Media & PR

Don’t women say interesting things?

An email I’ve sent to the editorial team at the magazine, The Week:

The Week - coverI love reading the Wit & Wisdom column with its collection of quotes each week in your magazine. For a while, however, I’ve been struck by how dominated by men it is. To be sure I wasn’t being unfair, I’ve tallied up the numbers over the last ten weeks. During that time, you’ve included 65 quotes from living or dead men, just 15 quotes from women and 5 quotes where the gender is unknown.

65 versus 15 for men versus women is pretty starkly lopsided.

Although you don’t say it, I guess you’re restricted to interesting quotes you find cited in the media and of course in the past men were often much more prominent in recorded public life than women, so a collection of quotes culled from history might be a bit imbalanced.

But 65 versus 15?

Do you really think that accurately represents the balance between interesting, amusing or thought provoking things said in public by men and women, with men really having come up with them at the rate of more than four for each quote from a women of equivalent quality?

Yours etc.

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