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the higher the bar the lower the social mobility in this chart |
...
But back to the original question. If the talent is equal, who is more likely to be published and reviewed - a working class male writer or an upper middle class female writer? It's the latter. Power always diffuses to power. In the literary world and in the media world being of the wrong class is much more of a handicap than being of the wrong gender. There are a lot of prizes for women's writing and organisations for female writers. As far as I know there isn't a single prize anywhere for working class writing. I'm not qualified to discuss race, but I can imagine that, say, a poor black woman has the hardest obstacles of all to overcome. Wrong class, wrong gender, wrong race for the literary agents and the publishers. Get ready for disappointment. As the great Zora Neale Hurston once more poetically put it: "I've been in sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots."