Why this bookstore is only stocking titles written by female authors

Nestled between kaleidoscopic graffitied walls on a blink-and-you'll-miss-it side street in east London lies a bookstore with a difference.

The shop, which is called Like A Woman, only stocks books written by women. Books penned by persistent women who've rebelled, shouted, and "fought for change."

This tiny bookstore—the creation of publishing house Penguin Books— is a temporary fixture in the run-up to International Women's Day on 8 March. But, though its presence may be fleeting, the creators hope to make an indelible point about the representation of women in publishing.

Amid the onslaught of brands' publicity stunts to mark IWD with a token once-a-year gesture that says 'hey, we support women,' there's something a little different about the point being made by Penguin Books.

The shop is the brainchild of Zainab Juma, creative manager at Penguin, who told Mashable she wanted to create a space that made women's voices heard—even if those voices are found on a page.

"Publishing is one of those really interesting areas where women are actually quite well represented, but then there are certain little bits of the industry where that doesn't quite translate," says Juma.

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Juma notes that female authors account for a great deal of literary fiction's commercial success, but when it comes to winning awards, they're massively underrepresented.

"The majority of the bestsellers on the literary fiction list last year were written by women, but out of the 114 Nobel Prize laureates, there have only been 14 women. Fourteen out of 114, that's bonkers," says Juma.

Juma makes a good point. A 2015 analysis by novelist Nicola Griffith revealed that novels featuring a female main character have won fewer awards than novels with male main characters. Griffith found that between 2000 and 2015, "not a single book-length work from a woman’s perspective or about a woman was considered worthy" of winning a Pulitzer Prize.

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It's not just literary prizes that aren't being awarded to female authors.

Research has found that books by male authors are more likely to be reviewed by leading literary publications like the Times Literary Supplement and the New York Review of Books. Books by male authors are also more likely to be featured on course syllabuses at high school and university levels.

So, why aren't stories by and about women considered to be of cultural significance?

"Despite the fact that we're almost over-represented in publishing, there's clearly still a structural issue that I think is common across many disciplines, which is that women make an awful lot of contribution without necessarily the recognition that goes with it," says Juma.

Juma wants to address the lack of recognition that comes hand in hand with female-produced literature. "So I thought, you know what, we make really cool stuff, let's celebrate it," says Juma. "If International Women's Day is about anything, it's about making women's voices heard, and that includes voices on pages."

Like A Woman flouts the typical layout of a bookshop, grouping titles together not by genre or category, but by "the impact the author has had on culture, history, or society." Perusing the shop, you'll find tables of books annotated with labels like "Your body," "Changemakers," Women to watch," and "Essential feminist reads."

The shelves are dotted with the works of beloved female authors and outspoken changemakers, the likes of Margaret Atwood, Afua Hirsch, Malorie Blackman, Iris Murdoch, Malala Yousafzai, Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf,and Simone de Beauvoir.

Asked what she hopes people will take away from the bookshop, Juma says she would like people to take away a book. "I want people to find a voice that perhaps they haven't heard, or a voice that they've known when they were younger and just wanna revisit, and that they spend time with it, listen to it," she says.

The Like A Woman pop-up will be open until 9 March on 1-3 Rivington Street, east London.