From the Women's Review November 2004 Letters column:

Dear Women's Review,

Like the rest of your readers, I mourn the suspension of the WROB and I want to take the opportunity here, in this last issue, to acknowledge the enormous service you, the editors, have performed these last 20 years. It is a sad day indeed.

I also want to express my sadness at the persistence of a discouragingly simplistic misreading of my work in the last, the penultimate issue, of WROB. In her review of Michele Le Doeuff's The Sex of Knowing, Meryl Altman does both of us a disservice in attributing to Le Doueff the claim that I "slip from describing a sexist view that 'science is male' to apparently agreeing with that view, thus repeating the exclusion of women from science…" Le Doeuff does indeed disagree with aspects of my argument, and particularly takes issue with my reading of Bacon, but she at least does me the courtesy of recognizing the important distinction between the argument I made for a historical conjunction between masculinist and scientific ideologies and the crude and manifestly dubious claim that 'science is male.' Le Doeuff quotes me as follows: "[Keller] affirms: "This conjunction between the scientific and masculine norms has been historically functional in guaranteeing a sexual division of emotional labor that effectively excludes most women from scientific professions and simultaneously excludes all those values that have been traditionally regarded as 'feminine' from the practice of science.'" (Le Doeuff: 146). That sentence seems pretty unambiguous to me, and it is difficult to see how Altman could have read it as "repeating the exclusion of women from science." Furthermore, I would have hoped that, by now, I had established my commitments both to science and to women in science - indeed, rather than agreeing with claims that 'science is male', I have always presupposed my own successes as a scientist as something of an existence proof.

Evelyn Fox Keller
Cambridge, MA

Meryl Altman responds: It's tricky to summarize complex scholarly arguments briefly for a general audience. The "sexist view that 'science is male'" describes a view held by Bacon, according to Fox-Keller's account of Bacon as outlined by LeDoeuff; LeDoeuff doesn't attribute a simple view that science is (always and only) male to Fox-Keller herself, and I didn't mean to do that, either. I could undoubtedly have explained this better, though maybe not in one sentence, and I am sorry to have saddened someone from whose work I have learned a great deal.

Still, LeDoeuff's critique of Fox-Keller's work, and of "feminist epistemology" generally, is substantive and well-evidenced, and deserves to be read, not least because it vigorously challenges some US feminist orthodoxies. LeDoeuff does indeed quote Fox-Keller on page 146, but she quotes the statement in order to put it in question; the sentence that follows begins "However," and later in the paragraph we find "But this argument does not really work." I don't think I've overstated the extent of the very real disagreement between them, though it's impossible to reproduce all its nuances here; people will have to work through LeDoeuff's argument point by point to decide which is right.

Dear Editor,

I am writing in response to the very interesting article by Paula Caplan and Mary Ann Palko about the lack of women reviewers in the NY Times Book Review. I had been noticing that often the cover page of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, where the major articles were listed with their authors, often included only one women, and always fewer women than men. I started saving the covers, and in February 2004 I sent an email with my own count of the numbers of male and female reviewers -- which appears to be even worse than the NYTBR. I never received any response. Although not quite the same study as Paula's and Mary Ann's since I did not count the numbers of women's books under review, nor do a complete count of all reviews, I believe my less rigorous study more than corroborates their findings.

This is of course additionally distressing due to the planned suspension of The Women's Review of Books. Where will women go who want to have their books reviewed, or who want to write reviews for a popular audience, or who simply want to read intelligent reviews about interesting and important books by and about women??

Kathleen Sheldon
Santa Monica, CA

Letters of support and farewell :

I admit it: I took The Women's Review of Books for granted. As a reader, I knew I could always turn to the WROB if I wanted a feminist take on a much-hyped (or underreported) novel, political screed, or academic analysis. When a new issue arrived I'd cattycorner pages in my mental filing system, always intending to go back to those pieces exploring women's unique experiences of war and corporate globalization, deciphering gendered nuances in science fiction, or advancing new arguments on the evergreen topics of race, class, and gender.

Now that I hear the Review is closing up shop, I find myself reacting as I would in a breakup: I regret all the pieces I never got around to reading. As a writer, I'm kicking myself over the profiles, reviews, and analyses I intended to pitch but put off until a later date. This newspaper always allowed me the space to offer a progressive feminist analysis sorely missing from most corporate news outlets. Sadly, the alternatives don't do much to advance women's underheard voices on progressive issues: the contributors' pages for lefty pubs like The Nation and Extra! show the same continued underrepresentation of female writers as the corporate press they criticize.

As a feminist media critic and freelance journalist, I am losing one of the only outlets that always welcomed my voice. And as readers, we will find that the cultural landscape will be less rich and nuanced without The Women's Review of Books. That said, everyone who misses the Review should make a personal commitment to support independent media outlets and feminist media projects, from the magazine Bitch: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, to the Center for New Words (formerly New Words Bookstore), to Women In Media & News (WIMN), the grassroots media analysis, training, and advocacy group I direct. If we value women's participation in the public debate, we must do our best to defend it.

Jennifer L. Pozner
Brooklyn, NY

Yours is a wonderful publication that has been a teacher, an activist, an information portal, and a companion to me for many years. As a lesbian and a feminist all my adult life here in the Midwest (I'm 54), the Women's Review has literally helped me know I am not alone in the world, not in my values and concerns, not in my interests, not in my "lifestyle," not in my politics. How great a loss it would be to me to have the Women's Review cease to exist.

Paula Meredith
Royal Oak, MI

On behalf of the University of Georgia Press I want to tell you how sad we are that the WROB will be suspended after the December issue. Please know that we will miss you very much, and look forward to the day you start your presses again. The Women's Review is such a resource for readers, myself in particular, and the loss is truly great. Know that we will be at your side when the Women's Review returns (and it will!) as faithful advertisers and devoted readers.

Clara Platter
Athens, GA

I worked on a feminist novel for 20 years. I finished it this week. What do you mean you won't be there to review it once it's published?! I'm so distraught.

On the other hand, I'm sure I would not have been able to complete this novel without The Women's Review of Books. I read every issue I received--sometimes every word of every issue! It inspired me to go forward and continually challenged me to think in new directions, as well as giving me a sense that what I was doing was part of something bigger.

I am going to go into mourning over the demise of The Women's Review of Books.

With love and thanks to all your writers and reviewers, who have made such a difference in my life,

Alexis Krasilovsky
Los Angeles, CA

It was a great disappointment to learn that your wonderful publication is soon to cease. Since taking over as documentalist at the Simone de Beauvoir Institute's Reading Room in 1993, I have come to look forward to your publication each month and have found it so useful when trying to decide what to order for our small library on our small budget. It was also one of the most reasonably priced publications. The quality of writing has been superb and I have learnt much from your reviewers over the years. Thank you for enhancing my work.

Carol R. Mitchell
Montreal, PQ

Just got the latest copy of WROB and read your editorial letter. That is a damn shame, to put it as mildly as I can. Especially since I then looked at this week's New York Times Book Review and saw that they seem to have responded to [your November article on the underrepresentation of women writers there] by going practically as far in the other direction as possible. Which leads me to think that there's a strong chance that the WROB will resurrect itself in one form or another in the near future. I certainly hope so.

In commiseration--and disappointment, and anger--

Lesley Hazleton
Seattle, WA

I am so sorry that The Women's Review of Books is winding up its distinguished adventure in publishing. I have been a subscriber since the beginning, as well as a writer and a reviewee. I read the latest issue with admiration for the writing and the book selections. I hope the review will somehow be restarted. It is still an absolutely necessary publication, and surely someone with deep pockets will recognize that.

Margaret Morganroth Gullette
Waltham, MA

I did want to write and thank you for all that WROB has given me over the years. I am grieving for its closing. But I understand. Here in Bloomington we came to the same place with our feminist bookstore. When it closed I felt as if a friend had died. Now with the passing of the WROB I feel as if a teacher is leaving. How much I learned! How many new authors I met! What doors opened in my mind! I am not an academic, or even a teacher of English, just an ordinary lover of books and women's writing.

I wish you and all the staff well and hope that a new possibility will emerge.

Antonia Matthew
Bloomington, IN

I'm quite devastated to hear about the suspension of publication. Of course I'm encouraged that a reorganization may be possible. Still, I've been thinking so much about the assaults on what "we" have worked for, collectively and individually, over the years...especially the literary fate of so many feminists in our cohort. The "silencing," the structural exclusions. The increasing difficulty of publication. This is one more piece.

Jan Clausen
Brooklyn, NY

Sorry to hear about the Review folding. With all the crap being published everywhere you'd think there'd be room for a little substance.

Jennifer Camper
Brooklyn, NY

The Women's Review of Books has been a steady stream of thoughtful information about important and underrecognized books in my life since I was a little girl (my mom has always subscribed).

Courtney Martin
Brooklyn, NY

I am so sorry that the Women's Review has experienced so many financial problems. I haven't any ideas, for I like so many others, simply exulted in the existence of the WROB as it kept us from major bouts of depression, given the political situation.

Alden Waitt
Meigs County, OH

I can't tell you how sad and angry I am that The Women's Review of Books will quit publishing at the end of the year. I have been a reader for at least ten years and an occasional reviewer when Linda Gardiner was editor. But it is mainly as a woman, as a feminist, as a scholar, as a human being that I profited from the range of knowledge I obtained just reading the reviews. And yes, from the books that I bought or borrowed to continue discussions begun with reviews. There is no women's journal that is so global in the fields of women's interest than the Review. Yes, I read first as a professor of American literature, for the fiction reviews--but then there were the histories, the testimonies, the ethnographies, the political and social and psychological studies I would never be aware of. All totally read by the next issue.

Annette Zilversmit
Brooklyn, NY

Unbearable! The sad news from the editor's desk arrived, of course, on the first mo(u)rning after the election. And the reasons you list for the "demise" of the publication are a litany of all our losses.

Let me join the many who will be thanking you for being there. Each issue was like a visit from old (and new) friends. And you have meant even more than that to so many. When I was asked review a woman's memoir of the civil rights movement, and then another and another, the tasks took my scholarship and teaching in whole new directions. My students and I thank you for the foundation of what became my courses in Writing the Civil Rights Movement. And thus my career came full circle to where I had started as an activist 40 years ago.

May we all bring the courage, determination, fellowship, and outrage of those earlier struggles to bear upon this ever-more- perilous world. Thank you for being there.

Margo Culley
Amherst, MA

The Women's Review of Books welcomes letters to the editor. Mail your letters to Amy Hoffman, Editor in Chief, Women's Review of Books, Center for Research on Women, Wellesley College, 106 Central Street, Wellesley, MA 02481; fax them to the attention of Amy Hoffman at (781) 283-3645; e-mail them to ahoffman@wellesley.edu; or use our Letters to the Editor form on this website. Please make sure to include your mailing address and phone number in your letter. We especially appreciate letters of 300 words or less.