No matter how many times people try and convince me that things are better for women every time I see new stats they just prove the opposite. Women’s progress has plateaued. You’ve seen the stats on women in the entertainment business. You see how few women there are running corporations. You see how few women are making it in politics. It’s like there is one giant conspiracy — intentinal or not — that says you girls have gotten far enough, be happy with what you’ve got, now shut up and leave us alone to go and pilfer another country and start another war.

The latests stats are from VIDA — Women in Literary Arts which tracks gender in literary magazines. You know, the magazines that define cultural conversations on a weekly or monthly basis. Women are woefully underrepresented.

Here’s a quote from Roxane Gay, HTML Giant

This conversation is stalled. We keep trying to find ways to ‘prove’ there is a problem. Many people want to understand why this disparity exists instead of working to address the disparity itself. I’m not going to do that anymore. There is a problem. I am comfortable with that making me a bitch who be trippin’. There is work to be done — let’s get it done.

I am so in agreement with Roxane. We all no longer need to prove there are problems. That wastes too much fucking energy that we could be using to solve the problems.

Here are some of the most egregious stats. (they are all so disturbing- except for Granta) Check out all the data here.

The Atlantic (All Articles): Female- 64; Male — 184

Harpers (Articles): Female-13; Male 65

New Republic (Articles): Female — 50; Male — 198

New Republic (Book Reviews): Female -11; Male — 71

NY Review of Books (Articles): Female — 19; Male — 133

The New Yorker (All): Female — 165; Male — 459

Virginia Woolf has to be turning over in her grave.