The Female Touch

I just looked over the story recommendations I've made for the first couple months of this new feature, and I discovered that of the eight different authors I've picked so far, seven have been women. This was not at all deliberate. I have just been tossing out stories I liked as I came across them, and the authors' gender never crossed my mind.

I believe this is just a statistical oddity, not a reflection of any unconscious bias I have in favor of women authors. Certainly if I were to put together a list of my all-time favorite writers it would be a male-dominated lineup, although Ursula LeGuin and Connie Willis and Octavia Butler would feature prominently.

Still, it demonstrates how many outstanding female authors there are in the field today. As more of these women work their way up the ranks, I suspect the recent underrepresentation of women in major award nominations will become a thing of the past.