Most Canadian history is written by men

Canadian history is still being written predominantly by men.

Celebrated historian Margaret MacMillan swept into town this week to give the Bluma lecture at the Toronto Reference Library on women who made history and women historians.

I crunched some numbers for the occasion.

Last year, 132 new history books by Canadian authors hit our bookshelves.

Of those, only 34 had female names on their spines. When you remove the three books with no official authors, books written or compiled by women make up just 26 per cent.

(I bought the list from BookNet Canada, which tracks book sales in Canada’s print market. These numbers don’t include self-published books, ebooks or sales at small retailers that don’t report their numbers, though BookNet’s Zalana Alvi told me the figures they cover 85 per cent of the market.)

MacMillan’s latest book, History’s People, was the top seller. So I put it to her: why are Canadian women not publishing history books as much as men?

“I suspect it’s a number of factors,” she said. “It’s important. We all need to look at it.”

On one side, there is supply. Women make up just 37 per cent of history faculties at universities across the country, according to the Canadian Association of University Teachers’ 2013-14 almanac. But when you look strictly at the full professors — the ones who traditionally have published at least two history books — then the number drops to 24 per cent.

“We know women still do the majority of child care, so they are not publishing as much as men and that can affect hiring and promotional changes,” said MacMillan. ...