*Week in Review is a weekly post that highlights some of the major stories related to gender issues this week. Some of these stories may have already appeared in our News Feed or in the week’s Gender Checks. We’ll at times include a longer analysis of stories as well as bring attention to stories that may have slipped through the cracks of the week’s news cycle.

Women in the publishing industry

VIDA, an organization for women in the literary arts, recently released statistics from 2010 that showed a disparity in the number of female book reviewers and books by women that are reviewed in magazines and literary journals compared to men. The group showed its findings through 40 different pie charts looking at 14 magazines. Only on two charts did women outnumber men (cover to cover authors at The Atlantic and in authors reviewed at Poetry). Here are some examples of their findings:

• Only about 14 percent of the authors reviewed by The New Republic werefemale — 55 male authors and nine females.
• The New York Times Book Review had 438 male bylines and 295 female bylines,and those reviewed a total of 807authors, 283 of which were women.
• The New York Review of Books women had 39 bylines to men’s 200 and 59 female authors were reviewed compared to 306 men.

The issue was picked up across the web, mostly by women and a few men, and spurred debate this week around why this gap exists. Continue reading →