The XX Factor: What women really think.

What's a Girl To Do?

I'm struck by this debate because in many ways it perfectly encapsulates something I've been feeling lately. As a 20-year-old girl (woman?!) who aspires to a career as a conservative journalist, I find myself agonizing over where I'll find my place professionally.

I've spent several summers working in journalism, and I've always thought it's better to be a conservative in a liberal pool than to hole myself away with a bunch of neoconservatives. But sometimes I feel like I don't get credit for that. I've found that at many news outlets, conservatives are written off as either stupid or delusional. Smart conservatives tend to be regarded as interesting conversation pieces. Experiences such as those have me toying with the idea of dyeing my hair a few shades blonder and throwing myself into a career as the next Ann Coulter.

Emily may be right that there's more immediate glory for women who play "truth-teller" against feminist tenets. My own critics would probably label me that way, and in truth, in my short writing career as a college undergraduate, I probably have gained more attention than I otherwise would have because of my willingness to bash one popular feminist cause or another. Still, I like to think that I'm taking those stands because I'm searching for intellectual clarity, not because I like attention. (On a related note, I won't even tackle the Larry Summers reference of earlier posts, because then we could be here awhile.)

Suffice it to say that I worry every day that I could fall into the peroxide trap of some of the Fox News extremists (though those women do dress well). Maybe other conservative women are not as idealistic as I am, but I think we might need to cut them some slack, "ka-ching, ka-ching" and all. If we don't, there really is nothing keeping these new conservative voices from diving into the right-wing deep end—yes, I acknowledge there is a very troubling conservative deep end. Once that has happened, the landscape of media could become even more polarized than it is now and even less effective. And that's a problem I'm eager to avoid.