by Linda Hirshman

Hallelujah! Real book reviews. Now that I am only writing and thus able to read some stuff outside my field, I am marooned between the utter garbage commercial publishers apparently think is all the general public will buy and the never-met-a-note-card-I-didn't-like/jargon-filled academic writing I know none of us would ever indulge in. I, too, volunteer to review, short or long. At the risk of sounding like a one trick pony, I urge you to remember the ladies. By chance, my NYROB just arrived, and this issue there are 14 male reviewers and 2 female, about the usual ratio of 7:1, reviewing 22 books or films, 18 entirely by men, 2 with a woman in a list of male authors or editors and 2 written all by her lonesome. The Women's Review of Books has struggled to fill the void, suspending publication, resuming, but surely it is past time for us to be living in a world of Men's, er New York, Review of Books and Women's Review of Books. Although I have not endeared myself to my liberal friends by reminding everyone how the media divides into a World of His and Hers, I'm not speaking about it because I think it's a good thing! At the beginning of a new enterprise, we have a chance to think seriously about women, in and out of the academy, writing serious and important books and addressing all the concerns reflected, for example, in the March 1 NYROB. Surely they are more than 12 percent of the available commentators or 10 percent of the authors. See also the report from Glamour magazine editor Ruth Davis Konigsberg on her website Womentk.