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" Novelist Nicola Griffith has recently collated\u00A0data to prove something pretty infuriating: books about women don&amp;#039;t win big literary awards. Nicola analysed the last 15 years\u00A0of results from six fiction awards \u2013 the Pulitzer Prize, Man Booker Prize, National Book Award, National Book Critics&amp;#039; Circle Award, Hugo Award and Newbery Medal \u2013 to discover that books written by men and about men were more successful than those written by men or women about women. Pffff.  She said, &amp;quot;When women win literary awards for fiction, it&amp;#039;s usually for writing from a male perspective and/or about men. The more prestigious the award, the more likely the subject of the narrative will be male.&amp;quot;  Here&amp;#039;s the maths:  &amp;quot;For the Pulitzer Prize, women wrote zero out of 15 prize-winning books wholly from the point of view of a woman or girl,&amp;quot; Nicola says. &amp;quot;Zero.&amp;quot;\u00A0Eight were written by men about men or boys, and three\u00A0by women about men or\u00A0boys.\u00A0&amp;quot;For the prize that recognises, &amp;#039;the most distinguished fiction by an American author,&amp;#039; not a single book-length work from a woman&amp;#039;s perspective or about a woman was considered worthy,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;Women aren&amp;#039;t interesting, this result says. Women don&amp;#039;t count.&amp;quot; Marginally higher, for the Man Booker Prize and National Book Award, women wrote two of \u00A0the prize-winning books (about women or girls).   &amp;quot;Certainly the results argue for women&amp;#039;s perspectives being considered uninteresting or unworthy,&amp;quot; says Nicola. &amp;quot;Women seem to have literary cooties.&amp;quot;  She goes on to make a very poignant point. &amp;quot;Women&amp;#039;s voices are not being heard. Women are more than half our culture, if half the adults in our culture have no voice, half the world&amp;#039;s experience is not being attended to, learnt from, or built upon. Humanity is only half what we could be.&amp;quot;  Best-selling author Kate Mosse agrees. &amp;quot;When we did research on this in 2001, we found that books by women with a female central character were seen as &amp;#039;special interest&amp;#039;,&amp;quot; she told the Independent.\u00A0&amp;quot;While books by men with a male lead character were regarded as literature with a capital &amp;#039;L&amp;#039;. The literary establishment doesn&amp;#039;t like books about women. Women&amp;#039;s voices are not being heard.&amp;quot; Both Nicola and Kate are spot on. We&amp;#039;ve come a long way in terms of gender equality, but we still have a slog ahead of us, it seems. Here&amp;#039;s\u00A0our\u00A0favourite books by women about women:\u00A0 -\u00A0Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bront\u00EB - The Miniaturist by\u00A0Jessie Burton -\u00A0Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by\u00A0Therese Anne Fowler \u00A0-\u00A0The Girl on the Train\u00A0by Paula Hawkins - A Single Breath by\u00A0Lucy Clarke "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/reports/news/a36185/books-about-women-win-fewer-awards/>