If you believe Teddy Wayne, I am, as a writer, unspeakably privileged: I’m a woman.
In “The Agony of the Male Novelist,” (sadly, I’m not kidding) he says:
For the majority of male literary authors — excluding the upper echelon of Franzen, Jeffrey Eugenides, Don DeLillo and their ilk, plus a few younger writers like Chad Harbach who have scored much-ballyhooed advances — it’s actually harder than it is for women to carve out a financially stable writing career.
His argument (I use the word loosely) is so logically pitiful that I thought he might be attempting some kind of wit. I certainly don’t want to waste my time reiterating it here. You’re all familiar with it’s essence: But teh menz hav it reeely reeely hard!
However, one snippet of his whine pleases me:
The archetypal book-club novel is written by a woman, its characters are female-centric, and it contains a love story, sensitive coming-of-age tale, or mother-daughter narrative, perhaps set against a historical backdrop.
If you replace or with and, and throw in some sex, swords, and scheming, that’s a pretty good description of Hild. So, hey, now I know what to do with my snow day: come up with a list of earnest questions for the book club. Chortle.
Nicola Griffith 
I have a theory that every possible permutation of every possible opinion on every possible topic will appear online one day if only for someone to direct attention to them selves. It was Teddy's day to plead for attention, that's all.
His list of articles on his site seem to emphasize how “cool he is for saying unpopular things”, so I'm guessing cry for attention.
Heh. John Scalzi flayed this guy too. http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/01/19/its-my-fault-for-reading-it-but-then-the-writer-is-not-blameless-either/
I can't wait to read his post about how “political correctness” is reverse racism! Id est, there are plenty of these jerks, & they all suck. Embarrassing.
Considering that I've never gotten published as a man OR woman, I'm not sure which side to come down on.
Except on the side of Hild. Definitely on the side of Hild.
drlloyd, I have no doubt.
Anon, yep, I saw Scalzi's post after I drafted this one. It made me doubly glad I did respond in full: Scalzi is so much better at it.
mordicai, I doubt we'll have long to wait.
Dianne, not sure?? Oh, dear. I'll give you a clue: not his.
We're finally getting some of our own back, and the poor man doesn't like it. Well, too bad.
In a perfect world, this guy would shut up.
Anyway, speaking as an Indian, I find that gender representation is pretty equal in publishing; that said, English writers get published about 100x more than those in regional languages.
Rijul, in a perfect world, we'd all understand a several languages (at least well enough to read in them). Meanwhile, I foresee a vast evening of odds for English-writers from other countries. My guess? This decade Indian writers will come into their own (in English). That might help pave the way for other languages spoken/written in India. At least I hope so.
Nicola — what I meant was that I have no personal experience one way or the other. (I suspect he is wrong though.)
Indian writers have come into their own for a while now, at least in literary fiction: two out of the six last Man Booker Prize winners have been Indians writing in English, and there are hundreds of Indian novels in bookshops in the country. I'm personally waiting for speculative fiction to come into its own, since the generation that publishes treats it as kiddie crap. There's a whole generation of kids that read Harry Potter, (including me – I'm 17) though, and there's bound to be some there who can write well.
Rijul, yes. But Adiga and Desai were both educated in the US and UK. We'll know Indian literature has come into its own when the winners of such prizes are born and educated in India. Adiga is living in Mumbai now; I hope he's teaching. (I don't know where Desai lives.)
But I think the f/sf breakthrough is imminent–and, more importantly, I think/hope it will be home-grown. What do you think?
The first waves are already trickling in (mostly really bad books publicized as “Indian Harry Potter”). I'm part of a collective that's writing shared-universe short stories – you may see me published in a few years' time, if we actually manage to write something good.
Rijul, I suspect you'll write something fabulous. Get cracking!
Nicola, may I recommend two Indian born-and-raised writers who've been writing successfully for decades now: Kiran Nagarkar and Upamanyu Chatterjee.
Anon, I'm always happy to get recommendations. Though a little more info would be useful.