I know, their history doesn't make it too promising. But "optimism is a moral duty" and all that.

But seriously, if the point of your post was only the gender of the authors discussed, then I have to say, female authors like Hobb, Wurts, Rawn, Elliot, Carey, Friedman, Zimmer Bradley, Rowling, Atwood,... have been mentioned and discussed on this board so far. If male authors were discussed a lot more, well, that's because male authors dominate the genres that are most popular here, and to increase the amount of female authors read would require either reading different genres or niches, or some kind of "positive discrimination" in your reading. As you are apparently doing yourself.