Artists in America -- economic stats

NYTimes reported on a US gov't study: 

...... In 2005 nearly two million Americans said their primary employment was in jobs that the census defines as artists’ occupations — including architects, interior designers and window dressers. Their combined income was about $70 billion, a median of $34,800 each. Another 300,000 said artist was their second job.

......The percentage of female, black, Hispanic and Asian artists is bigger among younger ones. Among artists under 35, writers are the only group in which 80 percent or more are non-Hispanic white. Overall, women outnumber men only among dancers, designers and writers....  Overall, the median income that artists reported in 2005 was $34,800 — $42,000 for men and $27,300 for women. The median income of the 55 percent of artists who said they had worked full-time for a full year was $45,200.

.....Over all, artists make more than the national median income ($30,100). They are more highly educated but earn less than other professionals with the same level of schooling. 

{like, half as much.  I know: I've worked jobs where I had to have my Master's degree, but made less per hour than a fully employed high school grad}

 They are likelier to be self-employed (about one in three and growing) and less likely to work full-time, year-round. (Dancers have the lowest median annual income of all artists, architects the highest — $20,000 and $58,000, respectively.)....

...About 13 percent of people who say their primary occupation is artist also hold a second job — about twice the rate that other people in the labor force work two jobs......

LA Times on marketing movies for women

Hollywood rethinks chick flicks

By Rachel Abramowitz, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer 

June 11, 2008

...half of Hollywood is trying to parse the lessons of the resounding success (unexpected to some) of the "Sex and the City" movie, the event film for women.

A $57-million opening weekend? And $192 million worldwide within two weeks? Chicks en masse go to the film as a religious experience. Is there a stampede to knock off other hit TV shows, figuring that TV is to women what comic books are to men? A product with pre-established awareness and mythic potential? Or will "SATC's" hitdom be chalked off as a periodic anomaly, just like "First Wives Club," "Fatal Attraction" and, of course, the bestselling movie of all time, "Titanic," whose tidal wave of gross profit was driven by human beings lacking the Y-chromosome.

...... "I hope ['Sex and the City'] will at least bring about more of a trend toward films made specifically for adult female women," says Donna Langley, Universal's president of production, who ran out opening weekend to catch the film, both as a consumer and a professional. "You would hope, given the success of 'Sex and the City,' people will remember there is a huge female audience out there, and, judging by these numbers, they're clearly starved, for the most part.....I hope the film's success encourages not only studios to make more films for women but more female writers and directors to step forward with their own unique voices,' says Langley"

Step forward?  From where to what?  Every woman playwright I know has written at least one screenplay, and would happily write others if given the least encouragement!  As for directors, it's not as if there are women turning down opportunities.

ICWP Monologues by Women at the BPT

Last night at Boston Playwrights Theatre was great! Everyone was so proud and pleased. However, "everyone" wasn't as many as we'd hoped-- nearly full but no need to put out extra chairs. We had a record cold temperature, near zero, and cars and public transit were less than reliable. Our family's excellent old car-- it has 170,000 miles on it-- refused to start for the 1st time ever, and I arrived at the theatre just 1 hour before the performance, rather than the 2 hours early for set up that I'd promised. Everyone else was was late too, but all helpful and efficient and the shows ran like clockwork. We'd had to hire a young pro from Boston University to stage manage and run sound and lights, but she knew the theatre's equipment very well and worked magic, dimming and blacking out and picking up actors in a spot without any tech rehearsal! All the actors and playwrights made it in spite of the weather-- some just barely in time-- but I know that some of the audience stayed home due to the arctic conditions. My email is full of regrets. Amy Merrill's playwright husband, Robert Johnson, took pictures. He's going to send them to me and I'll add identifying captions and send them to the International Centre for Women Playwrights for the web page. I think everyone will be delighted to see the range of characters represented by these monologues-- the youngest was about 9 years, and the oldest-- well, old. The contrast in voices was just as vivid: rural, urban, New England, Southern... four included singing... and there were even a few Good Men! The actors were among Boston's best-- some of whom, like Richard McElvain, are among the best in the world, IMHO. Robert Bonotto did a heart-wrenching performance of the monologue from my play "Elegy", and Joan Faber sang a touching caberet version from the Dancing Princess song from "Lullaby": my lyrics, Bonotto's music. And some people came up to me-the-actress afterwards and told me I was brilliant in Rosanna Alfaro's "Martha" and "I didn't even recognize you!"-- which of course makes any little frustrations vanish. What is more satisfying than to feel that you are in good company and worthy of being there?

I am worried about Sat at Cambridge, though. This event was somehow cut out of the listings that have appeared-- maybe because it features a writing workshop as well as readings and had an open invitation to newcomers??? And people in the audience at the BPT did NOT pick up many of the flyers for the remaining events or-- except for a few-- take advantage of the Virtual Participants packets. So much for that brilliant idea! I will try to "sell" the monologue packets at the remaining events and bring leftovers with me to NYC for the ICWP Celebration at the Drama Book Shop on the 23rd. Anyway, I'm asking people who have friends in this area to please call them and urge them to show up in Cambridge this Saturday for the writing Workshop at 10 am and/or the shows at 11:45. We have good pieces, and good actors, and should have a Real Good Time if enough people show up to constitute a Workshop and an Audience. My feeling is you need at least a dozen for a good class and 3 dozen for a responsive audience, especially for comedy. Nobody wants to laugh alone.

Coming: March 15th 7pm BRIGHTON BRANCH

ICWP Celebration of Women Playwrights Thursday March 15th 7pm
BRIGHTON BRANCH 617-782-6032 Boston Public Library
40 Academy Hill Road, Brighton Free.

WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH STAGED PLAY READINGS

Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro: excerpt from her play "Martha Mitchell" about the wife of Nixon's Attorney General-- the only US AG to go to jail, for Dirty Tricks such as covering up the Watergate break in.

Kelly DuMar: excerpt from the full length "Away Message"; about love and loss across two generations.

G.L.Horton's "Elegy"; a veteran violist wants to pass on a hard-earned lesson to an up-and-coming young woman virtuoso.

Monica Raymond's "Novices"; A twenty-first century take on The Taming of the Shrew: Kate and Pete, who've connected on-line, meet in person at Au Bon Pain.

Mary McCollough's "Bottom Lines"; Pooshee Pritchee intends to save brother, Cash, from himself-- and save the family's good name. Pooshee's soon-to-be lawyer niece, Dee, tries to stop her.

Deborah Valianti: excerpt from the Brighton playwright's "Too Many Willies "; a gender bending exploration of the nature and source of Art, and inspiration, and the effects of marketplace sensibilities on the Artist.


TALKBACK and REFRESHMENTS to follow the readings.

Books: the top 100

I can scarcely believe this ranking! Six of the top 11 written by women. The Guardian opines that many of the most loved were introduced in school: but the only novel by a woman I was "taught" was "Mill On the Floss" in 11th grade-- and I figured that one slipped through because the author's name was "George". As a college English major 1958-66 (I took time out to have a baby) I wasn't assigned a single female novelist in survey courses. I was assigned the Orwell and Dickens.


Books you can't live without:
Thursday March 1, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

1 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty-Four George Orwell
8 His Dark Materials Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations Charles Dickens
11 Little Women Louisa M Alcott

getting the word out about Women Playwrights

I don't think we'll have trouble filling the seats in our 70-90 seat spaces-- not with 8-16 writers per event. But the Idea is to raise the profile of women writers in the community and among theatre people generally. It is high time that theatre subscribers -- the majority of whom are women!-- NOTICE when a theatre schedules a season of plays all written (and directed) by men, and says "Huh? Where are the women?" If they have heard of some good women writers, even if they haven't yet seen something of their work, they won't accept "There just aren't any talented enough" as an answer. they want evidence.
When I was in school, back in the Dark Ages, it was Common Knowledge that something biological in the female brain prevents a member of The Weaker Sex from writing a good play-- or painting a good picture, or being a General in the Army.
Getting women playwrights' names, words, imagined worlds "out there" where producers are aware that they exist and come in all varieties is my Worthy Cause.

Coming to Cambridge March 8th

Celebration of Women’s Writing and Readings - Free.
Saturday March 10th 10:00 am-2pm. info 617-630-9704
Central Square Library, 45 Pearl Street, Cambridge, MA.

10:00 FREE WORKSHOP on WRITING FROM THE NEWS with Clauder Gold Medalist Monica Raymond & Geralyn Horton. Using news items & free wheeling free association to create scenes and monologues.

11:45 am STAGED READINGS of SHORT PLAYS
and scenes by local and ICWP women writers:
Debra Wise performing Faith in an excerpt from her play "States of Grace", about author Grace Paley.

Cynthia Wand’s "The American Woman": about Shakespeare scholar Delia Bacon; with Rena Baskin & David Rothauser.

Joyce Van Dyke's "Not My Real Mother": a legendary meeting between Tennessee Williams and Mother Teresa; with Robert Bonotto & G. Horton.

Lee Roscoe's "Mobile": a piece of art comes to life; with Sean David Bennett and Peter White. Monologue "Hunting Life": man and prey.

Monica Raymond's "The Biopsy": a sister’s reaction to a test for breast cancer. Directed by Victoria Marsh.

Rae Edelson's scene from "Surf Casting": older man, younger woman on Nantucket explore need and loss; with Ted Kazanoff & Rena Baskin.

TALKBACK and REFRESHMENTS to follow the readings. This event is a good opportunity for women who are interested in play writing but not connected with a group or theatre to come make connections. Men welcome.

ICWP Celebrations in Ohio March 2007

Women Playwrights Readings in Ohio


Five short plays by women writers will be featured to mark International
Women's Day, March 8, at Gallery 202 in Westerville, Ohio. Organized by the
Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute of The Ohio
State University, all the playwrights are represented in the Institute's
archives. Dr. Alan Woods, the Institute's Director, Dr. Katherine Burkman,
Emerita Professor of English at Ohio State, and Dr. Beth Kattelman, the
Institute's Assistant Curator, will co-direct the readings.

All five plays look at women and their relationships. Toronto playwright
Shirley Barrie's Audience explores the appeal of experimental theatre
through a married couple's relationship, while Vicki Cheatwood, from
Garland , Texas , examines the end of a long-term relationship in her The
Last Time Cooper Took Midge Fishing. Salt Lake City writer Elaine Jarvik's
couple, in Dead Right, re-examine their marriage as the wife contemplates
how she might be presented in her obituary. And Gerry Sanseviero, a
playwright from New York City , presents sisters coping with age while
trying to get served before a Broadway matinee in Matinee Lunch. Katherine
Burkman, in Geraldine and Jacob, plays with a woman obsessed with gambling,
and what both enables and results from her passion with the slots.

The free staged reading starts at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 8th, at
Gallery 202, 38 N. State Street in Westerville . Marking International
Women's Day, the Columbus area reading is one of many staged readings
taking place internationally and recognized by the International Center for
Women Playwrights. International Women's Day dates back to 1909, and has
been celebrated on March 8th since 1919. It has been recognized by the
United Nations as a key support for the UN Charter's 1945 call for gender
equality as a fundamental right.

For more information on the readings, click the link or
contact the Lawrence and Lee Institute at 614/292-6614.
Additional information on Gallery 202 and its programs call 614-890-8202

And much material about the International Centre for Women Playwrights


Alan Woods
Director, Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute
The Ohio State University
1430 Lincoln Tower
1800 Cannon Drive
Columbus, Ohio

Coming to Wellesley March 3rd

I'll be acting with June Lewin in Gail Phaneuf's "New Tricks"

Celebration of Women's Voices Festival
Features Platform Members at Wellesley College,
March 3, 2007, 7 p.m.

Eight Playwrights' Platform members will have plays featured in the "Celebration of Women's Voices Festival," hosted by Wellesley Summer Theatre, in the Ruth Nagel Jones Theatre, March 3, 2007 at 7:00 p.m.

This evening of staged readings is part of the Internatonal Center for Women Playwrights', month-long presentation of Boston-area women's plays celebrating International Women's Day March 8. Featured playwrights include: Ludmilla Anselm (Three Friends), Marika Barnett (Chekhov and Pinter Take a Pause), Kelly DuMar (Clay), Hortense Gerardo (The Dress Rehearsal), Holly Jensen (an excerpt from Stripped), Gail Phaneuf (New Tricks), Regina Eliot Ramsay (The Perfect Stranger), and Phyllis Rittner (Breeding Season).

Following the plays, Nora Hussey, head of the theatre department at Wellesley College and Artistic Director of the Wellesley Summer Theatre, will moderate a panel discussion with Boston-area directors to discuss the plays and explore how the theatrical culture can be influenced to be more receptive to producing plays by women. Featured directors include: Michelle Aguillon (Hovey Players), Jerry Bisantz (Playwrights' Platform/Image Theater), Rose Carlson (Executive Director, Devanaughn Theatre), Lisa Rafferty (Freelance Director and Producer/MOMologues Productions) and Nancy Curran Willis (formerly with Gloucester Stage Company & Boston Theatre Works).

The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served from 7:00 until 7:30 when the readings begin. The Ruth Nagel Jones Theatre is on the lower level of Alumnae Hall and is wheelchair accessible. There is ample free parking in the Davis covered parking structure adjacent to the theatre. Reservations are not necessary.

Celebrations Coming Up! March is Women's Month

Women Playwrights in the Spotlight during March 2007

OVERVIEW: The International Centre for Women Playwrights, (ICWP) dedicated to increasing the attention paid to women's lives and women's voices on stages across the world, is sponsoring a series of Celebrations in March during Women's History Month Along with play readings in New York City and Bucharest, there will be five ICWP sponsored Celebrations held in the Boston area between March 3 and March 15. The ICWP held a previous Woman Playwrights event here: Boston Her-Rah!2003. Currently only 16% of plays produced in the USA are written by women, though they now make up the majority of the students in play writing courses. Scripts in hand, women are knocking on stage doors everywhere!

PLAYWRIGHTS: Boston-area writers featured during March celebrations include: Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro, Ludmilla Anselm, Marika Barnett, Leslie Dillen, Kelly DuMar, Rae Edelson, Deborah Fortson, Beverly Scott Gidron, Kirsten Greenridge, Hortense Gerardo, Laura Harrington, Geralyn Horton, Holly Jensen, Ginger Lazarus, Amy Merrill, Jacqui Parker, Gail Phaneuf, Regina Eliot Ramsay, Monica Raymond, Phyllis Rittner, Lois Roach, Lee Roscoe, Joyce Van Dyke, Cynthia Wands, Debra Wise, Eliza Wyatt., et. al. This sampling only skims the surface of the local pool of dedicated writers.

CELEBRATIONS: The Five ICWP sponsored events are:

1) Saturday March 3 7:00 pm "Celebration of Women's Voices" Festival
Ruth Nagel Jones Theatre at Wellesley College. Free.

Wellesley Summer Theatre hosts eight short plays by local women writers who are members of http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifPlaywrights' Platform. A get-acquainted reception at 7pm will be followed by staged readings at 7:30. At 9:15 Nora Hussey, head of the theatre department at Wellesley and Artistic Director of the WST, will moderate a panel discussion with Boston-area directors Michelle Aguillon, Jerry Bisantz, Rose Carlson, Lisa Rafferty, and Nancy Curran Willis.

CONTACT: Kelly DuMar
Web link Wellesley:
web link ICWP
web link

2) Thursday March 8, 7:00 pm, Celebration of Monologues by Women
Boston Playwrights' Theatre 949 Comm. Ave. Boston MA Free.

Joan Faber at the keyboard will provide a Musical Prologue as people gather; then MC Victoria Marsh will introduce some of Boston's best actors (e.g. Naheem Allah, Rena Baskin, Robert Bonotto, Nancy Carroll, Richard McElvain) and directors (e.g. Daniel Gidron, Ted Kazanoff, June Lewin) presenting 1-5 minute monologues by 16 local writers. This Celebration-- demonstrating the wealth of fresh material available to actors who reach out to use the work of their writing colleagues-- will be topped off by a post show Party.

CONTACTS: Rosanna Alfaro & Amy Merrill
Directions and Parking:

3) Saturday March 10, 10:00 am, WHM Celebration of Writing and Reading
Central Square Library, Pearl St. Cambridge, MA. Free.

A morning writers’ workshop on "Topical Theatre"-- using items clipped from the news, a dash of improvisation, and free wheeling free association-- will be followed at 11:30am by staged readings of short plays and scenes with a talkback. This event is a good opportunity for women who are interested in play writing but not connected with a group or theatre to come and make some connections.

CONTACT: Geralyn Horton

4) Saturday March 10, 6:00 pm, Women of Influence
Yamawaki Arts & Cultural Center, Lasell College, Newton MA , Inc. Free

"Women of Influence -- 23 artists consider the women who have shaped their lives", an interdisciplinary art event curated by Steve Fishcher, will open at 6 pm with a viewing of visual art and an artists' reception. The 7:30 production of "The Rosewater of Dona Felicidad" will be followed by a talkback with author and ICWP member Hortense Gerardo.

CONTACT: For more information and directions

5) Thursday March 15, 7 p.m. ICWP WHM Celebration of Women Playwrights
Brighton Branch, Boston Public Library. 40 Academy Hill Road, Brighton, MA. Free.

Readings of short plays and scenes by local women writers will be followed by a question and answer session with the authors and actors

CONTACTS: Library

PHOTOGRAPHS: Headshots of many of the writers whose work will be presented are available upon request. Above is a picture from Amy Merrill's reading at the previous ICWP event, Boston Her-Rah! 2003

Rosanna Alfaro & I will be going to ICWP/NYC!

Where I will perform an excerpt from Rosanna's "Martha Mitchell" Friday, March 23rd, at The Drama Bookshop (Arthur Seelen Theatre):

Here's the message:
On behalf of the N.Y. ICWP readings committee, I would like to thank you all for submitting your work for consideration in the ICWP Celebrates International Women's Day readings in New York City. We received 70 scripts from 30 member playwrights located in four different countries!
Every script we received was read blind (with no knowledge of the author's identity) and given careful attention by at least two readers (sometimes as many as five!)
Having received acceptances from all selected playwrights, we are now thrilled to announce the rosters!
Friday, March 9th, at The Dramatists Guild:

THE THERAPEUTIC HOUR by Guy Glass
WINDOWS by Judith Pratt
BLOOD SISTERS by Robin Rice Lichtig
SHORT-TERM AFFAIRS by Donna Spector
THE UNDERSTANDING by Rachel Rubin Ladutke
CALAMITY JANE SENDS A MESSAGE TO HER DAUGHTER by Carolyn Gage
THE MIRACULOUS DAY QUARTET by Mary Steelsmith
PIKE by Terri Febuary



Friday, March 23rd, at The Drama Bookshop (Arthur Seelen Theatre):

THE SOME OF ALL PARTS by Mrinalini Kamath
WHY D?YA MAKE ME WEAR THIS, JOE? by Vanda
CASUALTIES by Sandra Dempsey
HURRICANE IN A GLASS by Kimberly Pritchard
FLYING BLIND by Kathleen Warnock
OVERCHARGED BRICKS by Emily Cicchini
EVEN THE DIRT BLEEDS DOWN HERE by Carolyn Nur Wistrand
MARTHA MITCHELL by Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro


Readings will begin at 6:30 each evening, followed by a reception.

Please stay tuned for more details as they emerge. We hope to see you there!

Also, if anyone would like to offer help with publicity, organization, or other areas, please back-channel me. Thank you all for your enthusiasm and your support!

Rachel Rubin Ladutke

ICWP Celebrations to Be in Boston March 2007

I'm on the board of the International Centre for Women
Playwrights. In Nov 2003 I produced an area event called "Boston
Her-rah", showcasing about 30 local women playwrights. A committee
of about a dozen, of whom maybe half were/are loosely connected to
ICWP- (it's a cyber org: check out the web site. The Her-Rah event's
program and pictures are on it ) put together a week end of
performances and discussion. We invited women whose work we knew and
admired, and let them choose what 5-30 minute piece they wanted to
represent them. There were also panels and workshops, a reception,
and an open mic session --- Wheelock College and Central Square
Library donated the space. It was a great event! But did you even
hear about it? We had wonderful writers, directors, actors; but we
just weren't effective in generating publicity and attendance. People were happy it happened: but there wasn't enough of a response
by the community as a whole to encourage the women who worked on it
to be in a hurry to do more.
Now I'm supposed to produce another one: in conjunction with
International Women's Day, in March 2007. Ideally with one or more
guest playwrights from Abroad--- similar events will be taking place
in Edinburgh, Scotland and in, I think, Canada, Germany, and Romania,
and several others in the USA.
But I'm Not good at Production. I hate to make phone calls. I can't
organize schedules. I'm a natural pessimist, and spread worry and
gloom rather than cheer and optimism. Like the Little Red Hen, I'm about to go around clucking and squawking and ask:How about helping out? Or maybe taking over? I can work hard, and
heaven knows I am acquainted with 100s of talented people around
here (although I have trouble remembering their names and faces: if
it isn't part of a narrative, I forget...) Could I have some help to do this,
please? I know, I know, the boys should get a turn, too. But women
are starting from so far behind......"

Ranting about the O'Neill

On Oct 8, in reply to my rant about the absence of women in this year's O'Neill line-up, Jeff Sweet wrote: They usually have a much better average than that for women. Much better.
I protested:
No, they do not. Check through the records. Historically, less than 25% of the attendees are female-- and many of those are "two-fers". I'm not in a snit because I'm a female writer. Most people, and the gender-assigning computer program that's based on subtle grammatical differences and is supposed to be 85% accurate, mistake my unidentified work for that of a man. The Humana is very female- friendly, and I don't ever expect to be picked to go there-- I don't write "Humana-type" plays. But I still send in my annual 10 minute, because it costs nothing and who knows? -- some year my stuff might interest them. There, I take your advice to"Don't give up on a place just because the panel for one given year was too stupid to choose you! The panel the next year will be different."

But I'm outraged as a citizen and as an audience member by the O'Neill's gross disparity in gender selection. I simply won't support them in any way any longer, and I urge my male colleagues to consider doing the same thing, and for the same reason. Calling for women to boycott programs that have a blatant male bias is counterproductive: it gives the excluders the excuse that "women just don't apply". But where are the men? Why don't they notice when women aren't in the room, and feel outraged, too? Because their audiences, their families, the world, are made of females as well as males. The theatre is the place where we come together to examine our lives. I don't speak for women. But women as half of humanity speak for a
range of experience that men often leave out, and their voices are vital to our joint project of mutual understanding.

What Can Women Write?

forward of a forwarded blog: maybe MoJo?
What Can Women Write? The Byline Divide -- Over at WomenTK.com, Ruth Davis Konigsberg, who’s also an editor at Glamour, has analyzed a year’s worth of bylines at general interest magazines—namely Harper’s, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, and Vanity Fair—and found that overall the ratio of male writers to female is 3 to 1. (TK, by the way, is reporter/editor shorthand for "to come," as in haven't yet nailed this fact/gotten this quote.)The breakdown is as follows:
The Atlantic: 3.6 to 1
Harper’s: 7 to 1
The New Yorker: 4 to 1
New York Times Magazine: 2 to 1
Vanity Fair: 2.7 to 1
As Ruth notes, the numbers speak volumes, but they’re not the whole story. As a former editor at The New Yorker wrote me in an e-mail, “in addition to counting bylines, you should look at what women are allowed to write about. I’ve been struck by a pattern, at The Atlantic in particular, where women only seem to write about marriage, motherhood and nannies, obsessively so. If you count the number of women’s bylines there that weren’t about hearth and home, the number would approach zero.” And a current student at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism also noted, “At The New Yorker, it seems as though many of the female bylines aren’t for hard-news-type stories. Women write about dance, or they write the short story, or a poem, or a profile of a fashion designer, or something. But the ‘heavy’ stories are left to the guys.”
At a panel I was recently at with editors of all these magazines, the EIC of the NYT Mag, Gerry Marzorati, rightly noted that part of the issue is that the punditocracy is dominated by men, in part because (warning: gross generalizations apply) they are more likely to believe that the world is just waiting to hear what they have to say.But another part of it is, as Ruth quotes, Ursula K. Le Guin’s observation that “there is solid evidence for the fact that when women speak more than 30 percent of the time, men perceive them as dominating the conversation.”These numbers are particularly surprising considering how many women read these magazines. The New Yorker, for example, has an audience of 1,799,000 women and 1,710,000 men, according to a 2006 report by Mediamark Research Inc. The Atlantic’s current audience, Mediamark Research estimates, is 609,000 women and 747,000 men. At Vanity Fair, there are almost three times as many female readers as male readers. When asked to describe the typical reader of The New York Times Magazine, editor Gerald Marzorati replied, “I imagine my reader is a late-thirties-something woman, a lawyer or educator or businesswoman. She’s busy with work, and also with family matters, but Sunday morning is a time she’ll allow herself to read something that is not work related, or kids’ homework related. She wants to lose herself in a story, one big story—8,000, 9,000 words. My hunch is she wants to read not something escapist but something substantive—something that holds a mirror up to her own life or opens a window onto a pretty troubled world.” (NYT, 10/9/05) What’s more, research conducted by Time Inc. in 2005 showed a decline in the number of men reading magazines, while female readership held steady. (BusinessWeek Online, 11/07/05)