Letter to the Editor: October 3rd, 2012

However, as we have been suggesting for years, there is a serious and persistent problem in the way books are covered…and being best-sellers does not blind us to the problems, or give us the right to sit in ladylike silence while sexism and double standards persist.

Here’s the issue: the women Eugenides teaches will graduate into a world where their work is less likely to be acquired by publishers, where their books are less likely to be reviewed, and where they are less likely to write for important publications.

As Professor Eugenides knows, the literary canon is fluid. Books once dismissed as popular trash are now studied in universities; books that won Pulitzers are barely remembered. We hope for a day when books will be judged by content, not the gender of the author, and for the dismal ratios (12 women versus 24 men reviewed in the Atlantic last year, 21 women versus 71 men writing in The New Republic) to improve.

It is disappointing when a Princeton professor is unfamiliar with the facts. The numbers do not lie. Professor Eugenides might not like the messengers, but he should like the message of continued inequality even less.

Jennifer Weiner ‘91

Jodi Picoult ‘87