Sidelining women in translation: the Galician literary sector as a case study

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper expands on a previous study with a view to providing an extensive overview of trends concerning the gender of authors and translators of works translated into Galician, spanning almost 30 years, broadening the scope to include ethnicity and source languages. Galician was chosen owing to the central role played by translation in minority languages and the fact that its thriving yet relatedly limited sector facilitates a complete overview over an extended period. As a sociological phenomenon, translation is taken as a means of gauging androcentrism in the literary publishing sector as a reflection of male-dominated gender bias in society. Based on the findings which clearly indicate an on-going androcentric bias with an unjustified underrepresentation of works by women authors, the paper posits the existence of a ‘double filter’ for women authors, i.e. in the publishing and the translation phases. The underrepresentation of women also manifests itself through the disproportionally low number of women translators employed in this high prestige sector. The paper concludes that this situation is ostensibly attributable to a lack of planning in the sector designed to offset implicit gender bias and calls for a concerted effort to redress this lack of balance.