Writing, Workshops and Gender

Okay, as a light feminist and a attendee of two all girls schools, I'm generally pretty concerned with how women are represented.  One of my favorite bones to pick is how women all like to complain that we don't get the opportunities men do, but we also tend to tear each other down instead of wildly promoting each other (a la old boys clubs).

This weekend, however, I noticed something almost counter intuitive, and I want to muse.  So, in the children's writing field, the following are true:

1.  Agent blogs I read comment that the vast majority of queries are from women.  Kristin Nelson went so far as to say that men's queries get more attention because they stand out, and that statistically speaking, there are less men looking for representation.

2.  Statistically, in children's lit, men win WAY more awards than women.

3.  At conferences and retreats I've been to, the ratio is roughly 25:1 female:male.

What conclusions can we draw from this?  The immediate thought that comes to mind after reading #1 and #3 is that men must not write as much children's fiction as women do, but obviously #2 invalidates that.  Men are in the game in a big, big way.

What else?  Perhaps that women are more social creatures, more likely to gather at events than to write as solitary figures.  This would surely explain #3, but not so much #1.  #1 has nothing to do with the social nature of women and still represents a great divide.

Worryingly, I've developed another theory. Women in these conferences and retreats are unbelievably supportive, in a way that I've never known women to be, especially not at Mount Holyoke, where women were cutthroat, knowing that there was a limited number of spaces for their success in the world, and cutting down your competitor meant drawing closer to your goal.

This made me think of that cutthroat instinct.  It's not there in children's writing, and while I think that's partially because there's a sense of kindred fun and imagination that isn't conducive to backstabbing in children's lit, I think it does suggest something else as well that intersected with another thought at the retreat:

I don't think women take writing seriously.

I'm not kidding, either.  A huge theme of the weekend was how ragged we get because people are always knocking writers down; "you should be watching the kids", or "that's not a real career".   We seek validation from many different sources, and when it's not offered, we're devastated.  I think that's because secretly, we don't validate ourselves.  You only need validation and permission if you don't feel those things innately within yourself.

I think men and especially male writers trust themselves.  They trust their calling, their vocation, their career.

Women don't.

It's like antiempowerment!  Women are finding their voice only to lose their power and confidence.  What the hell is that?  For a long time I've thought that women need to spend more time writing so they can trust that inner voice and learn to develop what they want into what they need. But obviously this is only half the problem, and frankly, I don't know how to validate women.  I feel pretty validated--a little stagnant at the moment, because it just takes a while to get this tough career started, but I have always felt sure and serious that I will make a career of writing.  I will make my passion my business. Period.

So what's standing in the way, ladies?  What can we do?  What do we need to give ourselves permission to chase our dreams?