Women Writers

We have only read two women writers so far: Barbara Kingsolver for The Bean Trees and now Edith Wharton with Ethan Frome. Are women writers any different from men? Do they choose different topics? Do they have different writing styles? Do you prefer to read stories by men or women? Does it matter if a book is by a man or a woman?

For a lot of these I'll give the same answer: It all depends on the time and place the woman was writing the book. For example someone writing in the 1800s would write something completely different from someone on the 1900s. Why would it matter if a book is by a man or woman? That's a weird question.