Yesterday’s tweet stream was full of this article by Alison Flood at The Guardian, which is based on the 2012 data from VIDA regarding male domination of literary review magazines. I wish I could say I’m surprised that no progress has been made in the three years VIDA has been collecting this data, but I’m not.

I’m also rather more interested in this article from Forbes which looks at the gender of people asked to give their opinions in the American media during last year’s Presidential election. The article focuses on data from National Public Radio which clearly demonstrates the problem. Overall men were quoted 68% of the time and women 23% of the time (the remainder being quotes from corporations and the like, not gender-free persons). However, looking at gendered persons only, female journalists only quoted men 52% of the time, and women 48% of the time. Male journalists, on the other hand, quoted men 80% of the time and women 20% of the time.

So, do male journalists mostly talk only to other men, or do they think women’s opinions are much less interesting? I guess it is a combination. I can only speak for myself, but I’m pretty sure that most trans women will be able to report, from personal experience, that being brought up male means you are taught to discount women’s opinions. Until we stop that, the data reported by VIDA will not change.