reflective. In the 2000 census, the US had 143.4 million women and 138.1 million men. Only when you're a masculinist pig like Terry Gross can you manage to repeatedly book more men than women.
And here's the really bad news, when we put these numbers into the previous five months numbers to get a six-month total, only 17.766% of the guests on Fresh Air for the last six months were women.
Actually, that may not be the only really bad news.
The other really bad news may be that, if you listen to Fresh Air, you feel you are informed. That's not usually the case. An angry SNL friend contacted two of us (Ava and C.I.) about one of Terry's November interviews. It was with Paul Reubens and, in the interview, Paul declares of his audition for Saturday Night Live, "It was the first and only year that Lorne Michaels didn't produce." Reubens auditioned for the show when Jean Doumanian was producing the show (November 1980 through March 1981). Lorne Michaels had left the show. He was gone for more than one year. From April 1981 through April 1985 Dick Ebersol produced the show. Not only that, but when the Reubens' interview first aired in 2004, Terry and company were informed of the mistake. Not only did they refuse to issue a correction, six years later, they re-air a segment with a known error and pretend otherwise.
Now we can understand -- because we know Terry isn't as all knowing as she presents herself to be -- not catching the mistake in the interview. And we are not surprised that they didn't issue a correction after it was brought to their attention -- we are, after all, talking about Terry Gross. But that they would reair a portion of an interview -- a portion they knew contained an error -- is outrageous and, yet, perfectly in keeping with the 'quality' Terry Gross provides.
Breakdown for November:
November 1st, the male and female producers and writers for an HBO drama are interviewed. November 2nd, actor Michael Caine. November 3rd, journalist Todd S. Purdum. November 4th, documentary film maker Alex Gibney (male). November 5th, rebroadcast of 2004 interview with songwriting team Jerry Brock and Sheldon Harnick to remember Brock who passed away and comedian Mark McKinney. November 8th, a man and a woman who made an HBO documentary and a male doctor. November 9th, a female journalist and a male doctor discuss dialysis. November 10th, Loretta Lynn. November 11th, Green Zone Go-Go Boy Dexy Filkins now does his duty in the fields of Afghanistan. November 12th, Pee Wee Herman (Paul Reubens). November 15th, aging singer Bruce Springsteen. November 16th, up from low rapper Jay-Z. November 17th, a male doctor with his new book on cancer. November 18th, male HBO alumni makes a documentary film and gets booked by Fresh Air. November 19th, Astrid Kirchherr for sleeping with a Beatle (Terry didn't even know Kirchherr stopped taking photographs over forty years ago) and a male songwriter. November 22nd, Carlos Eire on his childhood. November 23rd, man babbles about dog. November 24th, Terry and four men who do bluegrass. November 25th, Michael Feinstein. November 29th, Anne Hathaway and the recently passed Leslie Nielsen. November 30th, Natalie Portman and Vincent Cassel.
For the previous five months, see "The face of sexism (Ava, C.I. and Ann)."
