No women nominated for non-fiction writing in U.S. magazine awards
[This post has been updated} There are no female nominees in the major non-fiction writing categories of the U.S. National Magazine Awards, according to an article by Alexander Nazaryan in the New York Daily News. There are no female nominees among the 25 in reporting, feature writing, profile writing, essays/criticism and columns/commentary. The winners in each category will be announced in New York on May 3.The list of nominees have just been announced by the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME). Lady Journos blog has compiled a breakdown.
A quick scan seems to indicate that we're unlikely to see a similar anomaly in the National Magazine Awards in Canada (nominees due to be announced next month) -- women have been strongly represented in all categories. There is a substantial difference between the ASME awards (which reward magazines, rather than individual creators) and the NMAs.
[Update: Sid Holt, the chief executive of ASME, rather brusquely dismissed criticism saying that the controversy was "kind of silly" and citing a number of women writers nominated in the past few years.
“There’s no men’s category — that’s not the way the magazine business works, as a trip to any newsstand will show," he said.]
[Thanks to posts on the Toronto Freelance Editors and Writers listserv from Moira Farr and Deborah Birkett for alerting me to this information.][Update: Sid Holt, the chief executive of ASME, rather brusquely dismissed criticism saying that the controversy was "kind of silly" and citing a number of women writers nominated in the past few years.
“There’s no men’s category — that’s not the way the magazine business works, as a trip to any newsstand will show," he said.]
Labels: ASME, Magazine Awards
posted by D. B. Scott at
9:38 am
3 Comments:
No offense, but how is this even news?
Will Asians or Eastern Europeans start complaining that their ethnicity wasn't nominated?
The Canadian awards are even more biased because of the lack of blind judging (unless that has changed). It's too bad people want to bring up frivolous complaints about sexism when the way judging is done should be examined in the US, and in Canada.
There's a distinct difference between gender and ethnicity. Doesn't it seem odd, at the very least, to have NO female nominees? As for your comment about judging in the Canadian awards, you can find how the judging process works through the NMAF website magaine-awards.com
Anon #1 here: If women are striving for equality, then they should do it without asking for special rules or special treatment.
I don't see anything odd with any judging process that omits a specific gender OR minority group as long as the judging itself is done blindly.
The mention of 'no female nominees' makes it sound like the judging is biased or corrupt somehow. Or, that women aren't as good as male writers? Either way, not something I'd point out or dwell on.
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