The Protagonist Problem

I mentioned in an earlier post that, with the benefit of hindsight, the one missing boy-friendly ingredient I should not have included in my COOL not CUTE essay is “A Male Protagonist”.* I still stand by the points I made under that heading – many children find it easier to relate to protagonists that are the same sex as them, and publishers are generally far keener to publish picture books about female pirates than male fairies. However, given what I’ve since learnt about the pro-male imbalance in picture book protagonists, I now recognise that it’s inappropriate to include “A Male Protagonist” in a list of boy-friendly ingredients that are commonly missing from picture books.

I also recognise that — like the pro-female imbalance among children’s book award judges and children’s book reviewers — this pro-male imbalance needs addressing.

One of the articles that brought the issue to my attention was Two to One: Females outnumbered by males in British (and North American) children's picture books by children’s author and illustrator Eileen Browne. Browne argues that since half the UK’s population is female, half of the characters in UK picture books should be female too. In reality, male picture book characters outnumber females by a ratio of two to one. Browne explains that:

“Picture books help children reinforce their sense of place in the world around them. If the picture book world is dominated by males, then girls and boys can get a false view that males are more important and have more worth than females. If children hear the word 'he' twice as often as 'she' in the stories they experience, they are hearing that males have priority over females.”

Browne backs up the two to one statistic with evidence from various sources including an analysis of the main characters of Kate Greenaway Medal winning picture books between 1956 and 2010 carried out by Liza Miller, who is now my picture book editor at Walker Books. I must admit that when I first heard about Liza’s analysis I doubted that it was representative of contemporary picture books. Society has changed a lot in the last sixty years and there is far more gender equality in the Britain of 2014 than there was in the Britain of 1956. By including picture books from earlier generations in her count, I thought Liza might be presenting a distorted picture. One might expect, as I did, that the Greenaway-winning picture books from the late fifties and early sixties would be far less gender-balanced than those of the last decade. One might expect this, but in fact the opposite is true.

Click the image to see an enlarged version. Click here for a pdf of the data.

When I analysed the gender balance of the Greenaway award winning books from these two decades I discovered that exactly 50% of the main characters featured in the 1956-1965 books were female, compared with a mere 15% for the winners from 2004-2014.

Although the Greenaway Medal is awarded to an illustrator, character gender is usually determined by the book’s author (who may or may not be the illustrator as well). So I also analysed the gender balance of the authors from these periods. Between the two decades the proportion of female authors grew from 33% in 1956-1965 to 50% in 2004-2014. This last result also surprised me as I’d assumed that female authors might be more likely to write about female characters than male authors.  However when I separated the books according to author gender, I discovered that the even gender balance of main characters in 1956-1965 was equally reflected in the output of both the male and female authors from that period. And in the last decade there have been more men writing Greenaway-winning books with female main characters than there have been women.

It’s not wise to read too much into results from such a small sample size and it should be borne in mind that Greenaway-winning picture books may not be representative of the output of the whole picture book industry. An analysis using larger, more representative samples, such as the 50 bestselling picture books from 1956 compared with 2013, would present a more accurate picture if someone has the time to do it. However, if we assume that this sample is roughly representative, then it raises an interesting question. Why are picture book authors of both sexes less likely to create female main characters today than they were fifty years ago?

If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say it has something to do with the belief that, while most girls are willing to read books with protagonists of either sex, most boys want to read books with male protagonists. So, in an attempt to appeal to both sexes, authors tend to opt for a male protagonist.

Although I think it’s true that boys tend to be more picky about protagonist gender than girls, I suspect this particular sex difference has more to do with nurture than nature. As I've commented before, modern society is “a lot more comfortable with girls being masculinised than boys being feminised”. In the last fifty years we've put far more effort into telling girls it’s OK for them to model themselves on male characters (real or fictional) than we have into telling boys it’s OK to model themselves on females.


While I share Eileen Browne’s view that the protagonist problem needs addressing, I suspect we may have differing views on how best to address it.

In COOL not CUTE I mentioned that Browne’s No Problem was one of my son’s favourite picture books when he was three years old. My son was fascinated by machines at this age and the story is about a group of animals who assemble a construction kit into a variety of vehicles. Although vehicle books typically appeal to boys, all five of the characters in the story are female. Another of Browne’s machine-themed picture books, Tick-Tock, also has an all-female cast. There are countless picture books about machines and vehicles that feature all-male casts and I assume that Browne deliberately gave these books all-female casts in an attempt to redress the balance and to encourage girls to take an interest in technology. However if, as Browne argues, picture books with all-male casts present children with a “false view” of the world, then surely picture books with all-female casts present an equally “false view”.

I must have read No Problem to my son more than a hundred times. Although the text makes it clear that none of the characters are male, my son persisted in referring to all of them as "he”, despite my equally persistent corrections. While some might claim that this showed that my three-year-old was already prone to gender-stereotyping, I think he did this because it was easier for him to relate to characters if he assumed they were the same sex as him. When writer Michelle Nijhuis’s five-year-old daughter responded similarly to The Hobbit, insisting that Bilbo was a girl, Nijhuis re-gendered the character, changing Bilbo from a “he” to a “she” for the rest of the book. While I didn’t re-gender any of the characters in No Problem or Tick Tock for my son, his response to these books made me think that their tit for tat approach, countering exclusion with further exclusion (albeit of the opposite sex), was less than ideal. As my mother often told me as a child, "two wrongs don't make a right".

The gender ratio of the main characters in my own picture books is only slightly better than two to one. 36% of the main characters in my 30 published picture books are female. This is clearly an area in which I could do better. However, I’ve always made a conscious effort to make the worlds of my stories gender-balanced and 46% of the wider casts** of my picture books are female. It’s not a rigid rule and there are exceptions; my picture book Pigs Might Fly was written as a sequel to The Three Little Pigs and features the same all-male cast of characters.

If we want picture books to reflect the gender balance of the real world, then we need more stories that feature BOTH sexes. That way both boys and girls will be able to find characters they can readily relate to, whether the story is about machines or merpeople, building sites or ballet-dancing.

Click here to download a pdf of the data from the analysis

* This ingredient was cut from the list for the revised essay published in February 2015
** including main characters

Another all-female Carnegie Greenaway judging panel – but I’ve decided to draw a line under my gender-balance campaign.

I noticed last week that the “Meet the Judges” page of the Carnegie Greenaway site had been updated to show this year’s judging panel. As was the case in 2013, there are no men among the 13 judges.

This wasn't a surprise as the organisers had told me this would be the case last November (the judges having already been selected). Nevertheless, having spent the last year trying to persuade the Youth Libraries Group to adopt a gender-balanced panel, I’m obviously disappointed with this outcome. I’d like to stress again that I don’t question the suitability of any of the individual judges – I am simply questioning the appropriateness of a single-sex judging panel for awards given to books for children of both sexes.

The gender balance of the Carnegie Greenaway and the Man Booker judging panels for the last decade.
Click the image to see a larger version.

I had said at the end of my last post that I intended to keep pressing the case, but having reflected on it for a couple of weeks, I’ve now decided not to.

I’m still convinced that, given the gender gap in children's literacy, the UK’s most prestigious children’s literature awards ought to have a gender-balanced judging panel. However, the only people that can bring about this change are the YLG members who select the judges. Over the last few months I’ve been able to put the case for gender-balanced judging to YLG members through their newsletter. Having been granted a fair hearing, I accept that it’s now down to the members themselves to decide if they want to make a change. So I’m going to use this post to recap a few key points before drawing a line under my campaign for the foreseeable future.

Here are three things I knew when I started the campaign (but have been told repeatedly) and three things I’ve learnt over the course of the last year.

Three things I knew when I started

1: MEN ARE TO BLAME!

At the end of my COOL not CUTE essay about the wider gender-bias in the world of picture books, I concluded that if one demographic group was to blame for this bias, “it is adult men, for failing to take sufficient interest in what young children are reading.” I recognise that the lack of men on the Carnegie Greenaway panel reflects the lack of men among the YLG membership. However I think there is little chance that this imbalance will change unless men that are willing to join the panel are actively encouraged to do so. My suggestion that the regions select judges on an alternating male/female basis is not that different from the approach that the Labour Party now uses to encourage its local parties to select female parliamentary candidates.

2: Even if there is a gender balance problem in children’s books, the makeup of the Carnegie Greenaway panel would only represent a tiny part of it.

I set up this blog to highlight what I believe to be a female bias in the world of picture books. All-female Carnegie Greenaway panels are only a tiny part of this, but they’re emblematic of a wider gender-imbalance among all the gatekeeper groups that judge what's appealing and appropriate for young children to read. By highlighting the lack of gender-balance in two such prestigious awards I hoped to raise awareness of the wider issue. I’ve argued elsewhere for gender balance in other, more influential, gatekeeper groups, such as consumers, and will continue to do so.

3: The awards are judged in accordance with fixed criteria.

It’s been argued that the judging criteria of the Carnegie and Greenaway ensure that the awards are judged objectively. The Greenaway’s criteria relate to a picture book’s artistic and aesthetic qualities, its typography and how the text relates to the illustrations, while the Carnegie’s criteria relate to a novel’s plotting, characterisation and the effectiveness of its writing style. I accept that these criteria provide a focus for the judges’ deliberations, but each individual judge’s opinion of how well a book meets these criteria is still subjective. Indeed if the judges don’t have differing subjective opinions, then why are there thirteen of them? If one reason for having such a large panel is to reflect a wide range of views when making a judgement, then, at a time when children’s books appeal less to boys than girls, shouldn’t that range incorporate male views as much as female ones?

Three things I’ve learnt in the last year

1: The individual judges are selected by the YLG regions they represent and the awards organisers have no influence over their selection.

I initially wrote to the awards organisers to try to persuade them to take a gender-balanced approach to panel selection. However it has since been explained to me that the judges are selected by the YLG members in each of the regions they represent. Once selected, each judge serves two years and there is a rolling programme of changes so that each judging panel includes a mix of year 1 and year 2 judges.

2: There is a gender balance issue with picture book protagonists.

In her response to my YLG newsletter article, awards organiser Joy Court refers to Liza Miller’s MA dissertation “Society and Commercialism: Core Factors in Picture Book Sex Stereotyping” which reveals that male protagonists outnumber female protagonists in Greenaway-winning picture books by a ratio of 2:1. This imbalance could be interpreted as demonstrating a bias towards male protagonists among Greenaway judges, however Miller’s dissertation suggests that it’s a reflection of a bias in the output of the picture book industry as a whole. While the under-representation of female characters is clearly an issue that needs addressing, I don’t think a bias towards male protagonists can be taken to demonstrate a pro-male bias across picture book content as a whole.

3: There are other, equally important, inclusivity issues that should be considered in the judging of children’s book awards.

Liza Miller’s dissertation touches briefly on racial representation, stating that “not a single Asian or African character has ever featured in a Kate Greenaway-winning picture book.” Again, it should be stressed that this under-representation reflects the output of the picture book industry as a whole. Having said which, there has only been one non-white judge on the Carnegie Greenaway panel in the last eight years*. I have tried to make the case for wider inclusivity in the judging of children’s book awards in this blog post.


The Greenaway and Carnegie have always made an invaluable contribution to raising the profile of children’s books and promoting children’s literacy for both sexes. If only one YLG region decides to take gender balance and wider inclusivity into account when selecting their judges, it will help make these two great awards even greater.

*Judging by the photographs of each year's judges on the Carnegie Greenaway web site. I was only able to obtain complete sets of photographs from 2007 onwards.

Read all the posts on gender-balancing the judging of the Carnegie Greenaway

Gender-balanced Greenaway and Carnegie Update 6

Following on from my last post, here's my response to the points raised by Ferelith Hordon and Clive Barnes in the December edition of the YLG Newsletter.

Thank you to Ferelith and Clive for taking the time to address my comments. 

My main argument is that the content of picture books is generally less appealing to boys than the content of children’s TV, films and video games and that this difference is exacerbating the literacy gender gap. Ferelith agrees that we need to see a much wider range of content in picture books, but argues that the problem lies principally with publishers and not with book awards such as the Carnegie Greenaway. At the end of my “COOL not CUTE” essay I provide a long list of suggestions as to how this content problem might be addressed. Gender-balancing the judging of children’s book awards is literally the last suggestion on that list, which starts with suggestions as to how publishers might address the problem before going on to suggest ways in which other gate-keeper groups including booksellers, teachers and parents, can help.

While individuals in each of these gatekeeper groups might recognise the difference in content I’ve outlined, they’ll often claim that the problem lies elsewhere. For instance, some picture book publishers will acknowledge that “Star Wars” style combat is very appealing to many four-year-olds, but will tell you that this sort of content is not suitable for picture books, because parents won’t buy it or that it will stop schools buying the book or that it will prevent the book from being bought by a US publisher (which can make or break a picture book deal). Conversely, parents have told me that this is exactly the sort of picture book that would appeal to their child, if only publishers were to make them available. The Literacy Trust’s 2012 report on boys' literacy acknowledges that "some boys are not getting access to materials which interest them" and notes that "some teachers and librarians asserted that it is a supply issue and linked it to the female bias of the publishing industry”. The reality is everyone involved with picture books is in some small way responsible for this difference in content and everyone needs to take the initiative to address it. 

Supporters of children’s literature are always arguing that it should be regarded as a serious art form in the same way that adult literature is. However it’s difficult to think of another prestigious mainstream art award that pays so little regard to gender-balance in it's judging. The 2013 Carnegie Greenaway panel was judged by an all-female panel of 13 judges. Imagine the fuss if next year’s Turner prize for art or Booker Prize for adult literature were judged by an all-male panel of industry professionals instead of the gender-balanced panels that have become the accepted norm for these awards. I think that most people would accept that it was not “inappropriate, impractical” or “insulting” to suggest that a mixed sex panel was the best way to judge art forms that are intended to appeal to both sexes.

Clive is right to say that societal attitudes towards boys reading have a huge influence on the literacy gender gap. However I’d take issue with his claim that availability of appealing content has no influence; I think there’s an interplay between the two. I agree that men and women don’t have “entirely different” reading tastes; the same diverse range of tastes is evident in both sexes. However there are clear differences between the two, with certain content types being more popular with more individuals of one sex than the other. Whether these differences are caused by a combination of nature and nurture or by nurture alone is a contentious issue, but – whatever their causes – the differences are still evident. 

There are many books, such as “Zoom!”, published each year that are particularly appealing to boys. However there’s a big difference between the relatively safe and cosy sort of content that’s found in books like “Zoom!” and the dangerous and exciting content found in children's TV shows such as “Ben 10” which many children of picture book age are watching. Some children might prefer Zoom’s content to Ben 10’s and vice versa, but picture books need to accurately reflect both sets of tastes if they are to compete with the appeal of television and other media.

Newsletter editor Helen Thompson has decided to call time on the debate as far as the newsletter is concerned and I understand that the email above is the last response from me that the newsletter will publish on the issue. I'd like to thank Helen again for giving me the opportunity to put the case to the YLG membership.

While the both the emails the newsletter received have dismissed the case for a gender-balanced Carnegie Greenaway panel, the response I've had elsewhere has been more encouraging and I intend to keep pressing the case. So if you'd like to continue the debate, please get in touch or post a comment on this blog.

Read all posts on gender-balancing the judging of the Carnegie Greenaway

Gender-balanced Greenaway and Carnegie Update 5

In addition to my own email, included in my last post, the December edition of the YLG Newsletter included two other emails from YLG members responding to my call for the Carnegie and Greenaway to be judged by a gender-balanced panel. Both emails are shown below.

RESPONSE FROM FERELITH HORDON 

I understand why Jonathan Emmett makes his "complaint" and I agree that we need to see a much wider range of material in the picture book boxes. I had sons who would have loved a "Star Wars" content but they didn't get turned off other material. However, this is not a simple matter to unravel. In particular it partly stems from the British attitude to picture books which firmly places them at the youngest - and I mean youngest - end of the spectrum. By four, I suggest children are being consciously steered away from books with the type of pictorial content that is the norm in a picture book. And this happens both in school and the home. Does this mean that illustrators do not think to choose such content. I am sure there are plenty of young illustrators who would love to create stories of derring do - are they then firmly directed to the "graphic novel"? (There is a body of work devoted to Star Wars et al in this area which would attract young children - though not the parents) 

I suspect content in picture books is often a publishing decision - is Jonathan suggesting publishers monitor the gender of their commissioning editors? Surely that would be the first place to start. The publishing decision is then tied into the marketing decisions - and here we are into a "chicken and egg" situation. Is publishing responding to demand? Is demand shaped by the market? There are quite a number of areas that are not adequately represented in picture books which one is given to understand is because they would not sell. 

When we come to the Greenaway, I think Jonathan has not clearly taken on board what the Greenaway is. He certainly realises that there are criteria. But the nominations come from the grass roots, public librarians and school librarians, looking at picture books of all types; looking at the illustration - not the "story" as such. It may be that the library profession has an imbalance, though I do not think this is particularly relevant. I think the problem arises when we do not have enough qualified librarians in our Children's Libraries and Schools. I would suggest if the material was there to nominate it would be. The judging committee can only select from those nominations and whether it is a thrilling adventure or a reflective look at death, if the illustrations have the quality demanded it will get shortlisted. Of course, we want our committee to be representative of all views and a mix is very welcome and the ideal - but can girls not respond to adventure as much as boys? Jonathan's solution is interesting and radical, but I feel both inappropriate , impractical - and, dare I say, somewhat insulting to both sides. However, his comments are salutary, reminding us that judging must be done against the criteria and that personal views and taste must take a backseat. I would like to point out that the last three winners have all been male, each demonstrating very different approaches to illustrating. The Greenaway is one prize - a very important one - but the illustrations have to be there for the judging committee to judge. There is clearly a gap in the market - the Greenaway cannot fill it just like that. Authors and illustrators get writing; publishers, publish - then we will see.

RESPONSE FROM CLIVE BARNES, RETIRED CHILDREN’S LIBRARIAN AND CHAIR OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOARD ON BOOKS (IBBY) UK SECTION 

I think Joy has made the main point that needs to be made in regard to the make-up of the Carnegie/Greenaway panel: it’s a panel of practising children’s librarians and there is nothing to prevent men from serving on it, it’s just that, as in many professions dealing with children, particularly young children, children’s librarians are mostly female. And, if Jonathan believes that gender imbalance is playing a major role in retarding boy’s literacy, then it needs to be pointed out that it’s an imbalance right across the education sector in pre-schools and primary schools, an imbalance that’s related to gender roles throughout society rather than to one book award panel. 

Perhaps, to look at it slightly differently, the problem with boy’s literacy may actually be related to the very kind of sexual stereotyping that seems to form the basis of Jonathan’s argument: that boys prefer space, fighting and machines; and girls like, well, something else, which Jonathan leaves unspecified, but probably has to do with caring, sharing and, possibly, reading. 

A long time ago, when I was a boy, my father left me in no doubt, through many hints and wry comments, that my love of reading was rather peculiar. Surely I should be out kicking a ball with my mates or making something with Meccano (so long ago that it’s unrecognised by spell checker)? Would I not end up a friendless mother’s boy? And you know the implications there. 

Although I was happy to read anything, Little Women included, I was reading a lot of stuff about war and fighting that had hardly any girls in it at all. This was just the sort of book that Jonathan might assume I would be reading, and you can still find them today, although, granted, not for four year olds. But that didn’t make the slightest difference to my dad. It didn’t matter what I was reading, it was the fact that I was so keen on reading that didn’t seem natural to him. That, as I’ve said, was a long time ago, but I think that attitude is still out there and it’s tied up not only with the kind of expectations we have of boys and girls but also with class background and attitudes to education, all of which feed into publishing for children. That, I feel, is what is behind the lower literacy rates among boys. Not that we don’t provide enough of what they would like to read but that we imply in so many small but telling ways that reading is not something that boys do. I don’t think changing the make-up of the Carnegie/Greenaway judging panel would make much difference there. 

Nor do I think a gender balanced panel would necessarily choose different books. There’s no reason to think they would unless you are convinced that men and women have entirely different reading tastes or can’t put aside personal preferences in favour of more objective criteria. I’ve served on one or two judging panels (not the Carnegie) and on library book selection panels with a roomful of fellow professionals who were women and never felt I had to act as a spokesperson for male tastes. Finally, of course, the Carnegie and Greenaway awards don’t make that much difference to what gets published, especially since library book funds have shrunk, however happy the recipients and their publishers are to get them. 

Finally, just to remind Jonathan that he was twice the winner of an award that I was associated with: The Southampton Favourite Book to Share Award for a pre-school title. His winning picture/pop up books in 2003 and 2006 were Turtle in the Toilet and Zoom, both books which I’m pretty confident he would agree have boy appeal, and which were initially selected by female library staff and promoted and voted for mainly by female pre-school staff and mums, as well as the kids themselves. It goes to show that women can recognise a good book when they see it.

I've written a further email (which I'll include in a subsequent post) to the YLG Newsletter in which I attempt to address some of the points made by Ferelith and Clive in their emails above.

Gender-balanced Greenaway and Carnegie Update 4

Joy Court's reply to my YLG article, which I included in my last update, raised a few points that I wanted to address, so here's my response which can also be found in the December issue of the YLG newsletter.

I’d like to respond to some of the points Joy made in her reply to my article.

I’m afraid I don’t accept that the CKG judging criteria ensure objectivity as many individual criterion, such as “the overall impact of the book on the reader”, are open to subjective judgement. Children’s literature is an art not a science; is it really possible to judge objectively that the characters in one book are more “believable and convincing” than the characters in another? Indeed if the judges don’t have differing subjective opinions on which books best meet the criteria, then why are there so many judges? I imagine that one reason for having 13 judges is to reflect a wide range of views when making a judgement. If that is the case then, at a time when children’s books appeal more to one sex than the other, shouldn’t that range incorporate male views as much as female ones?

While I accept that some regions might reject the idea of selecting judges on an alternating male/female basis, I hope that others might recognise some merit in doing this. If only one region were to adopt such a system, it would be a step in the right direction.

In the last decade female CKG judges have outnumbered male CKG judges by a ratio of 10:1. A similar female to male ratio can be found across all the gatekeeper roles in the world of picture books, from commissioning editors through to the adults that purchase the books. Given the overwhelming number of female gatekeepers, it is odd that so few picture books feature female characters. Nevertheless, this is an issue that needs addressing.

Having a male protagonist is one of several ingredients that I think is likely to make a story more appealing to boys. The point I make about male protagonists in my COOL not CUTE essay is that picture books are more likely to cater to girls with boy-typical tastes than they are to cater to boys with girl-typical tastes. In the same essay I mention that Eileen Browne’s technology themed picture book No Problem was a big hit with my three-year-old son and cite it as an example of a book with strong technological appeal. Although books about technology typically appeal to boys, all five of the book’s characters are female. Similarly, although pirate stories typically appeal to boys, there are a growing number of picture books featuring female pirates, such as Peter Harris’s The Night Pirates in which all the pirate characters are girls. The situation is very different for picture books that have content that typically appeals to girls; can you think of any ballet or princess/prince themed picture books in which all the dancers or glamorous royals are male? As I’ve argued in another essay, FIGHTERS and FASHIONISTAS, it’s just as important to cater to boys with girl-typical tastes as it is to cater for girls with boy-typical tastes. Personally, I think a gender-balanced approach to casting is preferable to replacing a single-sex cast with a single-sex cast of the opposite sex. That way children of both sexes will be able to find characters that they can readily identify with, whether the book is about technology or ballet-dancing.

Having said which, the central argument of COOL not CUTE is about the sort of content that is generally deemed appropriate and appealing for picture books, regardless of the sex of the protagonist or the authors and illustrators that create them.

Despite our differences in opinion, I’m very grateful to Joy for giving me the opportunity to publicly debate this issue with her and would like to state once more that I recognise that the Greenaway and Carnegie both do a tremendous job of raising the profile of children’s books and promoting children’s literacy for both sexes.

Gender-balanced Greenaway and Carnegie Update 3

I mentioned in my last update that I’d written an article putting the case for a gender-balanced Carnegie Greenaway judging panel for the October 2013 issue of the YLG newsletter and that Joy Court, the chair of the awards working party, would give her response in the November issue.

Here is my article:

IS IT TIME FOR A GENDER BALANCED CARNEGIE GREENAWAY JUDGING PANEL?

Outside of writing and illustrating them, men don’t seem to be as interested in picture books as women are. There are relatively few men working in the picture book industry and most picture books are bought by women. And most teachers, reviewers and librarians that work with picture books are women too. 

I believe that the scarcity of men in these gatekeeper roles means that picture books tend to reflect female tastes more than male ones and that this bias is exacerbating the gender gap in children’s literacy. It’s an issue I’ve written about at length at coolnotcute.com. 

When my son was four years old, he and his friends were obsessed with Star Wars, a saga of good versus evil, packed with deadly combat, sophisticated technology, murderous villains and threatening predicaments. The four Star Wars films available at the time were all U certificates, showing that — in the BBFC’s judgment — their content was appropriate for four-year-olds. I struggled to find my son picture books with a similar appeal. There were books that featured aliens and spacecraft, but their content was far tamer and cuter than that of the films. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that as my son’s enthusiasm for Star Wars grew, his interest in books waned. 

In my experience, a lot of content that’s accepted as appealing and age-appropriate for four-year-olds in films, TV shows and video games is often rejected as unappealing and age-inappropriate for picture books. This rejected content appeals to children of both sexes, but it’s especially appealing to boys, and its exclusion from picture books is one reason that some young boys turn to other media that reflect their tastes more accurately. There are still plenty of picture books published each year that many boys find appealing, but all children are different and picture books don’t reflect the full range of boys’ tastes as effectively as they do girls’. I think the scarcity of male gatekeepers, judging the appropriateness and appeal of picture book content, is the chief reason for this. 

I’ve suggested a number of ways to get male tastes better represented in picture books. It’s generally accepted that more men ought to read to their children, but it’s equally important that more men start buying children’s books, so that the market is influenced by the tastes of dads and grandpas as much as mums and grandmas. I’ve also suggested that the judging of children’s book awards, the Carnegie Greenaway in particular, ought to reflect male perspectives as much as female ones. 

While gender-balanced judging panels are now the norm for prestigious adult book awards such as the Booker, CKG panels are predominantly female. At a time when children’s books appeal more to girls than boys, I think this imbalance is worth addressing. I understand that the CKG’s judging criteria brings consistency to the way the awards are judged and that a panel of professional librarians will be far more objective than an ordinary panel. However each judge will still have some subjectivity, with differing opinions as to which books are best. Shouldn’t that subjectivity represent male perspectives as much as female ones? 

One way to achieve a gender-balanced panel would be to use alternating single-sex shortlists, with each region selecting a male judge one year and a female judge the next. I realise that adopting such a system would mean over-representing the number of male YLG members, but surely it’s more important for “children’s” book awards to reflect the gender balance of children rather than the profession that serves them.

And here is Joy’s response:

I think the majority of the profession would agree that they dislike gender stereotypical publishing of any sort and indeed might contend that the problem is even more severe when children move out of picture books into chapter books and beyond. High Street bookstores can appear almost as colour coded as the clothing ranges available for babies! 

There would also be absolutely no excuse for having a non-gender balanced judging panel if the judges were indeed selected, but as we initially explained, the judges are elected democratically by their regional committee. This means that our panels are at least geographically diverse unlike, I would suggest, the Booker panels etc. They also stand for a two year period and around half of the panel changes each year so that each panel will have a mix of experienced and brand new judges. This would, I am afraid, negate the suggestion of alternating male and female judges from a region each year.

But even if we were to ask each region to alternate the gender of their judges every two years would this even be possible? While we might hope that Jonathan’s piece will make the male members of YLG feel that they should join their regional committee and get actively involved, we cannot force them to do so and therefore we cannot force our committees to do that. But for all that it has been unusual that for the last couple of years there have been all female judges.

However our main point is that, unlike so many of the major awards, we have a published set of criteria and both nominations and judging are conducted solely by reference to those and suitability or appeal to either gender is not one of them. I do not believe that anybody could find any gender bias in the criteria themselves. In the Greenaway we primarily look for outstanding artistic quality and where text exists particular attention should be paid to the synergy between the two. 

Jonathan, in our conversations, has maintained that nevertheless our judgement and taste is still subjective! But the fact remains that of the 57 Greenaway winners 34 have been men and as Eileen Browne quotes in her fascinating article: Two to One - Females Outnumbered by Males in Children's Picture Books, (Write4Children Vol IV Issue II. p 157. ) “Liza Miller, an MA student at City University, London, had analysed the seventy-five main characters in thirty-two Kate Greenaway Medal winners between 1956 and 2010. Her results were the same as mine: Females were outnumbered by males in picture books by about 2:1. Female animal characters were underrepresented by 4.5:1 — less than 20% had female characters.” 

So it would seem that the evidence suggests that female judges over the years have primarily chosen books which are about males. However I realise that Jonathan’s points are more about the plot and style than merely characters. The fact remains that our role is restricted to judging what is actually published. Perhaps his campaigning should be aimed at the editorial and marketing departments of children’s publishers? We would be delighted to publish a response from any of our publisher friends. 

It was disappointing to receive no member responses to this interesting post, but it is nevertheless good that the issue has been raised and hopefully we will see more men responding to the call to arms! Meanwhile it is my job to ensure that the judging will continue to be carried out with the highest possible standards, as objectively as possible and always with reference to the criteria.

Joy Court, Chair of the Carnegie & Kate Greenaway Awards Working Party

Joy has raised a number of new points which I’ll address in my next post, but in the meantime please feel free to post your own responses below.

Gender-balanced Greenaway and Carnegie Update 2

Further to my last update in June, I’m pleased to report that I’ve made some progress with my proposal to get the Carnegie Greenaway Children’s Book Awards judged by a gender-balanced panel.

To set the record straight, I’m told that the organisers drafted a response to the original email I sent them in March but, due to an oversight, it was never sent to me.

Over the summer I got in touch with Joy Court, the new chair of the Carnegie Greenaway working party, who explained to me that the working party have no influence over the selection of individual judges, who are selected by the Youth Libraries Group members in the region each judge represents. However Joy arranged for me to put the case for a gender-balanced judging panel to YLG members through their October newsletter, which can be read here.

I’m very grateful to Joy and the newsletter's editor Helen Thompson for giving the proposal a fair hearing in this way.

Joy's response to the article will be published in the November issue of the newsletter, along with any responses from YLG members.

Should children’s book awards be more inclusive?

This post was originally published as a guest post for the Inclusive Minds blog. 
Inclusive Minds is a collective for people who are passionate about inclusion, diversity, equality and accessibility in children's literature and are committed changing the face of children's books. Click here to visit the Inclusive Minds web site.

EVEN-HANDED: We have to ensure that every child’s perspective is accurately and equally reflected
in the judging of children’s book awards

“Avoid pigs and witches,” — this advice was given to me a few years ago when I was writing fiction for a schools’ reading scheme. Pigs had to be avoided because they could offend Muslim readers and witches because they could offend Christians. The editor that imparted this advice knew from experience that stories that included them were unlikely to be accepted for publication in a schools’ reading scheme.

Picture book publishers are less sensitive about these elements and three of my most popular picture books are about pigs. When I do a school or library visit, I give the school or library service advance notice of which books I intend to read so they can assess their suitability. I’m rarely asked to change my original selection, but when I am it’s usually on the grounds of religion. On one occasion in 2010 I had to cut my picture book Pigs Might Fly from a visit as the library I was visiting was in a predominately Muslim area and the library service felt that some of the audience might find the book offensive. A couple of years earlier, a predominately Asian (mixed Hindu and Muslim) school I visited in the same city had specifically asked me to read the same book. When I’d mentioned the supposed unsuitability of the book for a Muslim audience to one of the school’s Asian teachers, she’d rolled her eyes and shook her head at the idea that anyone might hold this view.

Although the belief that Muslims find stories about pigs offensive is still evident among publishers, librarians and teachers, in my experience it’s only non-Muslims that subscribe to it. Indeed, as long ago as 2003 the Muslim Council of Britain appealed for an end to the "well-intentioned but misguided" movement to remove books featuring pigs from primary school shelves so as not to offend Muslims.

The wider point here is that the most reliable way to judge a book’s appeal to a certain demographic group is to get a member of that demographic group to judge it. The judgement of a well-informed outsider will generally be less reliable than that of a well-informed insider.

I’ve been making this point a lot recently, but the issue has been gender rather than religion. I believe that picture books tend to reflect female-typical reading tastes more than male ones and that this is deterring many boys from establishing a reading habit. I’ve written at length about this issue at coolnotcute.com and made several suggestions as to how male-typical tastes might be better represented in the picture book world. One suggestion I’ve made is that both sexes be equally represented on the judging panel of the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal, which also judges the Carnegie Medal for fiction. The Carnegie Greenaway panels have been overwhelmingly female for some time and this year all thirteen judges were women. I’ve suggested that the Carnegie Greenaway should follow the example of grown-up literary awards, such as the Man Booker, by selecting gender-balanced panels from next year onwards.

If we want every child to love books, we have to do our utmost to make sure that every child’s perspective is accurately reflected in them. At the moment I think we’re falling far short of this, particularly in the world of picture books where reading habits are first established. It’s a self-perpetuating problem. If a child does not see their perspective represented in the world of children’s books, they’re less likely to want to enter that world. They’re less likely to read books and less likely to become publishers, booksellers, children’s librarians — or book award judges. And, if they have children of their own, they are less likely to read to them. If we want to break this cycle, we have to make a concerted effort to get under-represented groups directly involved in the world of children’s literature.

While some people have supported my proposal of a gender-balanced Carnegie Greenaway others have strongly opposed it. The judging panel is made up of children’s librarians and one children’s librarian told me that it was hugely insulting to her profession to suggest that a gender-balanced panel would be a better judge of books for children of both sexes than a woman-only panel.

One justification for a woman-only panel is that any differences between male and female reading tastes are entirely a result of upbringing, so the gender of the panellists is irrelevant. I’m not going to address this particular argument here, but my essay Nature and Nurture outlines some of the scientific evidence that contradicts this view.

Other justifications I’ve heard for a woman-only panel are:

1. The judges are representative of the profession, which is overwhelmingly female.


2. It tends to be women that put themselves forward to be judges.


3. The judges are highly trained, experienced professionals who are entirely objective in their judgments.


4. Gender-balancing the panel would mean that some male judges would be selected on the basis of representation rather than merit.

Appropriately reworded, these same four arguments could be used to justify the under-representation of any demographic group, whether that demographic related to religion, class, race or sexuality. I suspect that some of the people that used these arguments to justify an all-women panel would be less comfortable using them to justify an all-white panel.

These same four arguments have also been used to justify the under-representation of women in the British judiciary. 23% of the judiciary of England and Wales are women compared with 51% of the population. This is the third lowest figure in Europe — the European average is 48% women in the judiciary. High court judges are highly trained, experienced professionals; I suspect that some of them might find the suggestion that a gender-balanced judiciary would be better than a male-dominated one “hugely insulting”. Nevertheless, there is a growing acceptance both within and outside the legal profession that the judiciary ought to be more representative of the population as a whole, not just in terms of gender, but in terms of race and other demographics.

Being of a different sex, race, class, religion or sexuality brings a different perspective to judgment that no amount of training can authentically replicate – and this applies to the judges on a children’s book award panel as much as the judges on high court benches.

The Carnegie Greenaway panel’s lack of inclusivity is only a tiny part of this problem, but it’s not insignificant. The Carnegie and Greenaway awards do a great deal to promote children’s literature and thoroughly deserve their prestigious positions. But their prestigious positions are also the reason I’ve chosen to focus on them. If the Carnegie and Greenaway adopted an inclusive approach to panel selection then other children’s awards might follow their example. The winners of many children’s book awards are decided by children’s votes, but the shortlists for these awards are sometimes selected by a panel of adults — if so, that panel needs to be inclusive! And if book awards became more inclusive, other institutions in children’s literature might follow suit.

Book awards are important. When we give a book an award we’re not just recognising that that particular book is exceptional, we’re sending out a message that books are to be cherished and valued. If we want every child to pay attention to that message, we have to ensure that every child’s perspective is accurately and equally reflected in the judging of children’s book awards.

Is acknowledging sex differences anti-feminist?

Tessa Jowell (left) and Melanie Phillips (far right) discuss gender balance in the banking industry
on this week's Question Time.

It’s clear from some of the responses I’ve seen to my New Statesman post that some of its readers found my argument, which centres on sex differences in reading preferences, objectionable and may well have been surprised to see a left-leaning magazine like the NS giving a platform to what they regarded as anti-feminist views.

I don’t accept that acknowledging sex differences is in any way anti-feminist and it’s a mistake to regard such acknowledgements as reflecting either a right or left-wing political perspective, as an exchange on this week’s BBC’s Question Time programme (starts at 14:17 mins) ably demonstrates.

While answering a question on the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards Report published this week, Labour MP Tessa Jowell gave her backing to the report’s recommendation that trading floors become more gender-balanced by admitting more women. The recommendation reflects the view expressed by Jowell that, “women act differently, more consensually [and are] more risk averse.” The claim that women are more risk averse than men is supported by sceintific studies linking risk aversion with testosterone levels in the brain, which tend to be lower in women. A testosterone monitored go-kart race featured in the BBC’s 2005 documentary on sex differences, Brainsex (starts at 24:53 mins) demonstrates this in an entertaining fashion. Unfortunately, while the male-typical trait of risk-taking may have benefits on the racetrack, its effects on the trading floor have been disastrous for the global economy — hence the Commission’s call for a gender-balanced banking industry.

The Commission’s recommendation is in line with the views of Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, who wrote in a recent article, "I have joked that a “male” culture of reckless financial risk taking was at the heart of the global crisis. Studies back this up. Men trade more often—some say 45 percent more often—and risk taking can be mapped to trading room profits and losses. Mixing the genders can help. Companies with more women on their boards have higher sales, higher returns on equity, and higher profitability.­"

One of the studies Lagarde is referring to was carried out by Cambridge scientist John Coates who suggests that an effective way to “to lower extreme levels of testosterone or increase oestrogenic effects on a trading floor is to hire more older men and more women.”

Right-wing newspaper columnist Melanie Phillips dismissed Jowell’s argument, claiming that both men and women are equally susceptible to the “recklessness” that contributed to the economic collapse.

Phillips’ dismissal of sex differences echo the views of Cordelia Fine, the Australian psychologist and author of Delusions of Gender. Published in 2010, this book claims to show “The Real Science Behind Sex Differences” and supposedly debunks many of the recent studies and experiments that suggest innate differences between the sexes. The book has been widely acclaimed in the mainstream media, receiving favourable reviews in both the left-leaning Guardian and the right-leaning Daily Mail for which Phillips writes a regular column. Fine’s “debunkings” are largely dependant on her claims that the studies were not conducted and/or interpreted in an objective and impartial manner. Some of these claims turned out to be no more than ill-founded assumptions made by Fine and were swiftly rebutted in the professional journal The Psychologist. Not surprisingly, the reviews Fine’s book received from her fellow scientists in The Psychologist and other sceintific journals, such as the Biology of Sex Differences, are somewhat different from the ones in the Mail and Guardian.

Regardless of its veracity, Fine’s claim — that there is no such thing as innate sex differences — is embraced by individuals on both sides of the political spectrum and is a card that can be played both ways in arguments concerning inclusivity and gender. By rejecting Jowell’s claim that women are less risk averse than men, Phillips was undermining the credibility of Jowell’s case for including more women in the banking industry. A similar argument – that women will bring nothing new to the table – could be employed against moves to include more women in parliament or the judiciary. If women are going to behave indistinguishably from men in these roles, why should their relative numbers be an issue?

I’ve been hearing a similar argument — that men would have brought nothing new to the table – as a justification for this year’s Greenaway Carnegie women-only judging panel.

Gender-balanced Greenaway and Carnegie Update

My last post was in response to this year’s selection of a women-only Greenaway and Carnegie judging panel and included an email that I’d written to awards organisers urging them to adopt a gender-balanced panel for future awards.

At the end of the post I said that if anything came of it, I’d post an update on this blog.

Well, I’ve yet to receive a response form the awards organisers. I'd cc’d the email to CILIP’s Chief Executive and I did receive a prompt response from CILIP’s Campaign Manager, who told me that he’d forwarded my email to the Co-ordinator and the Chair of awards’ working party who where best placed to answer the “interesting points” I’d raised. He made it clear that they were very busy people who ran the awards on a voluntary basis and so they might take some time to get back to me. I thought I ought to give the organisers the opportunity to respond, which is why I stopped tweeting and blogging about the issue.

After six weeks of waiting I realised that the organisers probably weren’t going to respond to me, so I wrote to the media asking if they would help me raise awareness of the issue. The New Statesman offered me a guest post on their blog, which is reproduced below.

In the post I claim that “the Greenaway and Carnegie panels have for some time been overwhelmingly female.” I verified this by looking at the last few years’ judging panels as listed (or previously listed) on the “Meet the Judges” page of the Greenaway and Carnegie web site. Here’s a table showing what I found.

Year	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	Totals
Female	12	12	11	12	10	9	10	12	13	101
Male	0	0	1	0	2	3	2	1	0	9

And here’s the post from the New Statesman blog.

There is a problem with boys and books — they don’t seem to want to read them as much as girls do. As a result, boys’ average reading abilities are lagging behind that of girls by the equivalent of one year's schooling. I believe this difference in appeal is partly due to a bias towards female tastes in children’s literature and in picture books in particular. Last year’s All Party Parliamentary Boys Reading Commission Report notes that the gap between boys’ and girls’ reading ability is already evident at age 5, which suggests that the problem starts at picture book age.

Although there are plenty of men such as myself writing and illustrating picture books, the gatekeepers in the world of picture books are overwhelmingly female. It’s predominately women publishers that select picture books for publication, women teachers that choose which books to read in nurseries and infant classrooms and women customers that purchase picture books for reading at home. Women aren’t keeping men out of these gatekeeper roles, the imbalance is there because relatively few men are interested in occupying them, but as a consequence picture books tend to reflect female tastes more than male ones.

Even picture books that are intended to appeal primarily to boys reflect the tastes of the mother or grandmother that will usually be buying them as well as the child they’re bought for. Picture book pirates are less prone to combat than their counterparts in other media, monsters and aliens less frightening, vehicles and machines less technically detailed. Elements of danger and threat are tamed down or omitted altogether on the grounds of being unappealing or inappropriate. In short, picture books with boy-friendly themes tend to be cuter and tamer than similarly themed TV shows, films or video games.

I think the failure of picture books to accurately reflect the full range of boys’ tastes is deterring many boys from developing a reading habit. Elements with strong boy-appeal such as combat, peril, villainy and technology that are abundant in U certificate films like The Incredibles are rarely found or diluted in picture books. I believe that one reason many children, especially boys, reject books in favour of films, TV and video games is that these media reflect their tastes more effectively.

I’ve written at length about this issue at coolnotcute.com and made several suggestions as to how male tastes might be better represented in the picture book world. One suggestion is that both sexes should be equally represented on the judging panel of the Kate Greenaway Medal, the high-profile UK children’s book award that usually goes to a picture book illustrator. The award is organised by CILIP, the professional body for UK librarians and the winner is chosen each year by a panel of CILIP members who also chose the winner of the Carnegie Medal for children’s fiction.

The Greenaway and Carnegie Medals are (to quote their web site) “the UK's oldest and most prestigious children's book awards” and widely regarded as children’s literature’s equivalents of the Man Booker Prize. However, while the Man Booker’s judging panels have been consistently gender-balanced since 1997, the Greenaway and Carnegie panels have for some time been overwhelmingly female. Last year there were twelve women and one man on the panel; this year all thirteen judges are women.

The Greenaway and Carnegie have always made an invaluable contribution to raising the profile of children’s books and promoting children’s literacy for both sexes and I don’t wish to detract from this achievement. However, if we want books to appeal to boys as much as girls, shouldn’t the UK’s “most prestigious children’s book awards” reflect male tastes as much as female ones?

I wrote to the awards’ organisers on 19 March to urge them to adopt a gender-balanced panel for future awards, but have yet to receive a response. I realise that adopting a gender-balanced panel would mean over-representing the number of men working as librarians, but surely it’s more important for “children’s” book awards to reflect the gender balance of the books’ intended readers rather than the profession that serves them? If there aren’t enough male librarians to balance a panel of thirteen, men from related professions such as teaching could be included. Or the size of the panel could be reduced until it could be balanced; a panel of five, like that of the Man Booker, would only require two men to balance it.

I recognise that, as professional librarians, the judges will do their best to be objective and take the reading preferences of both sexes into account. But no judge can be entirely objective; two librarians working in the same library might have differing opinions on the best children’s books published last year. Given that there’ll always be some degree of subjectivity, shouldn’t that subjectivity reflect the tastes of both sexes?

I don’t deny that previous year’s panels have sometimes selected books that have been very appealing to boys. And I can’t claim with any certainty that this year’s panel would select different books if it had been gender-balanced rather than women-only. However, I’d maintain that by consistently selecting panels made up overwhelmingly or exclusively of women, year after year, there is likely to be some overall bias in favour of female preferences. And at a time when we are struggling to make books appealing to boys, it makes sense to address this bias.

The Greenaway and Carnegie are wonderful awards and whichever books the judges pick this year will no doubt be worthy of the recognition that the medals bring them. However, these awards would be even more wonderful and the winning books even more worthy of recognition if both sexes were equally involved in choosing them. Such a change would also help to send out the message that books are for boys as much as girls.

For an alternative viewpoint, you might want to check out the comments section beneath the post on the The New Statesman site where book consultant and former Carnegie Greenaway judge, Jake Hope, defends the way the awards are judged and dismisses my call for a gender-balanced panel.

If you've got any thoughts on the issue, for or against, please post a comment below.

A plea for inclusivity: shouldn't the Greenaway & Carnegie reflect male opinions too?

I’d intended to take a break from banging on about gender bias in picture books to concentrate on writing stories for a while, but I felt compelled to return to the issue after last week’s 2013 Greenaway/Carnegie announcement.

Both this year’s shortlists are as impressive as ever. Although I’m only familiar with a few of the books listed, I’ve no doubt that all of them are excellent and worthy of recognition. What is less impressive is the lack of gender-balance on this year’s judging panel; all thirteen judges on the 2013 panel are female.

In Part 1 of COOL not CUTE I wrote this about the 2012 Greenaway/Carnegie panel.

Neither award is gender-specific; they are supposed to recognise excellence in books for children of both sexes. There are thirteen librarians on the 2012 panel; only one of them is male. If this male to female balance reflects that of previous panels, it can be assumed that no one has ever won either the Carnegie or the Greenaway Medal by appealing to the little boys that the panellists once were.*

And in Part 2, I made the following suggestion.

One simple thing that CILIP could do to demonstrate its commitment to encouraging both boys and girls to read is to ensure that both sexes are equally represented on the judging panel for the Kate Greenaway and Carnegie Medals. As the most prestigious book awards in the UK, this would set a fine example to other awards. I realise that this would mean over-representing the number of men in the profession, but what is more important — reflecting the preferences of the profession or of the readership it is meant to serve?*

I recognise that all the judges on this year's panel are experienced children’s librarians that understand the sort of content that appeals to boys, but surely it would have been better to include some male judges who could offer a genuinely male perspective?

As the most prestigious UK children’s book awards, the Greenaway and the Carnegie Awards are the junior equivalent of the Booker Prize. The panel for the Booker has always included judges of both sexes and since 1997 the panel has been made up of either 3 men and 2 women or 3 women and 2 men. Imagine if the Booker’s organisers selected a men-only panel, offering the assurance that all five men had a good awareness of what appealed to women. I suspect that few people in the world of grown-up literature would accept this as an adequate substitute for a gender-balanced judging panel.

If we want to persuade boys that books are for them as much as girls, shouldn’t prestigious book awards such as the Greenaway and the Carnegie give male opinions as much recognition as female ones?

I think they should, so I sent the organisers the following email.

Dear Greenaway and Carnegie Awards Organisers

As the UK’s most important children’s book awards, I recognise the invaluable contribution that the Greenaway and Carnegie make to raising the profile of children’s books and promoting children’s literacy. However, I’m writing to express my dismay at your selection of a women-only judging panel for this year’s awards. 

I’m particularly concerned about the judging of the Greenaway award. I believe that one of the reasons so many boys are turned off reading at an early age is that the first books they encounter, which are usually picture books, tend to reflect female preferences far more than male ones. The overwhelming majority of picture books are both published and bought by women. And it’s usually women teachers and librarians that select picture books for schools and libraries. I believe this has resulted in a female bias in picture book content that’s exacerbating the gap between boys' and girls' reading abilities. I’ve written more about this issue on a blog at coolnotcute.com. 

I don’t doubt the suitability of any of your individual panelists and recognise that as experienced children’s librarians they will understand the sort of content that appeals to boys, but surely it would have been better to have some male judges who could offer a genuinely male perspective? A judge of either sex will inevitably bring a degree of subjectivity to their judgement. They will tend to favour books that reflect their own tastes, that appeal to the child they once were. In a women-only panel, those children will all be girls 

I accept that it’s too late to do anything about this year’s awards, but I urge you to follow the example set by other literary awards, such as the Booker, by selecting a gender-balanced panel from next year onwards. If you can’t find enough male librarians to balance a panel of thirteen you could include men from related professions, such as teaching. Or you could reduce the size of the panel until you can balance it; a panel of five, like that of the Booker, would only require two men to balance. 

I recognise that the organisation of the awards requires a tremendous amount of effort on behalf of yourselves and other individuals and don’t wish to detract from this or undermine the credibility of the awards in any way. I’m sure that whichever books win this year will be worthy of the recognition that the awards will bring. 

However, I think this effort would be even more commendable and the winners even more worthy of recognition if both sexes were equally involved in choosing them. 

Yours sincerely 

Jonathan Emmett

If anything comes of it, I'll post an update on this blog.





Update Feb 2015
* These two paragraphs can no longer be found as shown in the essay, as the essay has been revised and now includes a reference to this campaign.