Women in need of a man or two

The Orange Prize longlist has just been announced, followed by the perennial hoo-ha over its right to exist. Is it sexist to have a prize just for women? Is sexism the reason why we need a prize just for women? Does anyone outside the comment boards on the Guardian website actually care? All it is, really, is a wheeze to sell more books, something it manages pretty well.

One problem with the Orange Prize is that the quality is often not that great. The shortlist and the winner sometimes seem like they’ve been chosen by a group of book publicists thinking, “Ooh, the media’s going to love this author’s interesting backstory!” or “Wouldn’t this novel be fab for bookclubs?!” The last two winners, the hugely overrated The Tiger’s Wife (Salman Rushdie with a hangover) and Barbara Kingsolver’s embarrassing Trotsky love-in, The Lacuna, had a suspiciously marketing-first feel about them.