Working Class Writer Wins Pulitzer

From Ed and Pub (and one wonders if Kevin Drum will raise the issue of women bloggers again and start a new round of "I'd link to more women bloggers if only they were men" debate):

Connie Schultz is thrilled to win the Pulitzer Prize as a columnist who's a woman, a feminist, from a working-class background, not syndicated, and a staffer on a newspaper -- The Plain Dealer of Cleveland -- she feels deserves more prominence than it has.

"I'm very happy for The Plain Dealer because [the commentary Pulitzer] helps put us on the map," Schultz told E&P. "A lot of great people work here -- including my editor, Stuart Warner. There's no way I would have won the Pulitzer without him."

At a time of great debate about why there aren't more women on Op-Ed pages, Schultz's win underscores that there are many great female writers out there. To find them, said Schultz, newspapers and syndicates need to look to America's heartland -- not just to the East and West coasts.

Schultz, 47, added that her working-class roots -- her father was a factory worker and her mother a nurse's aide -- permeates her work.

The snarky comment above wasn't meant to just flippantly impugn Kevin, whom I respect. I'll even credit Kevin for raising the topic occasionally, although it always feels more like hand wringing than useful discourse.

However, women bloggers often do get short-changed in the process. At the same time, I do notice more of the big boys network referencing a woman blogger first (not so long ago, it seemed that if a woman blogger originated a particular line of discussion and the BBN picked it up, they would only go back so far as to credit the first male who picked up the discussion from the woman).

Nor is it a question of just women not being represented more within the blogosphere. Television panels - even when the topic is inherently woman-oriented - are male. Television panels about blogging have only discovered two female bloggers: Ana Marie Cox of Wonkette and Michelle Malkin of the Planet Wank. Ana isn't exactly mainstream political blogging and Michelle is... well... eerily like the results one jokes about when discussing the offspring of siblings and first cousins who marry.

[Don't get me started on the number of times the Freeper Creepers have announced that all women bloggers are by their very definition lesbians. Last time I checked, I seemed awfully heterosexual. But you know what? I don't usually take one's sexuality into account when I read them. And the only blogger I've ever seen wear his sexuality like a tie or noose around his neck is Andrew Sullivan, hardly a lefty (or very smart).]

But then, it's not just women underrepresented. Don't see a lot of bloggers of color represented in blog links and on TV panels that include bloggers. Don't hear much of left-of-center bloggers or many moderate or conservative-but-not-wingnut bloggers either.