Situation Report

In New York City, the center of the industry, there is only one female president of a large publishing firm. Corporate officers for the largest firms are virtually all male.

Women fare much better in such positions as publicity directors, rights and permissions executives. As a whole, New York's bigger and more prestigious publishers employ roughly one woman editor for every two men, including editors of juvenile-book programs, who are usually women. A considerable number of the top trade-book editors are women, and their salaries appear to be more or less equal to their male competitors'.

Sexist attitudes toward women are more evident at the lower levels, among assistant editors and "gals Friday." Bright, well-educated young women may have an easier time than young men breaking into publishing, but they are often exploited for secretarial chores in ways that rarely apply to male beginners.

Sex discrimination toward women writers is almost nonexistent. Still, women produce a large share of U.S. fiction, biography and autobiography, but considerably less of economics, politics and foreign affairs. Notably, one of the past decade's most important books of social criticism was written by a woman: Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

Some 60% of all literary agents listed in the trade journal Literary Market Place are women. One possible reason might rankle feminists: many writers may feel a trifle better entrusting a newborn manuscript to the care of a woman.

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