Stacey May Fowles on CNQ's systemic sexism

....and a few other things. I've responded, because I think the criticism of CNQ is uninformed. In discussions with other editors and the publisher of the magazine, no single non-content-question has come up more often than the rather lad-heavy list of contributors. It isn't something we want, but as I say in my comments on Stacey's post, it's something of an uphill slog trying to get women to contribute to the magazine. I think most reviews editors, particularly ones working for low-paying venues, could tell you the same story. We're a magazine that solicits most of our content; I expect magazines that rely on a passive slush-pile model have no trouble, since there are probably at least as many female as male writers out there submitting fiction and poetry to journals. And I know from my work at a more mainstream magazine that there are loads of gung-ho female freelancers out there looking for work--work that pays well, at least. Book reviewing and literary criticism is a ghetto. Maybe it's just that women are fed up with doing hard work for lousy pay, eh.