I think book snobbery is part and parcel of the reading world as a whole.
I read a lot of chick lit and, more recently, have started to branch out into the contemporary romance genre. Now I know there are a lot of people out there (and probably here on BCF too) who wouldn't even consider reading a book from either of these genres, which is fair enough as it's their/your choice, but I do sometimes feel that people judge ME for reading them.
Don't get me wrong there are a lot of trashy chick lit and romance books out there, but there are also a lot of really well written and enjoyable books which are tagged with these genres which probably get overlooked because of the way they are marketed.
Just because I may be reading a book with a girly pink cover doesn't mean I'm a dumb blonde.
I think Bree made a really good point earlier about not judging someone for the type of book they read when you don't know the reasons why they picked that book to begin with. I like a good hard-hitting crime novel like the best of them, but then again sometimes after a hard day at work I like to curl up and escape reality for a while and, for me, chick lit and contemporary romance fits that bill perfectly.
At the end of the day I like to read and I don't care what genre a book is as long as it fits my needs at that particular point in time. It doesn't matter what genre it is or who wrote it as long as it's a good read!