The oddest thing I think of the recent market is women are still disregarded and treated this way when the main protagonist in the majority of new books that are coming out are female and written by these same old guys. While many women writers are still marginalized and considered outliers. It is interesting to me that just like high art is considered manly and women's art is considered "craft" in art history, any sub-genre that women develop and make lucrative male authors co-opt, writing in the genre is welcome of course, but when marketers start marginalizing the women writers (particularly if they delve in social mores based speculative fiction) it gets me a little steamed.

As a side note to that, a few years back I got into a huge argument on the PC Hodgell yahoo blog with a much younger woman when I referred to the uphill battle women have had to be published, or had to use a male pseudonym. She reacted vehemently with a list of the token few which to me proved my point. She is apparently a big con participant and spoke on a lot of panels so considered her an expert. As my being someone who started reading SFF in the 50s I quickly saw we were in different worlds and consciousnesses and quit responding to her condescension. Sometimes it isn't just men who mansplain, sometimes it is the newer wave who doesn't recognize my experience.