MORGAINE AT WHAT SHE SAID! has decided to drop from her blogroll all male bloggers who do not make an effort to link to women's blogs. I completely understand her frustration, and respect that decision, but I don't think I am going to follow suit. I don't see how dropping Kevin, or Josh, or Atrios, or Matthew from my blogroll is going to help women who blog. It's just cutting off my nose to spite my face, because I enjoy reading those guys' blogs. Maybe I'm a naive fool, but I believe that most of the top male bloggers, on the left at least, respect and like intelligent women and good writing no matter what the gender of the person doing the writing. That being my belief, I also can't help feeling that, eventually, these guys will get over their discomfort at putting a woman's blog on their blogroll. In the meantime, my dropping them from my blogroll is certainly not going to persuade them to add me to theirs. It's counterproductive.

That said, I think Morgaine is on to something when she says that right-wing male bloggers don't mind linking to right-wing female bloggers as much as male bloggers on the left do, perhaps because right-wing women, regardless of how influential they are, still are willing to defer to men and put on the traditionally feminine pose.

I think the reason the Conservative blogosphere tends to support its women more than the Left does is because the women on the Right are being good little girls, spouting the party line, and are willing to defer to men as superior. I'm sure conventional religion plays a part in that, but who doesn't like being validated? It's great to have a cheerleader telling you that you're brilliant. The Progressive Blogosphere is not as pleasant for guys on the Left.

In other words, feminism in the blogosphere is the only area where leftie male bloggers are not comfortable with leftist philosophy. They're more comfortable with the conservatives' vision of women. Which is odd, because it's probably not the kind of woman they grew up with, aka mother.

But ... you know, life is funny and strange. They may still change. And in the meantime, I enjoy reading their blogs.