The Emilia Report on Gender Equality for Authors - Lucy Coats

Equality is important. That is why I urge you to read The Emilia Report, an investigation by Danuta Kean and Isobel de Vasconcellos into the gender gap for authors, which was published yesterday. In the introduction, playwright Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, creator of the eponymous play Emilia, (which 'celebrates not only a great woman writer but every woman and marginalised community that has been given the silent treatment') says this:

The findings of the Emilia Report are important because they show why it is vital to listen to those outside a tiny group of white men. That the idea of women’s writing being unimaginative and “domestic” is a lie and that our creations have as much to say about the human condition as those of men.

I entirely agree, and I find it extraordinary that in 2019 we should still have to be having this conversation. But have it we must. Danuta Kean, who was commissioned to do this research to coincide with the opening of Lloyd Malcolm's new play about Emilia Bassana, Shakespeare's 'Dark Lady', has this to say:

It may seem that the struggles of a 17th Century woman to be taken seriously as a poet are incomparable to modern women who have benefitted from three waves of feminism, 40 years of equality legislation, universal suffrage and advances in science that have freed them from the tyranny of their bodies, but, though the landscape of their lives may be different, the structures that inhibit their path to recognition and success are not.

Kean and her co-author focused on ten writers, five male, five female, in different genres and the coverage they received in national newspapers for their work. I think women who write are mostly aware, if only in a tenuous way, of the fact that coverage of male writers is greater than that of female writers. This report breaks down the actual figures and percentages with targeted research, as well as things like personal references (women are far more likely to have their age, marital status and family referenced than men, forinstance), and it does not make for encouraging reading.


As a female children's and young adult writer with 40+ published books under my belt, I have got used to questions and comments like:

'Still writing then?
'Of course, writing is only a hobby, isn't it?'
'Writing's not really like a proper job, is it?'
'Oh, but you just write for children. don't you?'
'When are you going to write a grown-up book, then'

...and many more. I have got less tolerant of these quips now, but I used to just laugh them off, buying into the 'Imposter Syndrome' so many women suffer from, where our brains give us the fear message that, however successful we are, someone will find out that we are really frauds and don't deserve the reputation and achievements we have worked so hard for to be recognised or acknowledged. Even though what we do is an essential part of opening and informing young minds, children's writers know all about being less valued than our adult counterparts, especially where newspaper coverage is concerned. This is, in part, why this report rings so true. Adult women writers suffer many of the same problems, and Rowan Coleman aptly describes this in the report.

'For a woman, so often her writing is treated like it's a hobby, it is a nice thing to do on the side. That attitude is deeply embedded in our culture.'

That 'pram in the hallway' attitude, first promoted by by the notoriously sexist Kingsley Amis has to change. That's why I hope you will read this report, and disseminate it widely. Change has to start somewhere, and it is only by openly addressing and shining a light on inequality in publishing that we will ever begin to change it.

Read the full Emilia Report

OUT NOW: Cleo 2: Chosen and Cleo (UKYA historical fantasy about the teenage Cleopatra VII) '[a] sparkling thriller packed with historical intrigue, humour, loyalty and poison.' Amanda Craig, New Statesman

Also out:  Beasts of Olympus series "rippingly funny" Publishers Weekly US starred review

Lucy's Website - Twitter - Facebook - Instagram

Lucy is represented by Sophie Hicks at The Sophie Hicks Agency