That opinion writing is a kind of testosterone-powered food fight is a popular idea in the blogosphere. Male bloggers are always wondering where the women are and why women can't/don't/won't throw bananas. After all, anyone can have a blog, right? In the wake of the Estrich-Kinsley contretemps, the Washington Monthly blogger Kevin Drum mused upon the absence of women bloggers and got a major earful from women bloggers, who are understandably sick of hearing that they don't exist. "I'm staring you right in the face, Kevin," wrote Avedon Carol (sideshow.me.uk), "and even though you've said you read me every day you don't have me on your blogroll. It's things like this that make me tear out my hair when people wonder why women are underrepresented...." There are actually lots of women political bloggers out there--spend half an hour reading them and you will never again say women aren't as argumentative as men! But what makes a blog visible is links, and male bloggers tend not to link to women (to his credit, Kevin Drum has added nineteen to his blogroll). Perhaps they sense it might interfere with the circle jerk in cyberspace--the endless mutual self-infatuation that is one of the less attractive aspects of the blogging phenom.

Why are there so few women op-ed writers? Amy Sullivan thinks it's because women are socialized out of the requisite personality traits: confidence verging on arrogance, thick skin, love of combat. At every step, from kindergarten on, girls are rewarded for being docile, quiet, unadventurous and alert to the feelings of others, and boys are rewarded for being the opposite. The end result is that political magazines like the Washington Monthly get lots more pitches from men. Women just don't come knocking.

I've been an editor at The Nation, where I now write a column [...] I would certainly agree that men send in more unsolicited articles ? almost none of which are usable, by the way, so I'm not sure what that example is supposed to prove. But ultimately it's the editors, not the slush pile or the volume of queries from freelancers, that determine what goes in a magazine. The phone works both ways! From what I have seen, editors are much more open to men and men flourish accordingly. Older editors, who are mostly men, mentor younger men in whom they see their younger selves, and these young men richly pay them back in admiration, even (surely not!) flattery and sycophancy.

Editors socialize with these acolytes, form friendships with them, offer them important career-making assignments (how often have you seen a "think piece" by a woman that wasn't about a "woman's issue"?), encourage them to take risks and give them more chances if they screw up. Marty Peretz at The New Republic was famous for this kind of mentorship, as was the Washington Monthly's Charles Peters. It wouldn't have occurred to me to approach the Washington Monthly when I was a freelancer ? partly because my politics were further to the left, but also because it was such a notoriously masculine preserve. Everything about it suggested that I had as much chance of appearing in its pages as in Popular Mechanics. I'm not saying no woman could get the odd assignment at the magazines that mostly publish men, but to make a career you need to be part of the family, you need to be the person to whom the magazine offers plum assignments and sudden opportunities, that gives you a kind of carte blanche (what's on your mind? what's on your plate? when are we going to see that piece on Outer Mongolia?), and that lets you develop as a voice and a personality. Women rarely get that kind of opportunity ? and the thing is, they know that. So what looks to you, Amy, like being easily discouraged or not trying is actually women assessing, fairly accurately, their chances.