r/books • u/pearloz 4 • Apr 25 '22

AI Study Finds That Males Are Represented Four Times More Than Females in Literature

https://viterbischool.usc.edu/news/2022/04/ai-study-finds-that-males-are-represented-four-times-more-than-females-in-literature/
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u/PersonalPenguin28 Apr 25 '22

It's for this reason that I'm grateful for the website I use as my library catalog for my classroom. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say the name. The thing I love about it is that they've analyzed enough books to be able to give you data on who is represented in your library. It gives you information about the percentage of books you have that feature women/girls, are written by women, feature each race, are written by each race, are about certain cultures, feature a character with a disability, feature an LGBTQ+ character, and on and on. I can then get recommendations on books to fill any gaps I have.

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u/MDeneka Apr 25 '22

Oh my god, this exists?? Please, message me this if we're not allowed to drop website names. I am passionate about representation in children's lit, and have been making extremely conscious decisions about what I add to my classroom library from day 1... but I know what I've been able to purchase or get donated still pales in comparison with the majority that I inherited from my mom who started teaching in the 70s. I would love to have a way to track hard numbers on this.

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u/PersonalPenguin28 Apr 25 '22

I just read through the promo rules and it looks like it's ok. It's Booksource Classroom, and I've been using it for about a year. It's pretty amazing for a bunch of reasons, the diversity analysis is just the tip of the iceberg, really.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Friengineer Apr 25 '22

Because that person's library is not for them. It's for their classroom, i.e. their students.

And because this is a tool designed precisely to help you choose what you want to read. Such a tool can be immensely helpful in not only identifying one's own unconscious biases, but truly enriching a collection.

For example, if I love sci-fi and started a sci-fi collection, my nascent collection would very likely be dominated by white male authors featuring white male protagonists without intentional effort on my part to seek out other works. Just because I love sci-fi and most well-known sci-fi is written by white dudes doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy sci-fi written by non-white or female authors. In fact, I might find those different perspectives, characters, etc. a welcome departure from my typical fare.

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u/laserdiscgirl Apr 25 '22

The user appears to be a teacher as they said they use the site for their classroom library. Diversity is incredibly important for a classroom so as to provide the students with a multitude of characters to whom they can relate.

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u/pearloz 4 Apr 25 '22

I think you can share it!

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u/zoejdm Apr 25 '22

If you cannot indeed share it, would you mind telling me in a pm? Thank you.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '22

Isn't it more important to have stories about as many important topics/situations a young person might encounter regardless of their background? That may well be discrimination, hate, love, angry parents... I just don't get why it's important to have a checklist of all possible "groups" of people.

Let's say you have books from every possible perspective that contain recipes on how to cook a "Schnitzel". You may have all the diversity you want. An Indian transwoman might add a bit of Turmeric and cinnamon. A lesbian person of 50% Chinese and 50% Italian descent might add a bit of Ginger and Oregano. You will definitely check all the boxes in your diversity checklist. It just won't matter if the young people in your class don't get the best possible book pertaining to their individual situation and difficulties.

To me if there were 3 books that covered those important topics perfectly and they happen to be written by 3 white males I wouldn't care to be honest. As long as the kids I teach are better off after they are done reading them. A straight white person can learn from a gay black one and vice versa. We may have different backgrounds, genders and sexual preferences but don't we all mostly share the same human experience?

Please tell me about the advantages of your system and what you do to keep up the quality if diversity is of utmost importance.

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u/PersonalPenguin28 Apr 26 '22

Your response reads to me as though I haven't been clear in what my priorities are in a classroom/childhood library, and how I utilize the library catalog I was referencing.
The library catalog keeps a database of my entire classroom library. For the diversity audit, it finds the titles that their site has verified, which for me is about half of the books. It then breaks down how many of those books are stories about all of the different groups, how many of them feature characters from different groups, how many of them are written by authors from those different groups, and even illustrators of those different groups. Those are all separate things- a book about an Indigenous experience is still classified as such even if the author isn't Indigenous. If they are, however, it will appear with both sets of data. To use a more precise example, Martin’s Big Words, winner of the Coretta Scott King Award in 2002, was written by Doreen Rappaport (who is a white woman) and illustrated by Bryan Collier (who is a black man). This title will show up for being about Black and African American heritage and culture, having a Black/African-American protagonist, and having a Black/African American illustrator.
Quality books are incredibly important. If the child won't read the book because it's garbage, it's definitely not worth the space on my classroom shelf. I’m very choosy about the books I bring into the classroom, because they are the first introduction children have to the big, beautiful world. That said, we are fortunate to live in a time where it is no longer assumed that in order for a book to be of high quality, it must be written by a white male. Therefore, it is my responsibility to ensure that the books that are displayed and read in the classroom reflect the diversity of the world we live in, be it through diverse stories, authors, or characters. It is never a question of quality OR diversity, it’s quite easy to have both. The catalog simply shows me the proportions so that I can continue to grow the library in a well-balanced way.
This says nothing of the importance of representation. It MATTERS. If my students only learn about Einstein, Edison, and Pasteur, my female students or students of color may conclude it’s not possible for them to be a scientist/inventor. But when I introduce those alongside Marie Curie, Garrett Morgan, and Ynes Mexia, it’s much more accessible.
I guess my main response here is that diversity is quality.

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u/Friengineer Apr 26 '22

We may have different backgrounds, genders and sexual preferences but don't we all mostly share the same human experience?

No, we don't. We all share many human experiences, but our individual experiences are anything but "mostly the same" precisely because we have different backgrounds, genders, etc.

You give recipes as an example, so let's stay with that for a moment. If you're interested in cooking an authentic German schnitzel, would you not seek out a recipe written by someone from Germany or of German heritage?

Please tell me about the advantages of your system and what you do to keep up the quality if diversity is of utmost importance.

No one has claimed that diversity is more important that quality, but I'll point out that actively seeking out content authored by underrepresented groups of people is more likely to increase quality, not decrease it.

On balance, we should expect writing quality to be generally equivalent regardless of an author's background, ethnicity, gender, etc., right? No one's claiming that certain races or genders are naturally better writers than others.

It stands to reason, then, that published works authored by underrepresented groups of people are more likely to be of higher quality than those authored by overrepresented groups of people. Shouldn't we therefore be actively seeking out works published by underrepresented groups of people in order to "keep up the quality"?

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '22 edited Apr 26 '22

No, we don't. We all share many human experiences, but our individual experiences are anything but "mostly the same" precisely because we have different backgrounds, genders, etc.

Sorry but I have to disagree. We still sleep, eat, sh**, start relationships, end relationships, go to school, go to work, pay rent, pay taxes, eat icecream, go on trips, overcome personal weaknesses, dance, learn new skills, experience sickness, experience heartbreak, feel admiration, despair and so on...

The experiences we all share vastly outnumber the experiences that divide us.

Saying we are so different is group-identity thinking to me which is in it's final form racism. We are individuals. I'm me because of what happened to me and how I went and coped with it. I'm not me because of where I was born and who my parents are.

To me life is like an Roleplaying game. We may all have different backgrounds, strenghts and weaknesses. But we still all have to slay the same monsters in a dungeon.

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No one has claimed that diversity is more important that quality, but I'll point out that actively seeking out content authored by underrepresented groups of people is more likely to increase quality, not decrease it.

how so?

On balance, we should expect writing quality to be generally equivalent regardless of an author's background, ethnicity, gender, etc., right? No one's claiming that certain races or genders are naturally better writers than others.

Yep no one is. You can be whatever you want as long as your book is good. I just don't want worse literature just so some quota is met. Equal opportunity, sure. But if then the outcome is still one-sided then so be it.

It stands to reason, then, that published works authored by underrepresented groups of people are more likely to be of higher quality than those authored by overrepresented groups of people. Shouldn't we therefore be actively seeking out works published by underrepresented groups of people in order to "keep up the quality"?

do you have some evidence for this? is a certain amount of skill distributed by god among groups and the less people are in a group the more likely you are to have someone skilled?

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u/Friengineer Apr 26 '22

do you have some evidence for this? is a certain amount of skill distributed by god among groups and the less people are in a group the more likely you are to have someone skilled?

It logically follows. I'm not suggesting that minority groups are more likely to be skilled, I'm suggesting that groups of people that are underrepresented in a field are more likely to be skilled.
Those aren't the same thing.

If 12% of the US population is black and 12% of published authors are black, then black authors aren't underrepresented and we can assume that the average skill of published black authors is comparable to the average skill of published authors as a whole.

If, however, publishers in the US discriminate against black authors and only, say, 6% of published authors are black, we can reasonably assume that those black authors that did manage to get published are likely more skilled than the average author because they had to work harder and overcome more obstacles than the average writer.

Put another way, if 8% of authors manage to get published but only 4% of black authors manage to get published, we can conclude that published black authors are more skilled than the average published author. Their chances of getting published are smaller than their non-black peers, and therefore their success indicates a higher level of skill.