DivaLea: Shock! Lack of Women Editorial Cartoonists

From the "Wait, tell me again that there's no need for comics and marketing of comics focused on women and no need to get het up about women cartoonists being overlooked, because I need a good laugh" file:

In "Almost Laughable: Dearth of Female Cartoonists", Sheila Gibbons manages to pack (with citations) a lot of information into three screen's worth of opinion.

"Only about 24 percent of opinion writers at the biggest syndicates are women, according to a survey by Editor and Publisher magazine.
Women are less than 4 percent of those same syndicates' editorial cartoonists.

They are Ann Telnaes, who draws the "Commentoon" for Women's eNews and until recently was syndicated by Tribune Media Services; Signe Wilkinson of the Philadelphia Daily News and the Washington Post Writers Group and Etta Hulme of the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram and Newspaper Enterprise Association.

Ten years ago, the same three women constituted all the women drawing for major syndicates, according to Editor and Publisher."

'Strong women speaking their minds are not popular,' said Telnaes, pointing to negative media coverage of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Teresa Heinz Kerry. The same resistance, she said, carries over to an opinionated woman drawing strong cartoons.

'Originally, I thought the coverage of Hillary and the type of woman she was had more to do with her personally, but now I'm beginning to see it's not her; it's the type of woman that America, and our media, have a problem with.'"

I hear you, Ann. I hear you.

Seen first at Tom Spurgeon's The Comics Reporter.