Women's Fiction or Chick Lit?

This seems to be the enduring question in the world of women's fiction. What do you call novels written by women about women? Are the terms synonymous? Is chick lit the mass-market, lowbrow version of women's fiction? Is it an insult to describe a book as chick lit?

I look forward to delving into this question intellectually as this blog develops. So far, my scholarly research seems to indicate that there isn't a difference between the terms: that any perceived differences actually exist at the level of sub-genre -- there is gossip lit, and bridal lit, and mommy lit, and paranormal lit -- but those terms are describing specific sub-genres and not used pejoratively.

So, for now at least, I'll use the terms interchangeably on this blog, but I'll have more to say about these terms, and about their places in a third-wave feminist literary world, in the weeks to come.