Edited by author 05-18-2004 09:25 AM
I'm a Lady Book Publisher, my press is Mama Specific Productions, http://www.MSPpress.com . I think with women the biggest issue is family and love life. Lets' face it: most women of reproductive age have or are going to have at least one kid. And most women are heterosexual or identify with the hetero lifestyle whether they actually are...that means dealing with a man in a relationship. And contrary to popular belief, most mothers are not home with their children on a full-time basis, there's paid outside work to do of some kind, even if it's just part-time.

The time, energy, and emotional investment in bearing and raising children and dealing with a man in a marriage or long-term relationship can be all-consuming. Throw having a job on top of that, and it takes a tremendous anount of will and determination to write, let alone publish your own stuff. I'm not trying to bash men at all nor am I trying to underestimate women, I just think that many men and fathers truly don't understand how unfair and unequal the distribution of house labor and child work is in their relationship. Even if they are fairly conscious and feminist-identifying like my husband.

Anyway. I think the mental effects of sexism are what hinder female writers who aren't mothers from self-publishing...I've been a mom since before I was an adult, so I don't know what it's like to have a grown-up life without children. I always assume women without children to have more time, energy, money, and emotional resources to invest in their projects than mothers but that doesn't seem to be the case. By mental effects I mean low self-esteem, fear of success; of doing something most women don't do, not having the money due to being paid less than men, etc.