LIBERAL WOMEN....LA Times columnist Rosa Brooks attacks the venerable question of women on the op-ed page today. After ticking off the usual possibilities for their absence, she suggests there's an additional dynamic at work:

Could politics be the culprit, as much as gender?

As the right's mythmakers continue their assault on the so-called "left-wing media" — the attack on public broadcasting being only the most recent example — many media outlets have caved in to the pressure and redoubled their efforts to avoid that liberal taint....And if adopting protective conservative coloring is the media's goal, then women might as well toss their keyboards out the window.

....On issues from domestic policy to foreign policy, any cross-section of American women will prove significantly more liberal than a similar cross-section of American men. As a result, short of looking under every rock for another Ann Coulter, it could be hard for the male-dominated media to showcase more women columnists without — eek! — showcasing more liberals.

So if you're wondering why women columnists are thin on the ground, save a little condemnation for the media's craven fear of looking too liberal.

I think she's got a point, and it applies to the blogosphere as well. This may be hard to believe in a medium dominated by voices like Atrios and Kos on the left, but overall, the women I read are considerably more liberal and considerably more anti-Bush than the guys. If that makes it hard to find an audience even in the Wild West atmosphere of the blogosphere, you have to figure it's a death sentence for the staid pages of the country's op-ed pages.

In any case, it's all additional fodder for the BlogHer conference! It's being held on July 30 in Santa Clara and you can register here if you're interested in attending.