Kathleen Rockwell Lawrence has written a letter to the officers and board members of PEN calling attention to the unequal representation of women in PEN panels and events. If you are a member of PEN and would like to add your name, let me know, and I will forward the information to her. Below is the letter with signatures to date: Ladies and Gentlemen of PEN: The press promotion for the November 14th PEN symposium Theyre Watching Us: So What? held at Fordham Law School features four males names, and invites us to join luminaries from the fields of literature, technology, media and policy. A flyer for the PEN Tribute to Cavafy at Town Hall on November 18th lists eight male writers and two extremely famous female movie stars, Kathleen Turner and Olympia Dukakis. (This has happened before. I was in attendance several months ago when the wonderful and very famous actor Lily Taylor appeared with many males in a forum addressing torture in response to Abu Ghraib.) Of course we are grateful to these eminent women for donating their time and talent to PENs very worthy and urgent causes, but could not some female writers have been included in the line-up? I have raised this problem of the invisible woman many times over the years at meetings, as well as in letters to PEN. In my letters I pointed out how the prestigious PEN imprimatur can be career changing. It impresses academic search committees, talk show hosts, agents, reviewers, booksellers and readers. To suppress womens voices amounts to a kind of censorship that goes against the intention of PENs founder, Catherine Amy Dawson Scott. I have spoken privately with PEN officers and received assurances that things would change, or that we really tried to find a woman. I have reminded them that women are in the majority of this, our club; they are overwhelmingly the audience for such programs; and that, PEN members or no, there are so many terrific women writers to choose from! My efforts have been met with condescension and irritation, and obviously, inaction. I have saved letters and emails and if necessary would be able to provide a paper trail. Several years ago, a PEN panel chaired by Francine Prose called Gender as Insult was held in a packed auditorium at The New School. It was notable for the fact that the large majority on stage were, quite appropriately, women, and, if memory serves, one male. Even so, a man in the audience stood up and shouted angrily from the audience, Why arent there more men on the panel? Where are the men? The distinguished women of the panel had to stop discussion to placate him. Gender as insult, indeed! Now, frustrated by the persistence of this problem, I have asked acquaintances in PEN to sign on to this letter. I have further requested that they forward it to their friends in PEN who might also add their signatures, or write their own letters in the near future. I hope that together our voices may be heard, and that we can put an end to a longstanding, serious problem—one that is not difficult to solve and ought to be solved permanently, and without delay. Thank you. Sincerely, Kathleen Rockwell Lawrence, PEN Member since 1989 Signatories: (in alphabetical order) Roberta Allen Maria Arrillaga Barbara Lazear Ascher Helen Benedict Patricia Bosworth Diane Cole Clare Coss Page Dougherty Delano Jane DeLynn Claudia Dreifus Janice Eidus Amanda Filipacchi Elinor Fuchs Vivian Gornick Margaret Morgenroth Gullette Linda Healey Catherine Hiller Susan Jacoby Ann Jones Bailey Kuklin Susan Kuklin Martha Weinman Lear Karen Malpede Pamela McCorduck Nancy K. Miller Erika Munk Nancy Newhouse Elizabeth Nunez Helaine Olen Alicia Ostriker Patricia O’Toole Maggie Paley Kathleen Peratis Sara N. Peretsky Sonia Pilcer Katha Pollitt Betsy Prioleau Nahid Rachlin Roxana Robinson Suzanne Ruta Charlotte Sheedy Alix Kates Shulman Diane Simmons Leora Skolkin Smith Gloria Steinem Laurie Stone Terese Svoboda Toby Talbot Meredith Tax Katharine Weber
Posted on: Wed, 04 Dec 2013 01:28:17 +0000
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