Assessing masculine domination in a cultural field: women translators and book translation awards in Spain (1984–2012)
The Translator, (2014)Abstract
Literary translation in Spain is a profession undergoing an important process of feminisation. Data show that women tend to favour such work over other professions, and also invest more in the practice from a professional point of view. Adopting a sociological approach, this paper questions whether the current labour market situation has resulted in wider visibility for women translators. In order to do so, I consider four awards for literary translation, with results showing that, despite their strong professional presence, women remain underrepresented among the winners. Through the analysis of various sets of data and with support from personal interviews with women translators, this article identifies and contextualises a number of social, ideological and professional causes for this lack of acknowledgement. The article also suggests that competition between academics and translators results in different conceptions of translation practice and literary canonicity, which in turn have a major impact upon the visibility of professional translators, among which women are predominant.