Following the selection of all-male shortlists for the 2009 and 2011 Miles Franklin Literary Award, and the subsequent launch of the Stella Prize for womenâs writing in 2013, interest in the institutions of power that feed Australiaâs literary canon intensified, giving rise to questions about gender bias in the way symbolic capital is accumulated in the Australian literary field. Research into the relationship between gender and the ways in which literary reputations are established and maintained in various sectors of the field has been undertaken throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, but what is lackingâuntil nowâis a longitudinal study of the interplay between various consecratory agents in the industry, and how these agents intersect with gender. This book contributes to and extends the current debate around the critical reception of women authors in Australia and the broader Anglophone literary field, with the aim of understanding how authors build their reputations and accumulate prestige in contemporary book publishing. How is prestige accumulated by authors in the Australian publishing field and how does the struggle for legitimacy that defines actions within the field of cultural production differ for women and men?
It is important to acknowledge that although women authors have been under-represented within the institutions that contribute to an authorâs reputation, gender is not the only factor that can influence prestige and power in the literary field; scholars have observed that publishing and consecratory institutions in Australia and the UK are overwhelmingly white spaces (Kon-Yu 2016; Squires 2017) and any research into the unequal distribution of symbolic capital needs to encompass both gender and race. In âAppropriating Bourdieu: Feminist Theory and Pierre Bourdieuâs Sociology of Cultureâ, Toril Moi notes that, âalthough social agents are undoubtedly always gendered, one cannot always assume that gender is the most relevant factor in play in a given social situationâ (Moi 1991: 1037, original emphasis). Natalie Kon-Yu (2016) notes, however, that research of this kind can be difficult and, in and of itself, problematic. In order to approach this research from an intersectional standpoint, where appropriate and where I am able, the relationship between prestige and raceâand particularly the relationship between prestige and First Nations Australiansâwill be addressed through the prism of gender.
This study is situated within a broader Anglophone book publishing field, alongside territories such as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and New Zealand. Many of the issues around access and inclusion explored in this volume are commonly observed within these other national contexts. The multifaceted nature of Anglophone publishing establishes literary fields that are often simultaneously transnational and parochial. This amphibious nature is perhaps more profound in smaller markets like Australiaâs or Canadaâsâwhere the influence of British and American authors and publishing models have a long-standing influence on the structure of the fieldâbut is nonetheless evident in all Anglophone publishing fields. The case studies explored throughout this volume are situated within the Australian field, however, they are not unique to the Australian field (see Marsden and Squires 2019; Neuwirth 2019).
âTo Be Australian, a Woman and a Writerâ1
This book exists within a history of scholars working to understand and illuminate the gendered nature of the literary field. Read together, they offer an insight into the long-standing and robust structure of Australiaâs literary field and the ways in which power, prestige and reputation operate. The theme of a polarised structure that is rooted in author gender emerges from this research, where the writing is serious/not serious, legitimate/illegitimate, important/frivolous depending on the gender of the author, dichotomies that are employed to justify the fieldâs inherent inequality. This theme is identified as a âtacticâ by Joanna Russ in How to Suppress Womenâs Writing (1983). In exploring the gendered âdouble standardâ that plagues the publishing industry, Russ writes, âThe trick in the double standard of content is to label one set of experiences as more valuable and important than the otherâ. This approach to âsuppressingâ womenâs writing, which is explored in much of the research into gender, womenâs writing and the literary field, acts as an opaque force that gently guides the actions of those operating within the literary field, shoring up the positions of power and those who occupy them.
The characteristics that define the structure of Australiaâs literary field can be traced back to the emergence of the nationâs literary scene in the nineteenth century. In her study of gender and Australian novels published from the 1830s to the 1930s, Katherine Bode (2008) notes that before the 1840s, novels were not perceived as a valuable cultural form, and writing novels was almost exclusively the pursuit of women writers. As the number of male novelists writing in Australia grew throughout 1840â1870, so too did their legitimacy among critics and reviewers (Bode 2008: 439). From the 1880s, the novel began to be redefined as a masculine cultural product, one that made a significant contribution to cultural life, and the number of published novels written by men surpassed the number written by women, despite the fact that more women were submitting their work to publishing houses (Bode 2008: 439, 411).
In The Rules of Art, Bourdieu (1996: 297) notes that the concepts or ideas that form the foundation of the appreciation of a cultural product are linked to the historical context in which they are created. Bodeâs research illustrates the ways in which the relationship between gender and literary legitimacy have long been tied, and that gender has been a constant factor in the perception of value in the literary field. In her study of the critical reception of Australian novelists, Bode (2008: 455) describes the âessentialist understanding of literatureâ: aligning with the dichotomy where âmalenessâ is associated with âseriousâ fiction. The âessentialist understanding of literatureâ that Bode describes was the status quo in the nineteenth century, and Bodeâs research shows that many women authors received little or no critical attention for their published work.
The critical reception of mid-twentieth-century women authors was similar to those who were writing in the period from 1880 to 1930. Susan Sheridanâs (2011: 2) study of post-war women writers describes Australiaâs literary scene as a place where women were more or less invisible; men almost exclusively occupied the positions of power as publishers, editors, critics and lecturers. Writing by women attracted scant critical attention during this period, a time where there was a growing distinction between âseriousâ literary fiction and popular fiction (2011: 3). Again, through Sheridanâs work, we see that dichotomy where the notion of the seriousness of the work is closely related to the gender of the author, and the gendered assumptions that underpin this dichotomy are maintained by the âinvisibilityâ of women writers in this period. In Damned Whores and Godâs Police, Anne Summers (1975: 39) describes the literary scene in 1975 as a place where the standards of literary value were devised, established and consequently administered by men. Literature exploring womenâs experiences, Summers argues, did not conform to what was deemed important or of literary value. Julianne Lamondâs research (2011: 32) echoes this ideaâthat the experience and ideas of women do not fit the valued aesthetic of Australiaâs literary cultureâand notes that certain types of experiences are considered âmore Australianâ than others.
This dichotomy continues to be identified in the research into the contemporary field. Writing about the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Katherine Bode and Tara Murphy (2014: 184) contend that factors existing outside of a text make it more likely that an author will attract attention from the agents of consecration. These external factors can often be seen to be either explicitly gendered or the result of a field that has long expressed a preference for particular forms of writing from particular types of writers. Lamond (2011: 34) takes this idea further by suggesting that the ideas underpinning literary value in the Australian context were defined in opposition to femininity, and bias is embedded in the way we think about value, literature and gender. Similarly, author and editor Sophie Cunningham states: âit is harder for a womanâs work to be considered literary or taken seriouslyâ (2011: 15). Again the themes of legitimacy, value and seriousness are cited for reasons why a pervasive gender gap exists in the critical reception of writing in Australia. But are the biases and âexternal factorsâ described by Bode and Murphy, Lamond and Cunningham a consciously maintained factor in the literary field? Do consecratory agents seek to ensure that the structure of the field is constant and the powerful stay powerful?
Speaking on behalf of her fellow Miles Franklin Literary Award judges, Morag Fraser remarked that the judges had not considered gender when they selected the 2009 all-male shortlist, and did not realise that there was a complete absence of women authors until the list had been published (Cunningham 2011: 11). The 2009 and 2011 all-male Miles Franklin shortlists are perhaps a contemporary example of what Bode calls the âessentialist understanding of literatureâ: the unconscious or even subconscious ideas and dispositions that underpin the production and reception of literary texts in Australia. This research seeks to understand how this unconscious disposition is established and perpetuated.
Marginalised Genders and the Australian Literary Field
A longitudinal study of this nature brings with it a number of methodological complexities. Over a 50-year period, definitions, knowledges and mainstream understandings around gender shift, making it difficult to establish a consistent measure. In the following chapters, I explore the research methods used in this study, however, it is important here to acknowledge and seek to reconcile the complex nature of gender and the aims of this study. In the tradition of ...