Stand Marina Hyde of the Guardian, Mary Dejevsky of the Indy (and others), Janice Turner of the Times and Rosamund Urwin of the Evening Standard in a line, and you’ve talent to spare. Four excellent journalists, all shortlisted for a prize called “A Woman’s Voice” at last week’s Editorial Intelligence comment awards.
Sorry! What is a woman’s voice in this context? Does that mean only male columnists can speak to the nation directly because they’re, er, men?
Which is precisely what troubled Turner, the winner (and my daughter-in-law). “Marina, Rosamund, Mary and I have written about elections, war, Brexit, celebrity, poverty, refugees, sport … But whatever women columnists write and however well we write it, our words are heard only in a minor key,” she wrote. “I thank Editorial Intelligence, but I did not enter this category. And I would be letting down the many talented females on British newspapers if I accepted it.”
At which point a formidable array of other columnists weighed in. Eva Wiseman, Sarah Churchwell, Philip Collins, Gaby Hinsliff, Hugo Rifkind and more. You might say the nation had spoken. Maybe, in the familiar terms of the columnar trade, men mostly stand pat at the front of the platform. Maybe it’s difficult for awards juries, however zealously balanced, to get out of that bind. But “A Woman’s Voice” doesn’t quite do the positive discrimination job, alas. It’s more positive desperation.
