Yeah, but this seems to be this website's view only--I've not seen it elsewhere or from any particular agents, which is why I posted the whole I know about the policy/culture of the website. Mods have chased after me for using the term. =P It's a I know that you know that I know, but I'm using it anyway, because I don't care.
Rachel, as one of the mods for the Romance/Women's Fiction section, I have to say I take exception to this (and I will also say I don't see you participating very much there, frankly--
you have only started or contributed to five threads there ever--which I find confusing). I've just done a quick search there and haven't found anyone denigrating chick-lit or the term, or anyone "chasing after" anyone else for using the term. There are several discussions about how the term isn't commonly used anymore, but those are helpful rather than insulting; those discussions are our members helping other members find the best way to query their work. Several members also posted some wonderful links to other sites which discuss these same issues and support those writing it.
Since women's fiction and chick-lit are discussed pretty much exclusively there (meaning it is the focus of the subforum), and since I moderate those discussions, I'd like to see what posts you find so offensive or disrespectful.
I have found the following, after about a minute of searching:
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=252512&highlight=chick
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245974
Oh! Here's one where chick-lit is denigrated as a genre, and described and dismissed as being full of "shoes and whoring" and just about the "power of women [being] how far she can spread her legs in a week." So maybe...
...oh, no, wait...
It was YOU who referred to it that way, and not only our members but me (as a mod)
who called you on your offensive, rude, and disrespectful genre stereotyping and locked the thread, and you never came back to apologize or explain.
Is that what you were talking about when you referred to mods as "chas[ing] after [you] for using the term?" Because I can assure you the issue in that discussion was not your use of the term "chick lit," it was the way you referred to the books in the genre as being about whores whose only show of female power and strength was spreading their legs for numerous men. Oh, and the implication that they're just like "cheesy Lifetime movies."
Maybe if you spent more time discussing the genre--in a way that did not indicate that the books, their authors, and their readers are ridiculous materialistic sluts--with those of our members who write and read it, you'd feel differently.
(Several also posted links to or quotes from/experiences with agents and editors who suggested that the term isn't a great one to use anymore; I realize you apparently think AWers are the only people who've ever said "chick lit" as a description may work against you when querying, and no romance or women's fiction agents or organizations like the RWA have ever said that either, but I'm mentioning it anyway. Clearly it's an AW plot and we forced those publishing professionals to get in line with us, rather than us passing along what they've said.)
I will say, though, that you're damn right I'll say something about you using the term "chick lit," if you're using it as an epithet and claiming all books labeled as chick lit are just about "shoes and whoring." There may be a term for books that are just about shoes and whoring, but it's not "chick lit," and if you claim it is, I won't be the only person taking you to task for it and suggesting you actually read the genre you claim to want to write rather than insulting it based on what you
think you know about it, and how far superior you imagine your own unfinished work to be to that dreck most of those simpering, slutty chick-lit writers vomit out onto the page.
YOU may not care about how the genre is described and discussed, but most of our members do.