“We had the impression that the New York Times Book Review included reviews of many more books written by men than by women and used many more male than female reviewers,” observe Paula J. Caplan and Mary Ann Palko, “but because feminists are often accused of being paranoid when they point out instances of sexism, we thought we had better check it out.” So, they conducted a survey (fourth item) for The Women’s Review of Books. “We tallied 53 consecutive weeks of the NYTBR during 2002 and 2003 and found that more than twice as many book authors and almost twice as many reviewers were male as female. . . . This was troubling news, for women who want to write or review a book may be less likely to make the attempt once they make the conscious or unconscious observation that those realms remain primarily male. As feminist author and organizer Gloria Steinem commented to us, this is ‘an imbalance of influence which is all the more bizarre, since women purchase the majority of books. It’s one more instance in which women are treated as consumers but don’t decide or profit from what is consumed.'”