This was written in response to Linda Leith’s Article “Bias against Women Writers? Heresy from a Fledging Publisher”

I write today to throw in my 2 cents – indeed for what it’s worth – about how, or why men seem to dominate in the publishing world. It’s a dangerous area, I think, because I am definitely not an authority on the subject, only an observer. Perhaps I write about it today, because recently I opened old files of stories I had abandoned, finding the critique it had received from another writer. As constructive as he had tried to be, he had used words that spoke to me of my failure to produce a perfect piece. This time, years later, the words no longer had that effect. They were about the story, and I no longer were attached to the long hours I had spent on it. I happily started rewriting the story yesterday.

What does that mean in relation to the gender domination issue? I want to avoid the stereotypes that people of my generation have lived with, because as much as we’d want to correct a situation, we should look at it as a signal for personal change and transformation. The only hurtful feedback I have received in workshops was from male writers, but I’m not ready to say that it’s about the men. It’s about my lack of self-esteem, and some kind of fatigue from putting so much of myself into the writing. But I should focus on what they had to say, however hurtful their choice of words and lack of care were. It would be a good exercise for me, as a writer, to adopt their point of view and “fight back” with a better story. After all, I’m not here to be pretty and win their praise. I’m here to tell stories, good stories that will land on top of some editor’s acceptance stack.

As a result I developed my own personal theory about the apparent male domination in the publishing world. I theorize that it has to do with men approaching their goals as if they were staging a fight, adopting strategies, never looking back, getting up after being hit. They spend zero time making themselves pretty. People like me, feelers, just want to withdraw at the first aggression. We will avoid the critics and start submitting inferior work and complain, over a glass of wine, that it has been rejected again. It’s time for a new strategy.

I have wasted so many years of my life wondering why I couldn’t “man up” as my parents wanted, as the bullies would have been afraid of, as a therapist later theorized would be the solution to my lack of desire for life. Going in that direction, however, only resulted in adding layers over my true person, making it increasingly difficult to recognize that there might be a whole universe of people like me developing illnesses because they’re working too hard on becoming another person.

Writers don’t always have the luxury of working for a good boss, a good manager who helps his employees thrive and climb the corporate ladder. Instead, they work for an absent, dysfunctional boss on the other side of a wall with only a small mail slot to communicate. They can adopt a number of strategies to make themselves and their work more visible to the boss, but they need to realize that a thousand other writers are trying to do the same.

My current solution is to make up my own boss, and my own critics. Perhaps I can model them on people I’ve worked with before. It may be a good idea to make the critics male, and the boss female, or even have multiple bosses and a variety of critics. After all, I’m a writer, I can develop characters ad infinitum (it even sounds like a great exercise). Then these characters will start acting for me. The good manager will not only arbitrate between the critics and me, he’ll take me to lunch to discuss how to deal with them, and give me a growth path. He’ll also tell me to turn off the Internet when he sees me wandering on Facebook. “Go take a walk around the block,” the good manager will say. “We need to finish this chapter tonight, you need to think about how it will end.”

If this sounds like a return to “voices in my head,” know that I can hire and fire these at a moment’s notice. Yes, in this world I can fire my own boss, but I can also negotiate and challenge him as he can with me. It is team work.