Looking at some of the mixed-gender anthologies I’ve edited myself (excluding for the moment anthologies of only gay material, although even there I’ve often included work by women writing under male bylines unless it was a non-fic antho) the gender-breakdowns of contributors are as follows:

THINGS INVISIBLE TO SEE: LESBIAN AND GAY TALES OF MAGIC REALISM
6 women (although 7 stories, since 2 by Martha Soukup)
4 men

TAROT FANTASTIC
12 women (11 stories, one poem)
4 men

THE FORTUNE TELLERS
8 women
9 men (8 stories, and one poem)

CAMELOT FANTASTIC
3 women
4 men
(These were almost all novelettes, so few contribs)

For the American Vampire series, which was primarily a reprint anthology series, we were restricted by what stories were available with a setting from each of the states in that region. Nonetheless, the gender-balances are not too uneven:

FIELDS OF BLOOD: VAMPIRE STORIES FROM THE HEARTLAND
7 women
6 men

STREETS OF BLOOD: VAMPIRE STORIES FROM NEW YORK CITY
7 women
6 men

BLOOD LINES: VAMPIRE STORIES FROM NEW ENGLAND
5 women
5 men

SOUTHERN BLOOD
4 women
8 men

But I’m probably a lot more senstitive to these issues than most (especially SF) editors.

what about amelie, then? that’s a good film with a female lead that I wouldn’t consider (and have never heard refered to as) a chick flick… but according to the movie show list recently it’s resoundingly popular with female viewers…

i dunno… perhaps it’s just the circles I move in, but the word “chickflick” only ever seems to be used to refer to movies that are pretty crap but that women will like (it is assumed) because they adhere to stereotypes of romantic desire…

perhaps we’ve just had differing experiences with use of the term…

There are good films with female leads which aren’t chick flicks—ike Ghost World… but I couldn’t in all honesty blame anyone for being hesitant to go to a chick flick because 90% of that genre is imho absolute crap

QE fuckin’ D. not to jump all over you, ben, (really not) but this is exactly what i was saying above when i suggested that the standards are skewed towards male points of view and male-suggestive tics and details. the diff between “chick flicks” and films with female leads like ghost world is WHO THEY’RE MADE FOR (and i think lauren kind of addressed this already.)

first of all 90% of all movies are crap. so it makes sense that 90% of chick flicks are crap too. so why does the crappiness of most chick flicks get special mention?

secondly, ghost world was made by and for men. hipster women will tell you how good they thought “ghost world” was because it was universally praised by the (male dominated) critics’ college but you will not find “ghost world” on any women’s top ten lists. let’s review why: two luscious, nubile, yet intelligent and hip young things career through the depressing, depressing world together. is there anything more frightening to geeky-literate males of all ages than two hot 18-y/o hipster girls making fun of everything? but never fear, because a middle aged, ugly literate-geek, remarkably like daniel clowes, through the sheer force of his culture-savviness peels the arguably lusher bunny away from her two-fer and fucks her brains out. eventually she wanders away again, leaving him in an enviably melancholy funk.

yeah, that was MY fantasy when i was 18. THAT movie was about accurately representing and empowering women. SURE.

There are good films with female leads which aren’t chick flicks… like Ghost World… but I couldn’t in all honesty blame anyone for being hesitant to go to a chick flick because 90% of that genre is imho absolute crap…

To me the problem isn’t that males are unwilling to watch a film with a female lead (although some may be) but merely that not enough films with strong female characters are being made, so it does become self-perpetuating…

And it becomes self-reinforcing, right? Pop culture tells guys that liking a chick flick is something they have to be defensive about.

I was watching Snow White (the original Disney animation) the other day with my niece and realized that this movie was considered a film for all ages and both genders, despite the fact that both main characters are female. I think what has happened is that market researchers and focus group leaders have justified their existence by carving up the marketplace into demographic segments which are easily quantifiable. Content providers (movie studios, publishers, etc.) can use this data to target content. What’s lost, however, is the notion of a shared culture and, even more importantly, the idea that a man can enjoy seeing things through the POV of a female character.

Nonetheless, it might be interesting if they tried it just for a month or two, then checked to see if that made a difference in their published gender ratio. how many months would it take to get a one-sigma result? Too many, probably. it might also be interesting just to examine the gender ratios of the slush and non-slush piles.

Heck, if I could interview for jobs behind a gender blind, I’d do that too.

Would this technique lead to better magazines and anthologies? I wouldn’t be surprised. But given the practical realities of publishing, the added cost of reading submissions blind would probably far outweigh the benefits, so there’s no economic incentive to adopt this technique. Reading blind is something that can only be done in situations where economic considerations are really low on the list of priorities.

Instead there’s the slush system. If an editor does have an unconscious bias, any unconscious bias, that’s where it’s going to show up: in the moment when they sort an author into the slush or non-slush piles. And editors of major mags would undoubtedly argue that there’s no other way, given the volume of submissions flushing through their systems every year.

But I would argue that GvG, for example, can’t make the claim that he “just prefers men’s writing,” — not until he’s read a couple thousand submissions blind. Slush and all!

I think that’s two different questions. In the sense that, on the one hand, we may be more willing to give men the benefit of the doubt, and on the other hand there may be things we like that men are more likely to write than women.

As an editor, I have to admit I’ve got a secret (less secret now, oops) conscious prejudice against male writers. And yet an embarrassing proportion of my favorite books—of the books I read, for that matter—are by men. What’s up with that, I’m not entirely sure.

literary fiction’s stringent requirements about realism, coupled with the fact that the literary class in the first world just doesn’t have as much military or political experience or physical adventure anymore, has shifted the matter of “great” male themes into a more domestic arena. that’s why more women lit fic writers are allowed onto the scene. but despite the overwhelming numbers of women getting MFAs, writing stuff, and submitting it, still a lot more men get published, particularly in the more reputable journals and publishing houses. (i’m afraid i don’t read enough sf/f to comment on the field, but it sounds really similar to “lit” fic.)

don’t know about you, but i’m suspecting that the “standards” are still skewed towards male points of view, if not male themes. frankly, i still think that even male bylines get closer readings. this is anecdotal, but i taught a china mieville story in a fiction writing class. the students had a lot of trouble with it and didn’t want to discuss it in class. at one point someone called the author “she” and i corrected her, telling everyone mieville is a man. everyone perked up after that and dug deeper into the story, and the discussion ended with two students commenting that they’d have to read the story again.

i’m thinking that this attitude, among both men and women, is still prevalent, if not as virulent as it was last century. and if we’re all carrying around a little secret, unconscious prejudice in favor of male writers, how would we know if our standards of “best” writing don’t include little tics and details that skew towards men?

You’re right fantasy definitely has the bigger market share. Though many of those big sellers are the boys like Robert Jordan. My favourite big seller is Robin Hobb, though I hear from many of the joys of George R. R. Martin.

For my part, the other day, when I was trying to come up with “My favorite SF&F writers” who were male I was at a bit of a loss. Outside of John C. Wright and Garth Nix they were all dead (or heading that way fast). By “favorite” I mean, of course, that I’ll buy their books reviews-unseen, rather than wait for a library copy.

Lois Bujold
Diana Wynne Jones
Rosemary Kirstein
Pamela Dean
Janet Kagen
Sherwood Smith
Eluki bes Shahar

Beginning to see a pattern? And genderwossnamethinking gives me a pain: I swear I’m not doing this deliberately to Right the Great Wrong of the Evil Pale Penis People conspiracy.