John Hawkins of RightWingNews.com released his 20 Hottest Women in New Media last week. As these lists always do, it’s brought about a fresh round of controversy – both from those whose crush was left off the list, as well as those who are righteously indignant about the objectification of the women on the list. The objectification of men seems to not be an issue… Who knows, maybe Newsweek will rage about us making poor Jeff Emanuel take his shirt off for the 20 Hottest Conservative Men list. Or something.

Is it shallow? Yeah. So what? Here’s the thing: every woman on the Right Wing News list is fighting the good fight, and we’re confident in our work. We’ve all contributed substantially to the conservative cause. Some are more establishment, and some more grassroots. Some are more well known than others, and some are new to the field. The list of accomplishments varies… all are contributors with their own strengths and credentials.

The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait got his knickers in a twist about it, stating that conservative women are “welcomed in and valued for their ideas, provided they are first deemed suitably attractive by a panel of men.” What he ignores is that we’ve ALREADY been welcomed. Women like Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter have decades of work behind them. SE Cupp and Laura Ingraham are both published best selling authors. All of the women there have established themselves and are in demand among conservative circles.

His comment is obviously a jab that extends beyond John’s Top 20… all I have to say is look at the response the grassroots has had to Sarah Palin. To Michele Bachmann during the health care fight. Gov. Brewer on immigration in Arizona. Some of the top fighters on the Right are women, and time and again they’ve displayed the cajones that our men couldn’t seem to find.

The idea that a woman could see her name on a list of that nature and do nothing but take it as a compliment and move on just seems to make their heads explode.

Instead, they’d rather blame the women for trading in sex appeal or blame the men for turning the helpless, brainless women into pieces of meat. Our own Snark and Boobs (AKA Lori Ziganto) shredded Newsweek for their hypocrisy:

If any of your distinguished journalists had bothered to simply ask me, I would have told you what the name meant. No, it is not “trading in sex appeal.” It is meant in good humor. You see, we conservative women like our girl parts and will even poke fun at them from time to time. Good thing I didn’t name it my other thought, Boobsandsammiches, huh? Your heads would have exploded. Oh well, better luck next time!

The Raw Story took it one further and offered that possibly our looks are all we really have to offer, which is clearly not sexist at all and totally okay since we’re nothing but tools of the Right Wing patriarchy and incapable of thinking for ourselves. Apparently, all Truly Enlightened women are supposed hate the fact that they are actually, well, women and recoil at the idea of being feminine and beautiful.

Tommy Christopher, ever the defender of conservative women, jumped in one more time to state his objection to the fact that the judges didn’t include a paragraph about our accomplishments. While I appreciate his sentiment, it’s just not an issue for the women involved in the list. We take it for what it is: A moment to acknowledge that it’s possible for a women to be a bad ass blogger/journalist/online warrior, and beautiful at the same time. It’s doesn’t demean my value as a human being to have someone tell me I’m pretty – even if they don’t immediately recite my resume.

And if there’s a woman out there who says she doesn’t like being told she’s pretty, she’s lying. When it’s not done, you know, by creepy old men leaning out their car window offering you a ride or something.

Melissa Clouthier facilitated the obligatory response to the list: LibertyPundits.net’s Top 20 Hottest Conservative Men. Four of the nine female judges were on the RightWingNews list – and the rest easily could have been.

I have yet to hear, well, anyone decry the objectification of these fine men. Newsweek, we even put aside our white supremacist overtones and added a couple non-white faces! It’s a fine collection, if I do say so myself.