Episode 13: The Caldecott

Samu

@jake-parker
I think the two points made are equally right. "Do what you love and let the world catch up" of course. And that you can go after the prize like an athlete can go after a gold medal, I mean training hard for it, focusing on it, studying your competitors, the tendencies like "now they value a lot that you put an integrational message on your book", etc.

In one hand the prestige of the prize and the income that comes with it attracts certain people and is normal that a certain environment is created and these persons eventually know each other and then you have politics, private interest, etc It happens in every competitive world.

But on the other hand is art, and if someone comes with something new and revolutionary, and eventually someone always come, they can not look away.

So you have this string of like "orthodox predictable" winners and then from time to time you have a new fresh one who changes the game really, or at least evolved the game bringing something new to the table.

The best example is the impressionist. The story about impressionist when they were banned from the "Salon de Paris" ruled by the Académie des Beaux-Arts, (copy and paste from Wikipedia)"The Académie had an annual, juried art show, the Salon de Paris, and artists whose work was displayed in the show won prizes, garnered commissions, and enhanced their prestige. The standards of the juries represented the values of the Académie"
...and they created his own show and changed everything..., until the next change.

So there are politics and there is art too, with all the things that art comes with, search, discovery, evolution etc. Everyone has to choose what is his way, or most regularly, what percent. like 80% art and 20%commercial or vice-versa etc.

Great post. You guys are in the trade for some time now so, every subject you touch, more or less important or relevant, sure you three have something interesting to say about it

lmrush

Awesome podcast, especially love the spot illustration

SarahLuAnn

I wasn't gonna go here but then I thought--what the heck? This is a place for discussion, and they kinda started it in the podcast.

I know their "Things to do/be to win the Caldecott" list was made in jest (particularly the "be Jon Klassen" joke ) but one thing didn't make their list that bears pointing out.

One thing that could legitimately have made the list would be, "Be male".

The numbers don’t lie: Since inception, the committee has bestowed 81 medals and 261 honor books. Based on the results, the odds seem ever in a man’s favor:

THE WINNERS by percentage.

54 Medals for men (67%)
21 medals for women (26%)
6 medals for illustrator pairs (often husband and wife) (7%)

source: https://christinetaylorbutler.wordpress.com/2018/03/01/gender-inequity-caldecott-by-the-numbers/

Ouch. And if anyone has been to a SCBWI conference or looked at a list of editors or agents or librarians recently, it was probably quite obvious to you that this is an industry dominated by WOMEN. Which means that this is NOT a case of men choosing to give awards to each other and ignoring women. Women are a huge part of this.

Anyway, I don't want to start a huge argument or anything, but it felt relevant to the topic and I didn't want this angle to be ignored.

davidhohn

@sarahluann This is a super valid point and one that should be discussed either on the podcast or as you have done in the forum follow up.

But the question remains -- why?

As you point out the children's lit field is dominated by women. I've seen the article you linked many times in various kid lit forums over the last (I want to say) year or so. Many have lamented the information it contained but I haven't really seen any discussion about the why or what to do about it.

Perhaps the article has already done it's job and by simply pointing out an unconscious bias the ALA and Caldecott committees will be more conscious about both gender and ethnic diversity in the future?

smceccarelli

@davidhohn @SarahLuAnn
What do we make of 48 women Nobel Prize winners compared to ca 950 men? We´re talking about the greatest achiements, on a global scale, in all fields deemed of notice (science, literature, medicine, etc...).

There are way more factors at play than tight networks or blunt discrimination in these numbers - that oversimplifies the history of human society, the legacy of a still very recent past in terms of gender roles and social structures and aspects of gender psychology.
I’d say, let´s just win that Caldecott (for those talented female illustrators that live in the USA) and make the numbers read better in 50 years from now :-))

Jason Bowen

This post is deleted!

davidhohn

I've seen it mentioned on these boards before that there is a focus here on the Caldecott -- but the SVS membership is more than just citizens of the United States, and more than just picture book illustrators. So with that in mind I'd like to create a list of all the other major illustration awards (the life changers as @Will-Terry described them)

As I am another US citizen this is a bit of a blind spot for me so I hope you all will assist me in filling this out:

Biennial of Illustration Bratislava (Europe)
An award for picture book illustration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biennial_of_Illustration_Bratislava

Hans Christian Anderson Award (International)
An award for picture book illustration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Christian_Andersen_Award

Society of Illustrators Gold Medal (International)
Various awards given in different illustration niches
https://www.societyillustrators.org/programs/annual-exhibition

Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award (Canada)
Winner receives $20,000
http://bookcentre.ca/programs/awards/marilyn-baillie-picture-book-award

Kate Greenaway Medal (Great Britain)
British literary award for "distinguished illustration in a book for children"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Greenaway_Medal

davidhohn

@smceccarelli I am genuinely curious, and as a college instructor of picture book illustrators (who are overwhelmingly women) I'd like to be able to better explain what is happening. So if you can further explain or point me in direction of appropriate research into what kind of factors are at play I'd appreciate it.

NessIllustration

There's a lot of research an studies that have been done that have found a bias in how people review men and women's work. Even if it's supposed to be objective, when the gender of the person is known it is found that both men and women will judge women more severely than men. When the gender is unknown, they will sing the praise of women's work... More troubling still, when judges are aware of this bias they tend to judge women even more harshly, perhaps out of fear of favoring women (which is to me the most astonishing thing about this, considering no one's ever been fearful of favoring men, ever!). This whole thing is subconscious and affects both men and women, so I feel like it's showing the effects of small casual sexism in our society that doesn't seem like a big deal but gets added up and gets internalized in all of us. It's a tricky and insidious thing to fight. As @smceccarelli has said, I don't feel like changing society is my fight - I just have to work harder and make better art, so one day no one can deny its value!

Eli

@nessillustration Ugh. So disheartening!

NessIllustration

@eli It is a little bit, especially when considering that children illustration is already such a difficult field, there's already a million things we have to think about and develop (skill, style, network, marketing, portfolio, social media, etc etc) and to think that to top it all off, there's this bias against us. It can be disheartening to think about, but we can choose to think of it as "Well there's nothing much we can do about that, so let's just forget about that and focus on what we CAN work on"

Eli

@nessillustration Yes, absolutely! It is really troubling to learn the extent that women judge other women harshly, subconscious or not. At least being armed with that knowledge, maybe we can examine our reactions for this bias. Also, support the endeavors of other women, in the arts and elsewhere.

Samu

@nessillustration Time ago in auditions for orchestras, women were rejected systematically because the judges believed that women didn't have the sensibility to play an instrument at is best. They have to start making blind auditions were the solicitant was playing behind a curtain and everything changed.

NessIllustration

@zombie-rhythm I didn't know about that! I'm not surprised, though. It was like this in every industry! In animation, women did the inking and painting the cells, but they were considered not creative enough for the design or animation work. It's a massive step forward that now we're not rejected on sight, but the subtle bias now that women are judged more strictly than men is still a thing and it's even harder to fight in a way because it's insidious, internalized. These judges aren't bad people and they don't go in thinking "I'll ruin the chances of any woman that applies to this contest." It's subconscious. How do you change that?

davidhohn

@rcartwright Are you aware of the Marilyn Baillie Picture Book Award? Winner receives $20,000.

http://bookcentre.ca/programs/awards/marilyn-baillie-picture-book-award

And given the discussion of gender bias elsewhere in this thread, as I look further into that award, from 2006 - 2017 it has been awarded to women illustrators 8 out of the 11 years.
(Oh Canada, how is it are you so much better than the rest of the world?)

davidhohn

This discussion has made me curious about gender bias in children's literature. I've spent a bit more time investigating other awards and not simply focusing on the Caldecott.

If you look at the Newberry award winners from 2001 - 2015 it was awarded to women writers 10 times, and male writers 5 times.

https://nicolagriffith.com/2015/05/26/books-about-women-tend-not-to-win-awards/

If you look at the SCBWI Golden Kite award for picture book illustration 1996 - 2016 it was awarded to male illustrators 10 times and female illustrators 12 times (math doesn't quite add up because I recorded one year when husband and wife Dennis Nolan and Lauren Mills won for co-illustrating)

https://www.scbwi.org/awards/golden-kite-award/125854-2/

I write this mostly to add additional data points to the discussion about gender bias. I'd be interested to hear what others think of this data.

NessIllustration

@davidhohn Interesting... It suggests the Caldecott specifically shows this bias, whereas other awards don't! I wonder why that is!

smceccarelli

@davidhohn I cannot say I have thoroughly investigated the matter but it is certainly a topic I've been involved with extensively when I was in science. In my department there were 6 women vs 81 men and there was a constant push to shift the ratio.
Which was really difficult, because I was also involved in recruiting and we had the same ratio in job applicants (about 5-7 men for every woman who applied for a researcher role). Why was that? There is a majority of women in biology studies (about 80%) and about 50:50 in chemistry. Were did all these graduates go? Well, that was easy to know: when you exit graduate studies at 28 (which is the rather standard age for advanced science careers), your first thought is having a family, not starting a career in research. And after that, the train has normally left: if you're out of science for more than two years, you're out (I, for one, could never go back). I started my family at 34, when my career was established - but that came at a huge cost, and I'm not surprised that not many choose that path.

The tension between family care and job/achievements runs deeply throughout history: many of the women who accomplished great deeds in different fields never had children. To me, this is the biggest elephant in the room whenever we talk about gender parity.

There are some books that point to other deeper factors beyond discrimination.
"Listening to Prozac" by Peter D. Kramer, points to the fact that until about 100 years ago, the ideal of woman was that of a shy, homely person, content of staying at home and certainly never seeking recognition. It is only since the end of second World War that women have taken a more prominent role and are encouraged to seek "fame and success" outside of the home...that's not a long time to revert a couple of millennia of engrained gender roles.
"Sapiens" by Yuval Noah Harari points to the fact that more than 99% of human societies throughout history have been patriarchal. He doesn't give an explanation of why that should be, but it is a pretty striking homogeneity.

There is also pretty substantial research about fundamental differences in the way men and women perceive the world. One aspect that I believe is relevant to illustration is that men have a much stronger perception of the 3D space (this is not discrimination: it's neural science at it has been demonstrated beyond doubt. It's probably a result of hunting behaviors). Drawing volumes definitely didn't come naturally to me! I do believe that women have to work twice as hard to get solid construction in their drawing than men do - but this is only my opinion, I don't have anything solid to support that with relation to illustration .

By all means, I think women and men should be handled equally in all respects and we should aspire to a proportional representation in all prestige positions and awards. But I don't believe that the juries of these awards willingly favor men, as I know that when we hired researchers we did not favor men: quite the contrary!

SarahLuAnn

Lots of great facts and thoughts here... exactly the kind if discussion I was hoping would emerge. There is always the fear when bringing up certain topics on the internet that people will start calling names and taking things out of context, etc. but I was pretty sure we could keep it civil here on the forums... I’m glad I was right

And yes, I am acutely aware of how having children effects ones career... I produce work at a snails pace because the majority of my time is occupied with two very small children. (I DO produce work though... that’s something, right??)

I hear milenniels are more interested in equal share of work both in the home and supporting the family financially—that would certainly be the ideal for my husband and I, but we aren’t there yet. Over time more businesses may accommodate that kind of work but most don’t yet. So really, it may just be a matter of time.

MissMushy

In my management consulting work with non-profits here in Canada, there has been research that shows the majority of front-line workers and middle management are women especially in the 'caring professions' - nursing social work, counselors, etc. (80/90% F ) But as soon as you hit the most senior level management positions and/or more 'prestigious' organizations, there is a complete shift in gender profile - Almost 90% male executives and of course the difference in pay scale is cray cray.
I have seen this play out in so many organizations - even with the most open minded inclusive recruiting policies on the books There is a definitely societal bias supporting the belief that men will perform better at an elite level.
I wonder if that might be one of the dynamics at play in the Caldecott, Nobel etc. - the more prestigious the award is perceived, the more bias towards awarding it to men. Of course, the path is tough enough without these unspoken barriers and no doubt many women might decide it ain't worth the aggro.
Great discussion!