DC doesn't have a great history with female representation among its creators, which is something it shares with a lot of the comics industry. That's something well known.

But I've recently started to wonder if DC's publishing side is setting up female creators to fail. Note that this is not probably a conscious decision, but rather the result of many small cuts or already established networks; not any cases of harassment but rather unthinking and ingrained sexism. The reason I started thinking about this is that some late runs by great female writers have produced lackluster results:

G Willow Wilson, one of the absolute top writers in the industry (Ms Marvel, and nominated for both Eisner and Hugos) became the lead writer for Wonder Woman. But her run was marred by a chaotic art situation and art that undercut the narrative. Then the latter parts of the run had very poor pacing, largely I believe by the need to suddenly push in Cheetah and Lex Luthor under YotV in the narrative.

Jody Houser, who seriously impressed me with Mother Panic, is right now on Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. She has done a marvelous job of showing them caring for each other, but she was given the leftovers of Heroes in Crisis, together with tying in with YotV. From a narrative-thematic view, she was given a **** sandwich, and the result has been a road trip story without narrative or moral substance. All the while Poison Ivy might be the character in DC who is most relevant to current world events and zeitgeist.

I also can't shake the feeling that Mairghread Scott—who managed to show that she could write a mature Babs-as-Batgirl with a healthy outlook on her time as Oracle—quit writing Batgirl because evil!Oracle was coming.

What I think we get here is that great female writers might get gigs at DC, but they don't get the creative freedom and environment to shine. Instead they have to write to specifications created by other, more "centrally located" writers and editors at DC.