Catty? No. Liberal? Yes.

You know you’ve arrived when people start complaining that you’re too mean. With the publication last week of my column “The Judy Miller Media Hug-Fest,” I received the customary Female Opinion Writer’s Baptism by Fire. Tucker Carlson, host of MSNBC’s “The Situation,” accused me of being “catty.”

For the record, I am not mean. I devote my free hours to cuddling small furry animals, and I only rarely eat them for dinner. And catty? Please! I did not say one word about Carlson’s bow tie.

But Carlson’s charge brought to mind last spring’s media flap over women op-ed columnists, which began when commentator Susan Estrich attacked Michael Kinsley (editorial and opinion editor of this newspaper) for featuring too few women writers. After that, opinion pages were briefly full of columns querying the mysterious nationwide dearth of women columnists.

Where were the women? Had their incisive and witty columns been suppressed by envious male colleagues, who replaced them surreptitiously with their own ponderous blather? Were they all in the federal witness protection program, so fearful of masculine retaliation that they were forced to disguise their true views and write only under pseudonyms like “David Brooks” and “Robert Novak”? (Think about it, readers: Have you ever actually met Robert Novak? If he’s not a real person, it explains why he isn’t sharing a cell with Judith Miller.)

Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick observed that a lot of women “avoid both the op-ed pages and the ‘Crossfire’-style ‘screaming shows’ because that is simply not the type of discourse they seek out or value.” The Boston Globe’s Ellen Goodman agreed and then opined that for many women “writing out loud ... requires a little hide-toughening.” Others pointed to the old double standard. In the Nation, Katha Pollitt noted that she’s “seen men advance professionally on levels of aggression, self-promotion and hostility that would have a woman carted off to a loony bin.” And the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd dryly observed that she’s frequently asked “how I can be so ‘mean.’ ”

It’s an honor to join such a club. Complaining about my “cattiness” in describing Miller’s rapid transformation from the reporter journalists loved to hate into a 1st Amendment heroine, Carlson objected that “if [Miller] were a man, you wouldn’t have written that, would you?” Happily, I was able to assure him that I am catty in an equal-opportunity way. But is he? Would Carlson have used the word “catty” about a male columnist?

Sexism lives!

Still, there may be another reason we’re not likely to see a substantial increase in women columnists. Pollitt hints at it, listing numerous excellent current and potential female columnists, “mostly ... liberals and feminists.” She goes on: “I’m sure there are good women writers on the right out there, too” -- though she seems unable to come up with any -- and concludes that “their job prospects are probably a lot rosier.”

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. Consider this: On CNN and MSNBC, presumably the most liberal cable news channels, conservative commentators outnumbered liberals 10 to 1 (CNN) and 13 to 2 (MSNBC) during the Jan. 20 coverage of President Bush’s inauguration.

And if adopting protective conservative coloring is the media’s goal, then women might as well toss their keyboards out the window. That’s because women aren’t necessarily nicer, or less interested in science, or more interested in recipes than men, but we are more liberal. Study after study has documented a persistent “gender gap” in American politics. If only women’s votes had been counted in the last two elections, Al Gore and John Kerry would have won hands down.

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.

And, uh, guys? When the right’s out hunting the so-called “liberal media,” don’t just roll over and die.

You heard the lady. Toughen those hides.