...why do reasonable and smart arguments about gender disparity have to be undercut by self-parody?

It's called a "sense of humor" Tracy.

You might try getting one...

I have a sense of humour, however, I wince a little at the math crack. I heard the 'girls suck at math' in school and I'm still surprised to hear women say it nowadays. Not that they personally aren't good at math - but they aren't good at math because they're female. I can't ever remember a guy blaming his gender for his ability to do math.

"the campaign trail" ... "requires far too much math".

If what I caught on Fox news last night is any indication, the sort of math that is required is that which throws away facts completely "We don't yet have the numbers"... "only 7% of the votes"... "But we are ready to call this race for ..." I switched away in disgust. Women are smart enough to avoid that sort of math that has nothing to do with logic or reality. I'd like to think men are smart enough too.

p.s. humor gets old when repeated so often that 80% of the population believes it to be true. Note that I have no statistics to back that number up.

I resented the little sarcastic twist for the opposite reason. I felt it was merely a feminist evasion. She managed to leave the important question of why women may be less interested in covering politics completely unanswered. Instead she just jokingly implied that it must be a conspiracy created by patriarchal network executives.

These types of articles bother me. Sure there is a significant gender imbalance in the numbers. But jumping straight from that to a conclusion of discrimination without any evidence seems wrong. It is perfectly plausible that politics and power are more interesting to men, in exactly the same way that football is generally more interesting to men.

I would prefer to think of that comment as perhaps a subtle jab at her co-worker at the Times, John Tierney who is constantly explaining to us little ladies how the glass ceiling, wage gap, and lack of political representation is an expression of our preferences. We really don't want to worry our pretty little heads about important issues.

I got pretty disgusted by the alpha male coverage of jackasses like Chris Matthews. I think coverage would be greatly improved if they didn't treat it like a damn football game, treating everything as a game of strategy instead of ever addressing the issues or how real material concerns (not clever politicking) might have motivated voters. No, I don't want to play hardball.

Of course, as an avid football fan I also hate most broadcasters there too (Brent Musburger, you're on top of my list) so maybe it's my gender that's the problem and not the lame coverage.

Like other Stanley pieces, this one was a waste of space. Did anyone learn anything from reading it? (Other than the finger-loss Tester suffered.) She's no Howard Kurtz, no Tom Shales, no Gail Shister, even. I get more enlightenment (and humor) from the Metropolitan Diary column.