Toronto Star media columnist Antonia Zerbisias takes a run at the NYT's MoDowd for snivelling about the dearth of women columnists -- but then agrees there is an imbalance.

Some excerpts:

First, here's my blog posting on Dowd:

Zerbesias talked about some of the formidable women in Canadian punditry, like the Globe's Margaret Wente and Christie Blatchford, and the Star's Rosie DiManno.

Just never ever suggest that they got their jobs because some suits in human resources looked around their newsrooms and decided that they needed more female opinionators.

Which is pretty much what the New York Times' Maureen Dowd, the queen of columnizing, suggested two weeks ago, in a muddled whine about how hard it was to be called names and not be liked because she is a girl with strong views boo-hoo-hoo, and that's why there's "a dearth of women writing serious opinion pieces for top news organizations."

She wrote that men "enjoy verbal duelling," and that as a woman, she has wanted "to be liked — not attacked."

Well, honey, that's why they pay you the big bucks.

But at the same time ...

... They are predominantly male. This month, an Editor & Publisher survey of eight big distributors of newspaper columns found that 24 per cent (33 out of 135) of pundits are women. That's a hairline above the 23.7 per cent that the publication reported the last time it looked into this question, six years ago.

After noting Canada doesn't have much reason to crow, Zerbesias spins it by noting many female columnists in this country have outsized voices, and goes on to explain why:

Women columnists occupy a great deal more of the public conversation.

Just think about Rosie's recent reflections on the passing of her father or her rumination about wearing a thong — on her head. How many Jeffrey Simpsons or Haroon Siddiquis will discuss their underwear, while connecting them to world events?

All of which is why perhaps women columnists provoke the most visceral reactions from readers, who feel free to verbally flog us and blog us in the deepest of personal terms.

I hate to say this out loud, but DiManno's opinings don't compel me to read her.

Wente is a good provocateur, but methinks if anyone does get riled by her, they're falling into her trap, because it's so obvious that provoking is what she's about. Ask the Newfoundlanders whose heads exploded back in January when she ripped that province.

What I've found reading her over the years is she never really puts the boots to the alphas until they've been taken down a peg -- see her columns on Conrad Black and Michael Cowpland, before and after they fell, as two examples.

While I think there's a time and place for heart-on-the-sleeve writing, I'm not sure that going from a soliloquy on one's underwear to world events is necessarily the best approach.

Actually, maybe women are better blog writers, given that blogs are a medium in which the personal revelation is valued.

(I'm a Gemini! Damn, that was hard to spit out)

As a (metaphorical) card-carrying, guilty, white, male liberal, I'd like to see more women columnists.

But one thing Zerbesias didn't mention when ringing off the names of the top-tier MSM columnists in Canada: They're all white.

In a country where immigration is a major source of population replenishment, the MSM -- which is seeing its market penetration steadily decline -- really should make more of an effort to find interesting new voices from these communities.

Whether they're male, female or haven't decided yet isn't important; Canada's media needs to be more diverse.