Of Pen Names, Perceptions... and Respect

On the surface, this has precious little to do with children's literature, I realize, but I still wanted to send you all over to Copyblogger to read the post Why James Chartrand Wears Women's Underpants.

Yes, it's a great title (hey, it's a blog about great writing so what do you expect) and I might send you that way for that alone, but the meat of the article is both fascinating and frustrating and a range of emotions in between.

You see, James Chartrand is a female using a pen name because she found better pay and more respect as a male. And as she says...

Truth be told, if just a name and perception of gender creates such different levels of respect and income for a person, it says a lot more about the world than it does about me.

It's a great post, and an interesting read in the comments, too. And it made me wonder about children's literature and whether any of these same issues exist in our field... and, if so, to what extent.

As often happens, I have no answers... only questions. And y'all?