Why Are There So Few Female Biographers?

[USS Tang]

Aside from Barbara Tuchman (Joseph Stilwell) and Mary Buck (Queen Elizabeth I), can you name any of significance?

 

[USS Tang]

I meant serious biographers, plus she was using a ghost writer.

 

[stringertom]

Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize winner, is quite accomplished as a biographer of many of the great US presidents.

 

[USS Tang]

Her Team of Rivals about Lincoln and his cabinet is excellent, but it is not a true biography because it does not focus soley on one individual like, say, David McCullough's Truman.

 

[El Diablo]

^^ I see where this thread is headed -- any female biographer you can name is not a REAL biographer. Did the OP pose the question in order to learn something or for purely pedantic reasons?

 

[stringertom]

Her Team of Rivals about Lincoln and his cabinet is excellent, but it is not a true biography because it does not focus soley on one individual like, say, David McCullough's Truman.

Her books on LBJ and FDR (the Pulitzer winner) are pure bios.

 

[ollinger]

The answer may be gender bias in what gets published. Huffington Post did an interesting review of sex bias in publishing in March of this year; you should read it. Two months ago Scientific American looked at the same question with regard to hiring and publishing in the scientific community. They too found clear indications of gender bias, with, for example, the exact same materials being far more likely to be rated highly when a male name was attached than a female name. You should read it.

 

[jswinf]

Gen. Petraeus had a female biographer, and didn't that work out well?

 

[LuckyR]

Does being a plagerizer make one not of "significance"?

 

[dParis]

The simple answer is that there aren't enough black kickers and punters in the NFL for them to write biographies for. Duh.

 

[r2473]

Gen. Petraeus had a female biographer, and didn't that work out well?

Doesn't this guy have only 1 leg and run in the olympics too?