This year’s VIDA stats gave us a (depressing) wide-lens view of women’s status in the writing industry, but for a (depressing) close-up perspective, read Deborah Copaken Kogan’s recent essay in The Nation about the sexism she’s encountered during her career as a photographer and writer.
It’s a good example of that stomach-dropping mix of “Did they seriously do that to her?!” and “Of course they did that to her.” A preview:
After two years of painstaking work to produce the book…nearly every review refers to me as a stay-at-home mom. One such article is entitled “Battlefield Barbie,” which calls me a “soccer-mom-in-training.” I look nothing like Barbie. My kids don’t play soccer.
