There were consistent patterns: Politics, the economy and foreign affairs? The majority of submissions come from men. (Women represented just over a third of the published letters about politics.) Parenting, health, education and relationships? A larger percentage from women. (For more details about published letters, see below.**)

Interestingly, entries to our high school letter-writing contest last year were disproportionately from girls and young women, as reflected in our published responses. And when we asked readers to name the book that most influenced their lives, a significant majority of both submitted and published letters were from women.

Some of the results surprised us: Homages to stick-shift cars? We published letters from five women, and none from men. And we published a plea from 33 writers, all of them women, to stop using the term “quid pro quo” in the impeachment inquiry, in favor of the more explicit “bribery” or “extortion.”

Over all, though, we’re not satisfied yet. While there was a small uptick in letters from women right after we announced the project, we still sometimes find ourselves struggling to ensure that women’s voices are heard on a wide variety of topics.

At the project’s one-year mark, we’re reaffirming our commitment to working to reach gender parity. But what was reinforced by this project is that our letters pages are richer for this new collection of voices — and it compels us to broaden our efforts further, to ensure that we are publishing a range of letters from an even more diverse pool of writers going forward.