I suspect there are many more who never had the opportunity: As a start, I guess that most humans in history have been illiterate. More did not have access to publishers. First, before the printing press (~1475 in England), publishing more than your personal hand-written volume was very expensive - each copy hand-written. Also in most of the world, usually only those who were considered male, of a certain socio-economic class, and whose writing fit norms (not controversial in content, style, etc.), had access to publishing.
"usually only those who were considered male" If digital media manages to survive, archaeologists of the future will have a blast sifting through our ruins. Like we are still trying to puzzle out why Mayans played a ball game for a chance to be sacrificed and then just abandoned their cities. In case my writing is excavated - dear distant decedent, we basically just forgot how to breed and were succeeded by a civilization that could still manage that task.
> we basically just forgot how to breed and were succeeded by a civilization that could still manage that task
I'm a little lost about what that has to do with discrimination by publishers against writers by perceived gender? Does that somehow disrupt 'breeding'?
