this is what concerns me

This Old Gray Lady piece on bias against female playwrights presents some interesting facts — not least of which is this one that touches on a theme I’ve been batting around since high school. Namely, that girls are huge bitches to other girls.

Ms. Sands sent identical scripts to artistic directors and literary managers around the country. The only difference was that half named a man as the writer (for example, Michael Walker), while half named a woman (i.e., Mary Walker). It turned out that Mary’s scripts received significantly worse ratings in terms of quality, economic prospects and audience response than Michael’s. The biggest surprise? “These results are driven exclusively by the responses of female artistic directors and literary managers,” Ms. Sands said.

Amid the gasps from the audience, an incredulous voice called out, “Say that again?”

Ms. Sands put it another way: “Men rate men and women playwrights exactly the same.”

You know, blah blah patriarchy creates social structures in which women turn on other women, breaking apart the power of the sisterhood in order to divide and conquer blah blah. Anyway, I’d love to see the results of an economic study like this done on comics by women… I imagine they might be a bit different.