QUESTION: Need statistics on poor, women of color single parents in writing/publishing for grant

question / pregunta: 

I am looking for facts and statistics on mothers of color, low income, single mothers and publishing (vs. white, middle class, male) in order to show why a grant to fund low income, single mothers, and mothers of color writing.

oh my goodness, thats kinda incoherent, isn't it? my writing skills are sad. I need some good hard facts and figures on the disparages between male and women, women and mothers, mothers of color and white mothers, etc. in the publishing world and who gets published. to help build a proposal so we could have some writers grant to do one part of helping our anthology be able to center these voices better. to fund babysitters and other necessities for great voices out there so they have more of a chance to submit to our anthology as well, is just one part, in addressing this.
-its a long shot, I'm aplying for a local thing due oct. 15
-statistics are always one of my weak points. please help :)

is there a statistic that shows the amount of white people and males and people with money writing about marginalized voices vs. the writing that is published from these groups. Can you turn this quote into a statistic:

"when a White person writes a book from Black characters’ points-of-view it gets on the best sellers list. Then you have Black people writing about the same thing and they can’t get a deal. They can’t get a book contract." - Terry McMillan

Answers


Answer posted by:
pumpedlibrarian

Here are some statistics to get you started as far as women's numbers in publishing with Pulitzer Prize statistics (not yet looking specifically at gender/race, gender/parent-status, gender/socioeconomics):

Baggott, J. (2009, December 30). The key to literary success? Be a man -- or
write like one. The Washington Post. Retrieved from
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/29/AR2009122902292.html :

I could understand Publishers Weekly's phallocratic list if women were writing only a third of the books published or if women didn't float the industry as book buyers or if the list were an anomaly. In fact, Publishers Weekly is in sync with Pulitzer Prize statistics. In the past 30 years, only 11 prizes have gone to women. Amazon recently announced its 100 best books of 2009 -- in the top 10, there are two women. Top 20? Four. Poets & Writers shared a list of 50 of the most inspiring writers in the world this month; women made up only 36 percent.

Fact Monster from Information Please gives lists of who has won:
Letters, drama, & music
Journalism

Perugia Press has broken the listings down into percentages:

* Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: 68% male winners, 32% female winners
* Nobel Prize in Literature: 87% male winners, 13% female winners
* National Book Critics Circle Award: 62% male winners, 38% female winners
* PEN/Faulkner Award: 86% male winners, 14% female winners
* Booker Prize: 69% male winners, 31% female winners

Poetry Instigator adds some insight in interpreting these statistics:

So one way to interpret these stats is: women are simply not as good as men when it comes to writing. Or they are not as educated, etc etc etc. Another way to interpret these stats is: there is a significant disparity between the opportunities available for women than there are for men. Therefore, more spaces should be cleared to devote specifically for women and their writing.

Addition: VIDA (Women in Literary Arts) has compiled charts on the inequalities in review sources for Publisher's Weekly 2010 reviewed books.

**See comments for more sources and ideas!

don't think I filled out the form right

oh my goodness, thats kinda incoherent, isn't it? my writing skills are sad. I need some good hard facts and figures on the disparages between male and women, women and mothers, mothers of color and white mothers, etc. in the publishing world and who gets published. to help build a proposal so we could have some writers grant to do one part of helping our anthology be able to center these voices better. to fund babysitters and other necessities for great voices out there so they have more of a chance to submit to our anthology as well, is just one part, in addressing this.

its a long shot, I'm aplying for a local thing due oct. 15

statistics are always one of my weak points. please help :)

women authors statistics

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/wr-search.html

At U Penn they have A Celebration of women writers -a comprehensive listing of links to biographical and bibliographical information about women writers, and you can Search For Writers
Using Name, Date, Country, and Ethnicity Information
Perhaps you can use this database to compile some statistics for example, a search for African American Writers from any country yeilds 410 results

is there a statistic that

is there a statistic that shows the amount of white people and males and people with money writing about marginalized voices vs. the writing that is published from these groups. Can you turn this quote into a statistic:

"when a White person writes a book from Black characters’ points-of-view it gets on the best sellers list. Then you have Black people writing about the same thing and they can’t get a deal. They can’t get a book contract." - Terry McMillan

Haven't found exactly what

Haven't found exactly what you are looking for. You may have to cobble together several sets of statistics to prove the point you're trying to make Here's a possible starting place...

Study: White males still dominate ranks of film, TV writers
The Associated Press, May 8, 2007 Tuesday 10:35 PM GMT, BUSINESS NEWS, 442 words, By GARY GENTILE, AP Business Writer (retrieved from LexisNexis Academic)

"Despite gains by women and minorities in recent years, most people who write TV shows and movies are still white males, according to a study released Tuesday by the Writers Guild of America.

Writers between the ages of 41 and 50 are the highest paid, although writers under 40 are being hired at a much faster rate, according to the study commissioned by the WGA, west.

Women TV writers have virtually eliminated the gap in median earnings with their male counterparts. That gap stood at nearly $10,000 in 2004 but narrowed to about $300 in 2005, the last full year for which data was available.

In films, however, the gap has doubled.

The study showed that women earned $40,000 less than males in 2005, up from $20,000 in 2004. Women writers' share of overall industry employment remained flat at 25 percent in 2005.

The data for the "Whose Stories Are We Telling?" study came from employment files, including reports of earnings, maintained by the WGA to determine member dues. The data was analyzed by the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles."

And in another article on the same report...

WGA issues minority report
Daily Variety, May 9, 2007 Wednesday, NEWS; Pg. 4, 410 words, DAVE McNARY (retrieved from LexisNexis Academic)

"Darnell Hunt, author of the guild-commissioned "2007 Hollywood Writers Report --- Whose Stories Are We Telling?" asserted that the key findings show that "business as usual" practices aren't adequate to address the lack of diversity among writers. He noted that with more than 30% of America nonwhite, minorities held only 9% of TV slots in 2005, down from 10% in 2004."

Foster, C. (2007). Publishing the Patriarchy: Reviewers in the White, Western Tradition Still Exclude, Trivialize Women. Writers. Off Our Backs, 37(1), 30-34. Retrieved from Academic Search Elite database.

"Three years ago, two psychologists at Brown
University conducted a study of books reviewed
by the prestigious and hallowed New York Times
Book Review. They found that 72 percent of the
books reviewed were authored by men, and 66
percent of those reviews were written by men."

Need Statistics on poor, women of color single parents in writin

Here are a few articles about women of color (which may contain stats but probably talk more about the cultural aspects) that I found in a search in the Alternative Press Index:

Philyaw, Deesha. "Ain't I am mommy? Bookstores brim with motherhood memoirs. Why are so few of them penned by women of color?" Bitch 40 (2008): 46-52.

Holland, Sharon. "On waiting to exhale: or what to do when you're feeling black and blue, a review of recent black feminist criticism." Feminist Studies 26.1 (2000): 101-112.
Abstract: For women of color especially, the need to speak out has never before seemed more urgent or more fraught. In her review essay, Sharon P. Holland takes us through the recent work of Madhu Dubey, Ann duCille, Karla F. C. Holloway, Deborah E. McDowell, and Cheryl A. Wall, stressing the ways in which their scholarship negotiates 'across personal and institutional landscapes.' Ranging from examinations of Black women writers in the history of the Harlem Renaissance and Black nationalism, to the merchandizing of race in the marketing of Barbie dolls and the O.J. Simpson murder trial, to social and political commentary on contemporary America, these women, says Holland, offer important critiques that, if heard, would severely challenge the institutional establishments that so often dismiss their contributions as part of a 'culture of complaint.'.

Finally, you might think to get in touch with a few organizations for working women/mothers? Milwaukee's Welfare Warriors may have more information, and they publish a newsletter: http://welfarewarriors.org/

And one final thought was that perhaps you could cite the lack of information and statistics available about this group in particular, and how this void backs up a need for support of this work that you are producing? (if everything that we Rad Reffies have found turns out to not be enough).

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