Women and Poetry

In the Guardian blogs there has been a long discussion about women and poetry in response to an article by Frances Leviston headed This great poets list has only one woman. About right, too .

So, how can women who write poetry raise their public profile? Would you accept publication in an anthology of ‘women poets’?

Yes, because...

• positive discrimination is still needed.
• women’s poetry is seen as less serious and tends to be left out.
• women fail to network as well as men .
• women still tend to minimise their own achievements.
• women still lack confidence in their own abilities.

No, because...

• the work should stand on its own merits as good poetry.Gender is irrelevant. Quality is the thing.
• positive discrimination is another way of ghettoising women so that their poetry doesn't become mainstream.
• separate anthologies imply that women’s interests differ from men’s.
• we should be fighting for equal representation in the anthologies that are being made. (Although, aren't quotas just positive discrimination with a different hat?)
  

Any thoughts about this?