I'd suggest it certainly happens in one regard: when a genre writer writes a book that might be of sufficient quality to approach "real fiction"1, similar tropes get hauled out to belittle the work. And in a [per|re]verse way as well, when a "real author" stoops to doing "genre work" there's all sorts of limboing going on to (a) belittle the piece as slumming, not "really serious", obviously a "bit of a vacation" etc, and/or (b) use it as a cudgel to demonstrate how the rest of the authors who inhabit this neighbourhood couldn't ever possibly be so awesome and thus deserve never to rise out of the ghetto2.
But, I also think that, in these cases, it's a matter of class/artist-type/genre and not necessarily a matter of gender (and oddly, I might even suggest that it's easier for women or minorities to get away with this kind of thing anyway, because "everyone knows they're not really capable of serious work anyway, so we can understand that they'd play around like this." which, I realize, makes your point admirably, as well.)
1 -- this is a phrase describing perception, not reality - that is "the defenders of quality" for some reason decide that a work has presumptions to "quality" and thus line up for the smack down because, geez, no genre work shall pass, etc, etc.
2 -- viz McCarthy's The Road and anything remotely genre written by Margaret Atwood; viz nearly anything written by Michael Chabon.
no subject
But, I also think that, in these cases, it's a matter of class/artist-type/genre and not necessarily a matter of gender (and oddly, I might even suggest that it's easier for women or minorities to get away with this kind of thing anyway, because "everyone knows they're not really capable of serious work anyway, so we can understand that they'd play around like this." which, I realize, makes your point admirably, as well.)
1 -- this is a phrase describing perception, not reality - that is "the defenders of quality" for some reason decide that a work has presumptions to "quality" and thus line up for the smack down because, geez, no genre work shall pass, etc, etc.
2 -- viz McCarthy's The Road and anything remotely genre written by Margaret Atwood; viz nearly anything written by Michael Chabon.