Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhh

OK, I love Kevin Drum - he's one of my favorite bloggers and I truly believe that his heart is in the right place. But this is the kind of thing that makes me want to chew my arm off:

So what's up? There aren't any institutional barriers in the traditional sense of the word, which means either (a) there are fewer female political bloggers and thus fewer in the top 30, or (b) there are plenty of women who blog about politics but they don't get a lot of traffic or links from high-traffic male bloggers.

My guess is that it's a bit of both, and the proximate reason is that men are more comfortable with the food fight nature of opinion writing — both writing it and reading it. Since I don't wish to suffer the fate of Larry Summers I'll refrain from speculating on deep causes — it might be social, cultural, genetic, or Martian mind rays for all I know — but I imagine that the fundamental viciousness and self aggrandizement inherent in opinion writing turns off a lot of women.

Which begs another question: does this mean that women need to change if they want to enter the fray, or does it mean that the fray needs to change in order to attract more women? As usual, probably some of both. Unfortunately, the blogosphere, which ought to be an ideal training ground for finding new voices in nontraditional places, is far more vitriolic than any op-ed page in the country, even the Wall Street Journal's, and therefore probably turns off women far more than it attracts them.

Where to start? First of all, while I know it's intended as a compliment, it's actually insulting to suggest that women aren't politico-blogging because we're "turned off" by the testosterone factor. Women can be just as "vicious" and "self-aggrandizing" as men - Ann Coulter, anyone? Co-bloggers Matt and Christopher will attest that I can be just as raunchy and juvenile as any 12-year old boy, if the "food-fighting" mentality is what it takes. And when in comes to politics women are certainly as passionate, incisive, cutting and all-around good as any of the men out there. And there shouldn't even be a question about that at this point - it's just too damn easy to find supporting examples. The real issue, insofar as there is one, is option (b): there are lots of us out there, but the blogosphere can be pretty self-referential, and it's incredibly difficult to get linked from or blogrolled on one of the top 20 political blogs. If Kevin (or Kos, or Pandagon, or Atrios, etc., etc.) were really interested in changing the situation, they could easily feature a "woman blogger of the week," or something similar. Of course, that would mean finding and reading some of us. I ain't holding my breath.

Update: There's a good conversation about this issue going on over at American Street.