Thursday, September 12, 2013

Observations 9.12

Just a some numbers I find fascinating and also more than a bit sad. Other than that I'm not going to comment, you can make of them what you want.

"In the United States women now receive 62 percent of the associate's degrees, 58 percent of the bachelor's degrees, 61 percent of the master's degrees, and 51 percent of the doctoral degrees." That comes from Al Gore's book "The Future." On average 51 percent of all degrees given the world over are received by women.

VIDA: Women in Literary Arts is an organization that "seeks to explore critical and cultural perceptions of writing by women through meaningful conversation and the exchange of ideas among existing and emerging literary communities." VIDA is best known for its count which keeps track of how many women and men are published in major magazines. You can read the full count here but I'll give you a sample.

In 2012 Harper’s had 76 bylines by men and 17 by women, The Atlantic had 176 bylines by men and 47 by women, and The New Yorker had 445 bylines by men and 160 by women.

As I said at the beginning, sad.