Alison made this point:
<<I am wondering what the percentage of woman ceos or board members is.
In Australia it's very low, in the single percentage points; but that
hasn't stopped men complaining that women are "taking over". I was
commenting on what I perceive to be a reaction against such novel
prominence. But I am repeating myself>>
I am reminded of a comment by Samuel R Delany, quite some time ago, a gay,
black, writer who had taken up ideas from feminism, & thought he was
'onside'. He noted that he unconsciously assumed that the numbers of women
& men in a crowd waiting for a subway car were equal, but decided one day
to count & was rather horrified to find that the percengages were about 15%
women to 85% men. SO he set himself to truly 'see' what was in front of his
eyes. After some tie & effort, when he thought the numbers were equal,
there were about 40% women to 60% men. He did make the connection to the
phenomenom Alison mentions above, when a single ceo of a major company may
be seen as 'they're taking over!'
I *think* women writers in Canada are about equally represented in
publications, & that many are seen as among our finest writers, but I may
be guilty of what we could call 'the Delany phenomenon'.
I will say, & I do think this is something that only began to happen in the
2nd half of the last century, that some of the writers most important to me
as influences are women: Phyllis Webb, as many of you would have guessed;
Denise Levertov; Daphne Marlatt; Margaret Avison; etc...
doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
he said the President said
he would not kill anyone
anymore and the way he would not kill
would be to let the killers kill
and then he would not be a killer
Eli Mandel (circa 1970)
