A few months ago, my She Writes colleague Kathryn Gordon and I got set up on a blind date with a branding expert. A friend of a friend wanted to help us out -- me, the newbie CEO, and Kathy, my publishing-and-marketing right-hand woman -- in our efforts to learn more about the mysterious art of branding. She said she knew just the man. Formerly of a big branding firm and recently of an edgier, cooler, smaller one, he was in his early thirties, relatively successful, and willing to meet us for lunch to teach us a thing or two. For the sake of this post, I will call him: Jackass.

Ah, Jackass. Where do I begin? With the moment when you said, "Hmmm. SHE Writes. So, I hear that, and I think, women-type books. Are you sure you want to pigeon-hole yourself in that way?"

Women-type books? Pigeon-hole myself? By addressing half of the human race? And what on earth, dear Jackass (dare I ask), are "women-type books"?

"You know, books women like, like, The Lovely Bones." Oh, yes, The Lovely Bones. What? I explained that "She Writes" simply referred to its members being 1) women and 2) writers, and that our members wrote everything from sci fi to political commentary to literary fiction. (And would be thrilled to have Alice Seebold among us.) "Well, I'm sure that's true. But it's an issue of the associations 'She Writes' will call up for the general public," Jackass went on. "A book like To Kill A Mockingbird, for instance -- that's a man's book. You know what I mean?"

No sir, I do not.

Jackass seemed to be aware that Harper Lee was, in fact, a woman. And that To Kill A Mockingbird is narrated by a nine-year-old girl. But, as he explained, "Atticus is really the main character. And that book was a historical book. It had an impact on history. It was important. You know. It was a man's book."

At that point I think Kathy kicked me under the table, and oh, how I wanted to kick this man. But instead we finished our lunch, and yes, I paid for it. That part felt good actually. My treat, Jackass. See you on the other side of history. What felt better, however, was my belief that by starting She Writes, I was going to do an end-run around this guy and his small ideas about women writers. (With the help of the many, many men who don't think like him at all.) By organizing a network like She Writes, I had big plans to change the conversation, and skip the Jackass.

And that is exactly what we did on Friday in our collective response to the PW list. We skipped the Jackass and drove straight to the bookstore. Some of you navigated rocky Hawaiian off-roads to get there; some of you set out with supportive husbands or partners in tow. And we made our own lists -- or blogged about how problematic it is to imagine that Top Ten Lists are anything but subjective, inevitably influenced by our prejudices, if powerful and important all the same. We sang the praises of the brilliant, award-winning, often breath-takingly good work published by women this year, and supported them with our actions. So far, you have bought more than five hundred books published by women in 2009, and we are still counting. Almost two hundred and fifty of you posted your responses to the PW list here and elsewhere online that day. Woo hoo, indeed.

The issue is not just in numbers, of course, but in attitudes and perceptions about women: their seriousness, their capabilities, their right to speak as artists and creators, and the status granted to their work and to their stories. As Joanne Lipman observed in her recent editorial for the New York Times (thank you to Megan Pincus Kajtani for pointing me to it) "The Mismeasure of a Woman", the issue is not just how women are paid, or what jobs they are "permitted" to hold, but how they are perceived, and how, in turn, it leads them -- us -- to perceive ourselves.

Which leads me back to the man Kathy and I met with to discuss our startup, and to the way he talked to us during that lunch. It wasn't just the bit about "women-type" books -- it was the assumption that we were a "women-type" business, and therefore not to be taken all that seriously. He had not even bothered to look at the site before we met. I am certain this stemmed from the same perceptions and attitudes about women that keep their work from being recognized on Top Ten Books Lists. And I wonder -- as Katha Pollitt did in her review of Elaine Showalter's ground-breaking book "A Jury of Her Peers", imagining John Updike had been Jane, Joyce Carrol Oates John Carrol Oates, and so on --

What if Kamy and Kathy had been Kevin and Ken?

What if our branding expert had walked into that restaurant and sat down at this table (and please pretend the unfortunate guy on the left is not giving Kathy and me a weird look, we just couldn't miss the chance to take a photo of our male doppelgangers when they showed up at the table next to us):

Rather than this one?

I think it would have been a whole different conversation -- man to man. Maybe he would have asked me for my business. Maybe he wouldn't have treated us like were twelve. He did send me an email later apologizing for putting his foot in his mouth. It's ok, I wanted to say. You didn't put your foot in your mouth. You just got it caught in the door -- the door to the future.

Warm best, and more action coming soon,
Kamy