An Insider View on Gender and Academic Publishing

Over at Pilgrim in Narnia, Brenton Dickieson both opines and protests the lack of women in Zondervan Academic’s latest catalogue. Dickieson notes the absence of women from authored books, as contributors to books, and even as endorsers of books. In some categories, only 5% of authors are women. But then Dickieson goes on to theorize that something sinister is at work at Zondervan. He surmizes:

There are other responses we could give. Many of Zondervan’s readers and contributors don’t think that women should be teaching men in the church. Complementarian Wayne Grudem, for example, has multiple books with Zondervan. Perhaps the lack of women is a concession to a particular customer group.

But then he goes a bit too far when he states:

I do wonder, though, if the publishers in the Zondervan corner offices are so invested in the Grand Rapids Reform-evangelical culture that they don’t know that their bookshelf is so masculine. I presume that Zondervan and the other evangelical publishing firms are peopled by authentic Christians seeking to do their best for God and our theological neighbourhood. If this severe gender disparity is a matter of sheer ignorance, I hope they will consider addressing it in the future.

There facts and figures that Dickieson cites are undeniable, however, his diagnosis of the problem is inaccurate, and his imputation of motives is irresponsible.

I’m pretty tight with the Zondervan crew, and Katya Covrett, my fav editor and good friend, who is a senior editor at Zondervan, has made a response to Dickieson which Dickieson graciously agreed to post on his site. It is called What I learned About Gender (and Diversity) from Christian Academic Publishing.

If you are interested in gender and evangelical academia, then, read a female editor’s view! Katya provides not just a female point of view, but an insider’s view of gender disparity and academic publishing. It is a must read post!

Katya writes:

Try as we might, the “lack of balance” in the academy continues to constrain us. Everything I’ve said here about women can also be said about ethnic minorities and global voices, which have been other significant areas of publishing for Zondervan Academic. Whether we like it or not, the White Male Club that is the Christian academia—no offense, guys—is the context in which we acquire and publish. The uphill battle continues.And so we continue to seek balance and diversity—not out of a sense of political correctness, but because as members of the body of Christ we all complement one another. When we do not have the voices and perspectives of women, ethnic minorities, and scholars from the Majority World, we all suffer—men, women, biblical scholars and theologians, students, and the church as a whole.

A few things we should take away:

1. Don’t mess with the Russian lady. I mean, seriously, you don’t barge into the office of lady who looks like a James Bond Super-villain and call her a misogynist to her face. I mean, dude, she’s Russian, she likes cats, and has an icey  blue steel stare where she says things like, “Zo, meestor bord, I hearz dat yoo oh mee a manuscreept, ha, yoo fool, I haz alreadies hakked yoor computor and ztolen it.” This ends with you sitting in a cage being lowered into a pool filled with sharks with laser beam, while hoping your CIA buddy Felix arrives in time to save you.

2. Yes, we know the absence of women from scholarship is a problem, but fixing it is not that easy. Finding women scholars, good women scholars, good women scholars who can write well and submit in a timely fashion, and who are not already booked up with writing projects for the next ten years, is hard to find. As someone who has done a lot of editing for commentaries and conference proceedings, it is not like going out to your yard and picking one off the tree. Some of us, like the Story of God Bible Commentary editors with Zondervan, are making good head way in gender balance and ethnic diversity, but it is a hard slog. Yes, there’s a long way to go, but cut the Zondervan publishers and editors some slack, they are really trying and swimming against a strong current.

3. For a longtime, I’ve been petitioning Stan Gundry to tell Rupert Murdoch to give me my own publishing line at Zondervan, called “Zonderbird.” Let me say, if I ever did get my way, and was granted my own publishing line, I would seriously try make a concerted effort at bringing more women into evangelical academic publishing. I reckon I could attract female authors, not just because I’m a cross between Conan O’Brien (wit and red hair) and Hugh Jackman (Aussie accent and sculpted body), but through the same way that I convinced my wife to marry me: through lots and lots of begging (esp. in restaurants, accompanied with very loud crying, even grovelling).