Here is their pie chart for how the New Yorker did in 2010:
Which translates into a 26% parity rate for the year.
Now the favorite excuse for why the parity for these various high-falutin' literary publications is half of what it should be in the twenty-first century is because women just don't submit work as much as men.
There are two problems with this argument as it applies to the New Yorker in particular - the New Yorker uses mostly the same cast of characters week after week.
Looking at this week's issue, and not counting the regular critics/columnists, and editor Devid Reminick, I see a bunch of people I recognize from other New Yorker issues: Ryan Lizza, Jane Mayer, Judith Thurman, Malcolm Gladwell, Jill Lepore.
It's a big insiders club. So the slush pile has little impact on gender parity.
Which may explain the second problem with this argument - the parity rate hasn't budged since at least 1971. Since I have handy access to the New Yorker archives I did a random sampling of four issues from 1971. Here's the breakdown:
February 13, 1971
Total bylines: 13
Female: 4
Male: 9
Parity score 30.77%
June 12, 1971
Total bylines: 12
Female: 3
Male: 9
Parity score: 25%
August 14, 1971
Total bylines: 11
Female: 2
Male: 9
Parity score: 18%
November 13, 1971
Total bylines: 19
Female: 3
Male: 16
Parity score: 15.79%
Average parity: 22%. So based on this random sample, parity has improved in 40 years by 4%.
But as is the case now, back in 1971 the same names pop up on the byline - Calvin Trillin, Edmund Wilson, John Updike. It doesn't hurt female representation that at that time Pauline Kael was movie critic and Edith Oliver was the off-Broadway theatre critic - both those spots are filled by men now.
But even discounting the in-crowd policy, are we to assume that women are only 4% more ambitious and career-oriented than in 1971? That would be odd, considering that 45% of all American women were in the workforce in 1970, the number was 60% in 2007. The rate for American men at the same time went from 82% in 1970 down to 75% in 2007.
So if the parity rate has changed so little in that amount of time, what can we conclude? That the New Yorker is an exclusive club that feels that a steady three men for every woman contributor ratio is just about right.