Are publishers undermining female authors with 'girly' book covers?

It's a code - as others say, lipstick/cupcakes/purple/shoes on the cover scream "avoid" at me. Quite useful.

Yes definitely. Fiction written by women is often deemed only appropriate for women and so labelled that way via cupcakes so men don't accidentally pick it up and get tainted by womanliness. Fiction written by men is just fiction so can be read by men and women quite safely.

It is no coincidence that of our two most successful women writers, both had to write firstly and primarily about male characters and to have a male protagonist - at least for the book that hit the big time - and one had to disguise her gender in her name (Hilary Mantel and JK Rowling).

there is a fantastic writer called Vicky Zimmerman who writes books about women of a certain childness age which is is marketed full on chicklit. I think it does her a disservice to be honest.

Actually I am dead envious of her in RL as well as a writer. She is a food buyer for M&S!

One of my favorite male authors, Douglas Kennedy, often writes with a female narrator/ protagonist and always has a strong female character. His books are all set against a particular historical or political background and are well written, good stories. His books always have girly covers - not cupcakes, but girls drifting mournfully around a beach in floaty dresses. I feel these covers really do him a disservice. They just are not representative of what's inside, and put me off until I picked one up on a train. Maybe it had been abandoned by someone expecting something lightweight about a girl's holiday.

Covers are still important for e-books. When you scroll through the page on Amazon deciding what to buy you see a cover image and make the choice based on that just like you do in a bricks-and-mortar shop.

I think what the article is trying to highlight is that some female authors' work may be getting diminished because of its cupcakey cover art - and showing how you can undermine even major works of literature by putting a cutesy 'girl' cover on it.

Weirdly at the same time traditional 'chick lit' / bonkbuster territory seems to be going all Bourne Identity with quite a number of 'big' authors doing storylines involving assassins and high wire adventure. These aspects aren't making it on to the cover, though!

Do I agree there is a problem with the marketing of books written by female authors?

No, I don't think it's anything to do with female authors per se. I too avoid "chick lit" and "mumlit" like the plague, and agree with Celticlassie that the generic covers are a useful signpost. But often the title is an equally good guide. It's more to do with content - I couldn't give a toss whether the author is male or female.

Something that irritated me (I'm not sure if they still do this, but they did quite recently) was W H Smith labelling a whole section "Women's Fiction" or something similar. I never went anywhere near that shelf, I can tell you!

I thought the coverflips were fantastically well done, and made their point. Whilst crime fiction may focus more on stuff like blood and scary close ups of syringes (Gerritsen mainly!) it's the mainstream 'fiction' genre that seems to create the most confusion. And perhaps younger authors as well - no-one's gonna suggestion putting a cupcake on an AS Byatt cover!

I would agree, though, that eBooks have diminshed the value of covers somewhat - although a truly striking one still makes an impact.

Hmm... Not sure.
Crime fiction doesn't seem gendered.

Chick-lit has a certain look. If I was a female author of a book written for both genders and it got a chick-lit cover I'd be very angry but I'm not sure if this happens?

I read on kindle these days so covers are less important to me (its a first generation black & white kindle).

I quite like it though, as it means I can generally avoid chicklit.

Shoes on the cover - avoid. Cupcakes on the cover - avoid.

Hilary Mantel doesn't seem to be afflicted by 'girly covers'.

In saying that, there are perhaps a lot of very good, non chick lit books that are being wrongly marketed.

That goes right back to George Eliot & the Brontes, doesn't it?
I help out in the books section of a busy charity shop on weekends & from what I see there I don't think it stands for all women authors. The Tess Gerritsen / Karin Slaughter thriller genre don't have girly covers, and nor do people like A S Byatt and Margaret Atwood.
There are an awful lot of girly ones though, & I do often just assume 'chicklit' without bothering to look inside & see what's actually there.
I'm not sure what we do about it. Maybe Mumsnet could talk to Maureen Johnson and spread the Coverflip challenge? (I had a look through the responses, they make a bloody good point!)