Gender irrelevant when it comes to work: Top women publishers

NEW DELHI: Publishing is now a very gender- fair industry and women who are in top editorial positions feel core competence and creative ability drive the choices in a publishing house.

Urvashi Butalia heads Zubaan, Ritu Menon is in charge of Women Unlimited while Karthika V K, Milee Ashwarya and Chiki Sarkar all perform top editorial functions at HarperCollins, Random House and Penguin India respectively among several other women in this field.

"There have always been women in top editorial positions in Indian publishing houses. This is not a new trend," says Menon, founder of Women Unlimited, an associate of Kali for Women, who has been active in the South Asian women's movement for over 20 years.

She does not feel that number of women in top editorial positions has made it more of a feminised workplace.

"The change has come about because of women-owned and run publishing houses, because these are generally editorial- driven, rather than market-driven," Menon told PTI.

Mita Kapur, CEO of Siyahi, says publishing in the recent past has seen women at the top and thus it is a less sexist industry in that sense.

"What needs to change is that we need to see more women leading sales, marketing distribution in publishing."