Backbiting, backstabbing, and poorly punctuated snark (or, why we can’t break the pink ceiling)

The pink ceiling is also called the romance ghetto.  This is where the vast majority of not just romance but female-authored urban fantasy, trad. fantasy and science fiction languishes, never achieving the sales of its male counterparts or the few breakout novels that rise to nominally normal sales levels and who’s authors earn competitive advances. I’m lucky.  I landed on top of the pink ceiling rather than below it with my first deal.  Just mentioning that so you’ll know that when I relate the story below and say why this is illustrative of exactly why female authors continue to earn little money and little respect, in the scheme of things, that I am not bitter or railing.  I’m just bothered, and vaguely...