Do male writers have an advantage over female writers? In Ian McEwan’s last book, Lessons (Anagram), the narrator asserts that the protagonist in the eighties “earned almost as much as she – his wife, who later leaves him and becomes a great writer – had burdened with half of Lawrence’s responsibility, including the nights, he was faithful and affectionate, he had never been a genius poet with privileges”, and still a few pages later he asserts that “he was a little proud of himself, of the laundry that was still spinning in the washing machine, of the clean hall floor, of the satisfied and well-fed child”. The cares of the house and the scoundrel and their weight in the world of writers have been the subject of recent controversy in the networks after an interview with Sílvia Soler in El Nacional in which the writer said that “when a man is a writer, he shuts up in his office at home, the whole world stops and he writes. And women, when we write, we put on a washing machine, we knock on the child’s door, we go shopping…, and I think this is still the case”.
Is that so, really? Because the web was instantly filled with writers who assured that they install washing machines – or that they make them, in the typical philological drift -, and writers who denounced not all men (not all men…) . Soler has preferred not to get into more controversy, like other writers consulted by this newspaper who have preferred not to talk about it.
And no matter how much male writers publicly say that they install washing machines – by reduction to anecdote -, the data indicate the opposite: women devote 78% to household chores and men 32% (according to ‘EU Gender Equality Index). In general, the writers agree that they take care of the daily tasks and are involved in the care of the children, but they recognize, as explained by Miquel Adam (author of L’amo a L’Altra and editor of La Segona Perifèria) , that “the mental load is very different and they still take it on, even if it weighs on us”. Tuli Márquez (Les voltes del món, in AlRevés) assures: “Although I have raised a daughter by writing and I wrote the last novel while changing my mother’s diapers, I know that there is still a lot of work to be done” .
Bel Olid (his last book is Kora, at the end of the break, in Fanbooks) points out that, precisely, “the data says that the fact that the man is at home, working there or because he does not have a job, does not significantly increases the hours you spend doing housework. And even if all Catalan male writers did all the hours of homework at home, what bothers them about their insistence is that they ridicule statements that are true, that are supported by all the studies that have been done, and putting them as an example instead of recognizing that maybe they are an exception”.
“The inequalities – continues Olid – are structural, they are proven and what we have to do is recognize them and see how we solve them and make a fairer society. Do you want a gummy? I haven’t seen women writers say they wear washing machines, because it’s not a medal they can wear”, says Olid, who points to the issue of privilege: “If I say that someone who is rich has a better chance of publishing a book and going out – mind you, this does not call into question the value of the other books”, and “we must stop treating the facts as if they were opinions, because personal experience is irrelevant, what is needed is to look at what is the system that is suffocating us “.
The book sector also has its sights set on women, who read much more (65.1%, compared to 58.1% of male readers), but on the other hand, they continue to have more difficulties in publishing: a In Spain, 62% of books are written by men, 37.8% by women, and 0.2%, according to the ISBN database, “unclassified”. Figures that contrast, on the other hand, with children’s and youth literature: 56% are written by women, and only 43.8% by men. It is not a minor literature, clearly, but it is related to the apriorism of the woman with the scoundrel “and it also has less prestige”, concludes Olid, who is not sending a report on gender in literary awards: according to a study by M. Àngels Cabré and Helena Alvarado, between the years 2000 and 2014, only 17.8% of the prizes had been won by a woman, a percentage that rises to 36.4% if it is children’s and youthful
Leticia Asenjo (Divorce and Adventure, The Second Periphery) explains that if she has been able to write, it has been, in part, because of “shared custody, the great invention of feminism”. “I have no complaints about my ex, with whom we really already shared everything when we were together, but I still manage the mental agenda, and in some things I admit that I have stopped fighting”, he says, and confesses that “before I couldn’t have written divorce”.
Francesc Parcerisas (La tardor em sobta, Quaderns Crema) is a little irritated that the writers are accused of generalizing and defends that “it depends on the circumstances of each one, I separated and had to do all the roles of the auca , but I agree that there is still a way to go in childcare”.
The couple of writers formed by Carlota Gurt (Biografia del foc, Proa) and Melcior Comes (El dia de la balena, Univers), with children from previous couples, live together and share the housework, have allowed themselves to be photographed at home, him sweeping and her writing, a montage as plausible as if it were the other way around. Gurt explains that in her life “there has been everything”, but she has had the mental burden. “Men culturally tend to regret it, it’s a fact that we have to fight against”, defends Comes.
For the writer Adrià Pujol, the fact goes beyond dividing the work at home, and recognizes that even at home the couple takes on more mental burden, and “that it is not a question of saying that things are done, but of make them”. “It’s a debate between people from the paradigmatic first world, and I don’t know if it’s representative, because there are writers who try to be a new model, like my character Jonàs – from The places where Jonàs slept, Empúries – but in the end everything turns out the other way around”. “Above all, however, within each couple there must be a pact, and it must be signed every day”, he adds.
For Ricard Ruiz Garzón (Mångata, Edebé) it is a question of gender, but that goes beyond that. On the one hand, he has the perception that “young people have changed a lot and girls have it easier now, but, in the end, the important thing to write about is above all the economic factor and social inequality. If you can pay someone to free you from certain jobs, it is done, and then gender inequality may be corrected, but in our world social inequality is on the rise.” Inés Macpherson (Els fils del mar, Spécula) thinks the same: “There are men and women who don’t need to do anything other than write, so if you have your life sorted out you can write, if not, don’t”.
Màrius Serra (La dona mes pintada, Proa) is cautious, because he fears that “we have entered a topic that is a big cliché and there is a permanent suspicion of not all men, but the literary world is not the same as, for example, that of football, and political correctness ends up being a slab to be able to speak naturally. In addition, if we enter into intimacy there are many factors”, and he points out that in addition to writing you often have to make presentations or go to events, “and time and availability are important”, while in his case he remembers that his is “a complex experience”, due to the needs that his son Lluís had – as he already showed Quiet -. The writer and enigmer also acknowledges that “writing comes from crises and wounds, and there are times when this is difficult to reconcile with family life”.
Cristina Garcia Molina (Els irredempts, LaBreu) sees good will, but it does not seem easy to her: “We have made progress in the intention of reaching consensus, but I don’t know if we will get there”, she concludes.
