Celebrate women writers on International Women’s Day

2015_March_ReadwomenOkay, okay, so officially International Women’s Day falls on 8 March, which is a Sunday this year.

At my workplace, where we celebrate women’s achievements in projects in developing countries, we’ll be marking the day today.

Since many observances will take place on Friday, it occurred to me – why not celebrate the entire weekend by devoting your weekend reading to female authors?

Goodness knows, they could use the attention. As #Readwomen and VIDA have made clear, although women readers are the overwhelming majority of the reading public, scant attention is paid to female authors by mainstream media outlets.

Recently, I made the mistake of reading an author interview with a pompous male writer -who shall go unnamed – who seemed to dismiss these figures and criticized attempts to bring attention to the fact via social media.

*Sigh*

Clearly, #Readwomen and VIDA still have an important role to play promoting the work of female authors. And we as readers, especially as readers who dominate the market, can do our part, too. Why not observe this International Women’s Day by celebrating talented female authors? Happy reading weekend to all!

5 Comments

  1. evelyneholingue on March 7, 2015 at 12:40 am

    Thanks, Kimberly, for reminding us and me about International Women’s Day. I am actually celebrating with the incredibly serie by Elena Ferrante. Swallowed My Brilliant Friend in two nights. Thank you for telling us about this exceptional writer.

    • kimberlysullivan on March 7, 2015 at 11:04 am

      Hello, Evelyne! How wonderful to hear you enjoyed Ferrante. It is an engaging story, isn’t it? Great to hear you are celebrating Women’s Day with stories from Naples. : ) Buona giornata delle donne!

  2. Catherine on March 7, 2015 at 6:44 pm

    I confess I don’t usually have a preference – I prefer not to think to much about the gender of the writer. In my innocence (!), I like to think we are all writers. But yes! it’s so true and one only needs to walk into any bookstore to see that most published books are written by men. And men would rather read books written by men, unlike us! I still have hope though, that valid work will always be recognised.

    • kimberlysullivan on March 9, 2015 at 9:08 am

      The sad fact is that most women will read book with male protagonists, and most men will not do the reverse. Looking at the VIDA counts is rather depressing, since so few books by women are even reviewed. But yes, let’s hope valid work will always be recognized … and maybe we can do our small part to help out with that, if the London Review of Books refuses to recognize female authors. : )

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