Women Writers Gain Popularity, But Men Still Lead Industry

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Women writing about women is popular right now in the publishing world—like Emma Cline, who recently released The Girls. USA Today runs through the many books about women, by women. But despite the rising popularity of these authors and the prominence of women within the publishing industry, top jobs are still held by men. Suzanne Rindell, whose novel Three-Martini Lunch is set in the publishing world a half century earlier, says that the trend toward men on top continues:

But consider this: Two other facts consistently reported by these surveys are: (1) women’s salaries in publishing trail men’s by an average gap of $20,000, and (2) while women make up a whopping 84 per cent of editors, this majority drops to 59 per cent at the executive level.


Ian MacAllen is the author of Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American (Rowman & Littlefield, April 2022). His writing has appeared in Chicago Review of Books, Southern Review of Books, The Offing, 45th Parallel Magazine, Little Fiction, Vol 1. Brooklyn, and elsewhere. He tweets @IanMacAllen and is online at IanMacAllen.com. More from this author →