Wait, women can write?

Famous nonfiction writer, Gay Talese, at the Boston Universtiy's "Power of Narrative" writing conference was asked which female writers inspired him, he responded "I’d say Mary McCarthy was one. Of my generation … None. I’ll tell you why. I think women, educated women, writerly women don’t want to—or do not feel comfortable dealing with strangers, or people that I’m attracted to, sort of offbeat characters. I didn’t know any women journalists that I loved." 

Now, there are many problems with this response, one of which is that it is clear that he must not read much as a writer because there are plenty of excellent women journalists that are fabulous writers in the circuit right now, including Times Magazine writer Nikole Hannah-Jones (pictured above) who has been writing primarily on racial segregation. When asked about her, Talese responded that he felt she spent too much time on her appearance, and not enough time on actually writing anything. Talese assumes that women can't be good writers because he associates them with stereotypical attributes, like being shy, introverted, vain, and stupid. To say that we live in a society that has moved on from sexism has missed the point. Sexism has the ability to blind, all so that people can feel comfortable in their privileged positions, and never asked to actually appreciate people that they had been told they were better than their whole life. Talese is no different. But he is very very wrong.