Study shows that the publishing industry is dominated by white women.

In a world where the glass ceiling keeps talented and skilled women from earning positions and salaries equal to their male peers, there is one area where the exact opposite phenomenon occurs.

Lee and Low released an extensive study last week detailing a curious fact about the world of books and book publishing.

The entire industry is dominated by women--and not just women, but white women--and not just white women, but college educated white women. A look at the numbers:

--Executive level: 59% women, 86% white
--Editorial level: 84% women, 82% white
--Sales level: 77% women, 83% white
--Publicity and marketing level: 84% women, 77% white
--Book reviewers: 87% women, 89% white

You usually only see such skewed employment numbers in the race and gender of NFL quarterbacks and corrupt Norwegian politicians.

The college educated angle has long been a barrier in the publishing world. As Salon notes, even the most basic of positions has required college degrees. Penguin Random House-NYC has a list of entry-level positions like a sales assistant that require a college degree and experience. It's the publishing equivalent of making sandwiches at Subway, except you can be $100,000 in student loan debt. Sounds appealing!

By comparison, people identifying themselves as black or African-American made up 2% of book publishing executives, 2% of editors, and 1% of book reviewers. In case you're wondering why editors keep getting mentioned as a priority, it's because they're the critical element in what turns into an actual book. They sign off on it.

In other words, when you browse the aisles at your local book store, you're looking at a selection largely chosen by college-educated white women. It's easy to pretend there's no bias to be had, that equality reigns supreme in publishing, but outsiders to the empowered clique disagree. Take 2015's Man Booker winner Marlon James, who pulled no punches when he said, "We writers of color spend way too much time pandering to the white woman."

If there's a literary Molotov cocktail, Marlon James just lobbed it. It's now a matter if the thought ever catches fire.