Female Bloggers Face Discrimination?

Today, The New York Times covers the BlogHer conference, which seems to be an effort to level the playing field for female bloggers who don't feel that they're taken as seriously as their male counterparts.

Interestingly, given the left's emphasis on "gender issues," the blog that was listed as an example of unequal treatment was . . . Daily Kos. In fact, the conference sounded like it was for women populating predominately the left side of the blogosphere (which may explain why "[t]here were tears at many emotional panels " -- I've found that conservative women generally don't behave that way).

In any case, I can't agree with the writer who blames the dearth of prominent female bloggers on the fact that, in the article's words, "women are taught not to be aggressive and analytical in the way that the political blogosphere demands." Taught by whom? Are there some "meek and mild and fuzzy-thinking" training schools for women that I don't know about?

Before jumping to conclusions about the discriminatory ethos of the blogosphere, it would be interesting to see how much women promote themselves and their blogs, compared to men. From what I've seen (and the way I behave myself, compared to some male bloggers of my acquaintance), it seems to me that often men are more proactive about sending their work around and actively seeking recognition. And for better or worse, when it comes to matters like these, the race really is to the swift.