Manly Booker Women Aren’T Taken Seriously As Artists

L L L F I C T I O N L

arah Churchwell, one of six York artist, Harriet Burden, calling judges of this year’s Man herself Harry, who decides that she Booker Prize, published a hasn’t prospered in her work because piece in the Guardian after Manly Booker women aren’t taken seriously as artists. the winner was announced, To prove it, Harry persuades three sarcastically entitled “The joys L male artists to exhibit her work as of judging the Man Booker their own. She stages three exhibitions Prize”. She described the under male names, not as a hoax, but in physical and mental travails of reading a The Narrow Road to the Deep North order to dramatise to the art world the Sbook every day for six months; she wrote By Richard Flanagan falseness of its powers of perception. that she sometimes felt she was losing But oh, how powerful that false vision is: her mind. Two of the six judges this year Chatto & Windus, London, 2014, 448, Rs 599 (HB) what reputations it makes, what careers were women; when the long list of 13 it launches, what further bodies of art it was published, and only three of the ISBN 978-0-701-18905-1 engenders, for the men it favours. The books were by women, the two female Blazing World is a wonderful, strident, judges were singled out for criticism important book. But its unmanliness on social media. Churchwell answered ALICE ALBINIA statistically decreases its chances of these attacks by widening the debate: “If winning the Booker. out of those 156 books publishers only This year’s winning novel, Richard submit a fraction of women, then that The Man Booker is a British prize, but its effects are Flanagan’s The Narrow Road to the Deep is a function of systemic institutional North, turns out to be the quintessential sexism in our culture ... we live in a global. Since it began in 1969, there have been 49 manly Man Booker book. The bulk of it, racist, sexist world and the publishing winners, 32 men and 17 women. Women have won the man-only part, is about Australian culture reflects that.” soldiers in a Japanese prisoner-of-war It is a fraught business judging books, 35 percent of the time. Men have won almost twice camp – the Burma Death Railway – and a bitter one, if your first choice as as often. The prize is aptly named during World War II. Flanagan, whose winner is not the book that wins. In the father was a survivor of that camp, end, Churchwell wrote, it came down L graphically describes the beatings, the to two books: Flanagan’s novel and Ali lice, the amputation with a kitchen Smith’s. “We all loved them both but Atwood, Arundhati Roy, AS Byatt, Keri to reviews of books by male and female meat saw, the camp hospital with its one had to win.” Alas, I have it on good Hulme and Nadine Gordimer all won in authors, by male and female reviewers, engine-steel fashioned into surgical authority that the judging panel divided the years when their books were judged in 39 major US and UK publications. instruments, bamboo as syringe, along gender lines: the female judges by female-majority panels. Penelope The results are shocking. The most and pig gut for stitches. There is an favouring the book by the woman, the Lively won when the judging panel was important publications, such as the unforgettable description of a Japanese men favouring the book by the man. chaired by a woman; but there have only London Review of Books, the New surgeon dissecting an American prisoner Judgements like these have great been 8 female to 38 male Chairs. Male Republic, the New York Review of without anaesthetic: consequences for the book trade, and majority panels have turned up 22 male Books, and the New Yorker, are what Professor Ishiyama first cut into individual authors, but also for gender winners and 10 female winners: they are VIDA calls “75%ers”: publications his abdomen and cut away part of politics in the world of books. A closer more than twice as likely to award the which routinely give 75 percent of his liver, then sewed the wound up. analysis of the award’s 45-year history prize to a man. Under female-majority their review space and bylines to men. Next he removed the gall bladder shows that the Man Booker itself panels, the prize has gone 8 times to a Skewed representation like this does its and a section of his stomach... provides data to support Churchwell’s man and 7 times to a woman — as equal wider work in insidious ways. Given Finally, Professor Ishiyama removed sense of “systemic institutional sexism”. as it could possibly be. the small amount of space women get his heart. It was still beating. When The Man Booker is a British prize, but Why is this? I imagine that, when in the literary press, you can see how it he put it on the scales the weights its effects are global. Since it began in men and women sit in august judgement might come as a surprise to a judge that trembled. 1969, there have been 49 winners, 32 on the literature of their peers, they a woman could write a superior book. The rest of the novel sketches men and 17 women. Women have won look for a weighty book which will This year two of the three female- the lives of camp survivors – both 35 percent of the time. Men have won sum up their times; and because sexism authored books in the Booker 13 were Australian and Japanese – in a series almost twice as often. The prize is aptly is so deeply ingrained in this corner of about female artists who adopt male of vignettes, some touching, some named. the literary world, for most people a personas in order to get on in their mundane. The post-war emotional Should an author desire to win, significant book means a manly one. Do profession. Ali Smith’s How to Be life of Dorrigo (‘Dorry’) Evans, the and also happen to be a woman, her male judges in particular, consciously or Both is about a modern-day teenage novel’s Australian protagonist, takes odds of success increase in two ways. not, still regard books by and/or about girl calling herself George (her given up a good deal of space. Much is made First, it helps if she writes a book women as ‘books-for-women’, instead name is Georgia), and a 15th-century of his worldly success as a surgeon, his predominantly about men, set within a of just as ‘books’? Italian artist whom Smith re-imagines womanising, his neglect of his family. manly world, with male protagonist or Every year since 2009, VIDA, a as a woman passing as a man in order Despite his dramatic early life, and narrator. Eleanor Catton did this last feminist organisation in America, to paint. Siri Hustvedt’s The Blazing his later success, there is a blankness year with her wonderful, Deadwood- analyses the amount of space dedicated World is about a contemporary New about Dorry which is not endearing. It like novel, The Luminaries, about 12 is a struggle to take more than passing men in a New Zealand gold prospecting interest in a hero who likes women as town. Hilary Mantel did it in 2009 and Richard Flanagan’s The lovers but has scant regard for them 2012 with her beautiful, if never-ending, as intellectual equals. But maybe it is a novels about Cromwell and the court Narrow Road to the Deep gratifying, or cautionary, experience for of Henry VIII. (Mantel did not win North turns out to be the the great, public-facing men of our time for her extraordinary novel about a to read of other such men. female medium, Beyond Black, nor for quintessential manly Booker Dorry is a leader of men, a role that her slighter but intriguing novel set in book. The bulk of it, the man- he grows into during his time in the a nunnery, Fludd.) Pat Barker did it in only part, is about Australian camp: 1995 with The Ghost Road, one of her There were moments when the Big novels about shell-shocked soldiers in soldiers in a Japanese Fella felt far too small for all that World War I. And so it goes on. These prisoner-of-war camp during they now wanted him to bear. There are the kind of books by women which was Dorrigo Evans and there was men can read without feeling unmanly. World War II. The post-war this other man with whom he shared Of course there are exceptions, emotional life of Dorrigo looks, habits and ways of speech. such as Anne Enright’s The Gathering But the Big Fella was noble where or Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small (‘Dorry’) Evans, the novel’s Dorrigo was not, self-sacrificing Things. But these are rare outbursts.Both Australian protagonist, takes where Dorrigo was selfish. It was a Enright and Roy won the prize during part he felt himself feeling his way years when female judges outweighed up a good deal of space. into, and the longer it went on, the male ones. Here is the second factor Much is made of his worldly success as a surgeon, more the men around him confirmed which may help a woman win. Being him in his role. judged in a year when there are more his womanising, his neglect of his family. Despite his Here Flanagan touches on the central women than men on the panel doesn’t dramatic early life, and his later success, there is a preoccupation of Hustvedt’s book, that happen very often. During the Booker’s blankness about Dorry which is not endearing. It is a the gaze and belief of others can make us 45-year history there have been 47 who we appear to be. The message from judging panels: 32 male-majority and 15 struggle to take more than passing interest in a hero the Man Booker Prize seems to be that female-majority panels; that is, women who likes women as lovers but has scant regard for women who wish to become Big Fellas dominate less than a third of the time. should begin by calling themselves Anne Enright, Kiran Desai, Margaret them as intellectual equals Dorry, Harry or George. N

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