The gender of nonfiction

Last fall, Ira Glass, host of NPR’s “This American Life,” released a book canonizing the great nonfiction writers of our age. Its title? The Kings of Nonfiction. Really – and as Anne Trubek notes in her Chronicle article, only two of the 14 authors Glass includes are women. What’s even worse is that, according to Trubek, not one critic has taken him to task for this blatantly sexist title and/or bias.

This type of thing is certainly nothing new – the entire field of Western literature has been heavily weighted in favor of men for centuries. What got me thinking about this genre in particular is that it’s happened before.

Glass writes that he believes we live in a “golden age” of nonfiction writing. He chose the pieces he did based on some fairly vague criteria, one of which was that each piece had to include some actual reporting, as opposed to just essays. He wanted them to be entertaining, and includes writers who jumped into the story, AP style be damned. Trubek points out the direct lineage between Glass’ subjects and the New Journalism that emerged in the 1960s, and then the New New Journalism of Robert S. Boynton. I contend that the genre, and the sexist bias within it, go back much further.

In college, I wrote a paper about the “stunt-girl reporters” of the turn of the last century, of which Nellie Bly, Djuna Barnes and Ida B. Wells were the most famous: Bly had herself committed to a madhouse for 10 days and Barnes submitted to force-feeding, among other risky, high-profile assignments. The gender bias was completely ingrained then; when a male reporter, like Jacob Riis, did such a thing, it was called participatory journalism. When a female reporter did it, it was called a stunt.

While there is a great and proud tradition of reporters-turned-authors, it has always been an old-boy’s club. No matter how dangerous her assignments, how long and hard she has to work on a story, or how great her literary skill, the supposed benefits of a journalistic background are just never accorded to women authors the way they are to men.

So who are the new queens of nonfiction? For one, I nominate Mary Roach. Not only is her subject matter fascinating, she goes to some pretty great lengths to get to the bottom of it, and she’s hilarious to boot. The fact that she wasn’t included in Glass’ book just proves that he really needs to broaden his literary horizons.