SEXISM exists throughout the Scottish literary sector, a new report has found, with some women experiencing sexual harassment, intimidation and discrimination in their literary workplaces.
The Quine Report also found that ideas of what Scottish literature should or could be are limited and the sector is dominated by male, white men.
The research by Edinburgh-based writer and bookseller Dr Christina Neuwirth shows that over the last five years, 12 Scottish literary prizes were won by men nearly twice as often as women. There were 302 (65.9%) male winners, 153 (33.4%) female winners and three (0.7%) non-binary winners.
Of the 458 winners from 2019-2024 across these 12 prizes, only 21 (4.6%) winners were Black or People of Colour (BPOC) authors and in 92 shortlists examined, only 39 (7.8%) of 500 shortlisted authors were BPOC authors.
Those working in the industry were also interviewed for the report, with two interviewees reporting direct experiences of harassment and intimidation, while several more spoke of being treated less favourably due to their gender or ethnicity, or missing out on opportunities due to caring responsibilities.
The report also found that male authors were published 50% more often than female authors by Scotland-based publishers, while across two national daily newspapers, 82% of reviews were written by male critics and 18% of reviews were written by female critics in the years 2017 to 2019.
Meanwhile, more male authors than female authors were programmed for three major Scottish book festivals, although the figures for these statistics were also taken from the years 2017 to 2019. In those years 52.8% of authors programmed were male, while 45.6% were female, and 18 (0.4%) were non-binary. The men programmed were more likely than the women to have a solo event.
During those years, 17 authors of 1321 individual authors published in Scotland appeared in all four of the following areas – they were published in Scotland, received a review, spoke at a book festival and were shortlisted and/or won a literary prize.
Of these, 11 were men and six were women. All 17 were white, meaning that this higher visibility was entirely unavailable to BPOC authors within the three-year sample.
Men were the majority of authors in fiction, trade non-fiction, and poetry. Women were the majority of authors in children’s and young adult books but in non-fiction books for children and young people, men again were the majority of authors.
As well as counting disparity in Scottish literature, Neuwirth interviewed 26 “tastemakers” in the industry from 2018-2020. She found that at several stages, ideas of what Scottish literature should or could be are limited.
One of the reasons, she said, is that the Scottish literary canon, which historically favours white male authors, still impacts tastemaking today.
“Secondly, ideas are limited by the capitalist market idea of risk, in which literary sector businesses appeal to imagined ideas of consumers,” says Neuwirth.
“As Rethinking ‘Diversity’ In Publishing shows, many publishers make decisions based on what their ‘imagined’ reader wants, but that assumption does not represent the breadth of the UK reading market. These assumptions limit the books published by women and gender minorities.”
Neuwirth also found that some of the literary festival directors interviewed felt they lacked complete agency and editorial control because of the complex network of market relationships between publishers, reviewers, festival programmers and prize judges.
“The work of women in the literary sector often happens in the background (ie they inhabit a structurally secondary role), or is otherwise devalued through gender stereotyping,” she said.
At the end of the report, Neuwirth concludes that the picture which emerges is “one of an industry which is overwhelmingly staffed by women but which does not value the labour of women as highly as that of men”.
“Women cannot alone be responsible for addressing inequality in the publishing industry. They hold little structural advantage and their capacity – their resources, energy and focus – is limited by the harassment and the devaluing they face.
“Several interviewees stated that tastemakers would be horrified if accused of sexism because they believe they have good intentions and work in a countercultural sector,” Neuwirth adds.
“They may believe that their good intentions protect them from perpetuating sexism and from accusations of sexism. However, the data in this report show that sexism exists throughout the Scottish literary sector.”
The report recommends that organisations, institutions and companies should conduct a regular audit of the demographics of authors they work with through publishing, programming, shortlisting and receiving submissions. Wherever possible, anonymised findings should be made public, including wages/wage bands, advances and royalties.
Secondly, organisations, institutions and companies should build equality, diversity and inclusion into their publishing, reviewing, platforming, submission and shortlisting processes, to empower decision-makers and all employees to question exclusionary practices.
Lastly, the Scottish literary sector should implement systems for reporting gender-based harassment, intimidation, discrimination and violence.
A spokesperson for Glasgow Life said a key aspect of the Aye Write and Wee Write festival programme planning was in taking proactive steps to ensure clear EDI goals are met.
To enable results to be measured and reported on, the gender of authors involved in the events is tracked, using identifying information submitted by the authors themselves or their agents/publishers.
“The most recent figures for Aye Write and Wee Write demonstrate a very balanced gender split,” said the spokesperson.
In 2023, there were 51% male, 49% female authors and one known non-binary identifying author while at Wee Write it was 53% male, 47% female.
In 2022, Aye Write there were 49.3% male and 50.4% female while at Wee Write there were 50% male. 50% female and one known non-binary identifying author.
