28. A (White Male) Life in Books: A News Periodical’s Reproduction of Gender and Racial/Ethnic Inequality

A voluminous literature documents the historical underrepresentation of women and racial/ethnic minorities in the literary canon. However, continuing inequities are often viewed as artifacts of an older, more hegemonic publishing world. Our research challenges this view. Using Newsweek’s feature, “A Life in Books,À we conduct a content analysis to identify gender and racial/ethnic patterns of: 1) featured authors (N = 44) and 2) the “most influentialÀ books chosen by featured authors (N = 219). Descriptive and bivariate analyses reveal three major findings. First, only 25% of featured authors are women and only 20% are racial/ethnic minorities. Second, only 17% of the featured author’s choices are books by women and only 12% are by racial/ethnic minorities. Third, statistically significant correlations exist between gender and race/ethnicity of the featured author and gender and race/ethnicity of the authors they recommend. In short, white male authors are most likely to choose books by white males. Racial/ethnic minority women are more likely than any other demographic group to choose books by women and/or racial/ethnic minorities. Our results indicate continuing, if subtle, gender and racial prejudices in the literary world.

Publisher: Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Sheraton Boston and the Boston Marriott Copley Place, Boston, MA, Jul 31, 2008
Year of Publication: 2008