Will Washington Posts's "Next Great Pundit Contest" Alter Gender Disparity in Op-Ed Pages?

On the surface, the Washington Post's "America's Next Great Pundit Contest" seems to be taking steps to correct a terrible gender inequity that stares at us from the pages of major American dailies -- the lack of female voices on the op-ed page. This is an ongoing issue and was a big bone of contention back in 2005 when syndicated columnist Susan Estrich got into a shouting match with then-editor of the Los Angeles Times  Michael Kinsley over this inequity.

At that time, WaPo noted the discrepancy between men and women opining:

In the first two months of this year, about 19.5 percent of op-ed pieces at the California paper were by women, 16.9 percent at the New York Times and 10.4 percent at The Washington Post. Only a handful of female columnists -- Maureen Dowd, Ellen Goodman, Molly Ivins -- are nationally known.

Today, I'm happy to report that WaPo appears to be deliberate in its decision to feature female voices in its "America's Next Great Pundit Contest." Out of 4800 entries, the paper chose 10 finalists, half of whom are women. We the readers can look over their entries, and over the course of two days (November 7-9) vote our choices into the next round.

The contest's tagline, "You have an opinion, but do you have what it takes to be heard?" speaks to a deeper issue at the heart of the gender op-ed debate: fewer women submit op-eds than men because many feel they lack the 'qualifications' to express a noteworthy opinion worth publishing.

Catherine Orenstein, who's published a number of op-ed pieces in leading newspapers across the country, decided it was time to counter this with specific training for women to prove this idea false. She founded the Op-Ed Project on a simple premise. As Orenstein explains:

It's a teachable form....It's not like writing Hemingway. You show people the basics of a good argument, what constitutes good evidence, what's a news hook, what's the etiquette of a pitch....

I try to convey the idea that there is a responsibility....Op-ed pages are so enormously powerful. It's one of the few places open to the public. Where else is someone like me going to get access? It's not like I can call up the White House: 'Hello?'

The above example of a conversation with the White House isn't so far-fetched. Orenstein tells Op-Ed Project participants that a week after her opinion piece on Haiti was published in the New York Times, she was meeting with President Bill Clinton's Latin American policy advisors.

Whether that sort of opportunity will present itself to any of the 10 finalists is anybody's guess. But having sat in on an Op-Ed Project presentation with a twenty-something writer and teacher, Courtney Martin -- who is now one of WaPo's 10 finalists -- I can absolutely vouch for the fact that if you give a woman the opportunity, the training, and the conviction that her words have merit, she will use what she's learned to speak out and push for change.

With more women on the op-ed pages, the line between work and life will become more "porous" as Martin notes in her contest entry, "Between work and life." One contest anointing one winner won't make a huge difference. But WaPo's decision to put five women on equal footing with five men in its own fantasy op-ed competition means that we're finally at the table we've been fighting to sit at -- a place where our opinions are of equal weight and value. And if they can do it, why not you?