HowlRound: In order to launch Submitting Like A Man and begin resubmitting my scripts as a dude, one of the first things I had to do was create my alternate male self, who we’ll call Max. Max isn’t the real name I’m using, but I can’t blow his cover and reveal the actual pseudonym; the only person who knows it is my partner of eight years, and that’s because he’s the one who came up with it.
7 comments:
I read the first article about this project, so I was excited to see what progress she has made so far. I definitely agree with her decision to not make a persona for Max and just make Max the same as her but with a masculine name. I do wonder if she will subconsciously end up acting slightly differently just because she knows she is being perceived as a man, and therefore will have a different set of expectations about how she thinks people will respond to her. As she says, this isn’t scientific, so it doesn’t matter too much, but it is worth considering. Also, one set of factors that she isn’t looking at is the expectations our society places on girls and boys. If we tend to raise boys to be, statistically speaking, more willing to be “aggressive” when it comes to submitting their plays or to feel more optimistic about their prospects of being published, the gender disparity could go deeper than the selection process. Though I don’t doubt the hypothesis that just changing the author’s name to a masculine one will increase the likelihood of publication, it is also possible that our society’s gender roles are penalizing girls for the characteristics that could help them in the play writing industry.
I, like Julian, read the first article about this process, and am interested to see how the things proceed. The idea of making Max a complete analog of herself is complicated, and can be potentially dangerous to the experiment if people find out the truth behind the works. They aren't very complicated dots to connect. The thought that men and women make different word choices when it comes to plays is interesting, but everyone makes different word choices when it comes to plays, as everyone has been brought up different ways and views the way people interact in different ways. The other interesting point the article makes is how the author feels as if she is doing someone else's work by submitting plays under her pseudonym. This is an interesting bit of dissonance, as she only wants credit where credit is due for her plays, but if she was to come forward and reveal the truth once her play is selected to proceed, she would have to reveal herself and potentially lose the production based on her lie. This is operating under the assumption that she will get produced, of course, but I think that the masculine edge that her new identity gives her just might be enough for that to happen.
This is a fascinating study about casually (since it’s not really scientific) seeing what happens when a female playwright submits under a pseudonym. Things like this have been happening for centuries- women submitting under male names when published so guys will be more likely (apparently) to read it. Though usually the publishers know if the person they are publishing is a male or female and sometime will suggest a pseudonym- like JK Rowlingw.
Mya is taking it a step further than normal by making a fake Twitter and fully taking on submitting as a male even if she is keeping everything the same. It’s interesting that she is already feeling the effects of writing under a different name- feeling like she was doing homework for someone else. However, her writing this article seems kind of risky even though there are countless men submitting plays every day it would be nigh impossible to track it back to her, but she gives us his demographic- 31, white, heterosexual, Jewish guy. It seems like it could go very wrong if someone finds out.
Equality in the workplace, yet again. I’m still on a high from my previous feminist rant, but I’ll try to do my best here education-wise. It’s true, as Monica says, that many famous female authors submit under pseudonyms or just ambiguous titles as to lessen the gender disparity in their field. It’s only fair. But what’s still crazy to me is that in order for the system to be “fair”, a complete sense of anonymity must be established between writer and publisher. I’m currently in a psych class and we’ve been talking about experimentation for the duration of it and how it’s nearly impossible to eliminate all bias and rig an experiment to go absolutely without a hitch, especially behavioral ones because it’s not like you can lock someone in a room their whole life. And while bias is hard to eliminate, prejudice is equally as difficult to eliminate. Imbalance of gender is engrained from prenatal development throughout people’s lives and if the whole system needs to be anonymous, make the men be anonymous as well, at least for the women’s sake.
After reading the previous article on this experiment I'm really happy to see that this author is continuing on with this project. I think that keeping "Max" as close to herself as possibly is probably the best way to keep this experiment as accurate as possible. I think that if she had deviated too much from her own personality then it would seem more like a character writing a play than an author. It will be really interesting to see how this all plays out, as there's always the possibility that no difference is shown in the publication of her plays. I think that Julian raises an interesting point in the idea the parents tend to raise boys to be more aggressive. Maybe the reason that she didn't get published before was because of this. No matter how it turns out I'm going to continue to follow this project, and I'm curious to see where it goes next.
Like the previous commentators, I too found the article, and it's content, intriguing. Gender equality in theater seems to be a reoccurring theme on this blog. It seems like only a week ago we had articles on the wage gap. It is always nice to know that these issues are visible and being talked about. In response to this article, I agree that there are far too few female playwrights. I'm certain that there is some correlation between the plays chosen to be produced, the gender of the playwright, and our society's subconscious tendency to favor men in traditionally male jobs. I do believe that it is getting better though. A few centuries ago, women were scorned for writing. Jane Austen published originally under a male name, and she was critiqued harshly when her gender was revealed. Later you see female writers become more prominent. Mary Shelley,the author of "Frankenstein", and later Emily Dickinson emerged. Just look at where we were compared to now. Obviously there is still a ways to go, but we are still inching our way towards the finish line. On a side note, I am so happy with next year's season and I cannot wait to see what happens.
I am excited to continue to follow this playwright on her exploration of gender bias in her field. Like most of the other people who commented, I agree with her choice not to create a separate personality for Max. But aside from that there was something else she mentioned that I found very interesting. She said that a male writer’s script would have different chances “…because of their [different] plots and characters and word choices.” I was thinking about how most people in our industry are fairly progressive and most would at least claim to be all for gender equality. Why then is there still this huge gap between the number of male and female writers? Perhaps it is not because of the name on the script but the ideas within it. Perhaps it is not because the readers subconsciously gravitate towards male names but because they prefer male ideas, plots, and characters. After all that is what we have been seeing on our stages for centuries.
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