Let’s make something very clear: no one wants to have these conversations. Particularly women. Or particularly whoever is outside of these gates. They are a bother. They detract from one’s work. One’s important work, I might add. They make the person doing the banging on the door seem shrill, annoying, pathetic. They remind the person doing the pointing that they are outside. They affirm to those being barked at that they are inside. They allow the object of the complaint to indulge in that slightly hurt, eye brow raising gesture that is reflected in the eyes of their loyal affirmers. I can see the editors of the LRB and NYRB etc., swiping the nattering voices away with a rolled up copy of their weighty and important rags… Don’t bother us with your petulance. We have important reviews of important books to attend to. We are keeping culture alive single-handedly…

…I would rather be doing my work. I would rather be writing essays. I would rather be developing my prose style. I would rather be reading intelligent, lengthy essays by women who have been commissioned or are being acknowledged in some way for their thinking. And their writing.