Thinking that women (or men) are under represented in certain genres only because of bias, sexism, bigotry and etc is an extremely biased and unhealthy view on the world.
Absolutely. But asserting that gender bias, whether conscious or unconscious, has absolutely nothing to do with the representation of genders in any genre seems naive. And while there are many, many factors at play that we can do nothing or very little about, we can think about and gently challenge gender bias in ourselves and other readers.
So do we throw up our hands, say "Oh well, too many things that I can't control, why bother?" Or do we do what little we can to make the world just a tiny bit fairer?
I was 99% sure before I went to sleep that someone was gonna put that into my mouth.
So... I don't understand. If there is any gender bias in action, and you believe that it is an element, why aren't we working (in this instance, with our recommendations and thinking about whether there are women authors who should be included) to deconstruct it?
As tebakutis said, this isn't about discriminating against men. It's not about promoting gender over quality. It's about thinking about our recommendations, and taking just a moment to consider if there are awesome women authors who could also be included.
I'm also not sure that the GoodReads readers' choice list is a good example of equality. There's already been a discussion regarding whether at least half of those female-authored examples should even be included in the genre. (I'd be more precise on the numbers, but GR seem to have taken the lists down for final tallying.)
Goodreads is the largest reading community in the world. 4 million votes were cast in it's award contest. And in such an extremely large contest, the Fantasy category has 9 female authors in the Top 10.
Why this isn't a viable list? Honestly, what else do you want? All 10 finalists to be female? Or all 20 semifinalists?
But I agree the final round isn't a good example of equality, after all, there's only one male

(or two, since Ilona Andrews are a couple).
Here is the list of the 10 titles while they still process votes:
Picture:
And the other 10 semi finalists included 3 more women:
The interesting thing is that there was a debate on another thread regarding Paranormal Romance being on Fantasy.
We even agreed PNR (at least one of them) would fit better in the Romance category (since a book can only be in one category, save for Debut Author), and then we complain about lists not featuring more Fantasy by women and we see two of them (Jemisin, no less) getting buried below 3 PNR blockbusters. Categorizing incorrectly could actually have punished some authors who could have used a bit more recognition, both male and female.
If we go to YA Science Fiction and Fantasy there's once again 9 females and 1 male author:
In the
Awards of 2015 there were 7 female authors in the Top 10. 4 males technically because of Ilona. And in the other 10 semifinalists, 5 more females.
The
Fantasy Faction Top 50 of 2015 has 19 women (38%) with one author unidentified. And the winner was a woman (Novik). And the top 10 of that list has 6 women.
Curiously, some books that appeared in GR didn't appear in FF (and vice-versa). Gaiman for example, won in GR and didn't even make Top 50. Or maybe they excluded him because that book was a collection of short stories and not a novel. And Uprooted was in YA Fantasy in GR.
And even more curious, let's look at the list for this year's Science Fiction, considered by the towering echo chamber the most machist, biased, sexist, etc etc:
Oh, look. Does it appear to have at least 5 female authors on the Top 10 of SF? Possibly 6?
And all this without anyone forcing anything down anyone's throat.
But I guess it's just easier for some to keep shouting and shouting the same song from the top of their echo chamber that there is only 10 white males at every top 10 list...
Well, do those lists sound reasonable?