I'm a very conservative woman. The gender of a person matters not one whit to me. But by person, I mean beings with a capacity for reason. When they obviously lack that capacity, I call them bipedal mammals. Gender does not matter. Dr. Rice, Secretary of the Interior Gail Norton, George Bush, Karl Rove - persons. Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Mary Landrieu, Kathleen Blanco - bipedal mammals.
I don't really have a gender preference, and I can't honestly say I would prefer a man in charge. I want a person in charge, and being an empiricist, it is my observation that there are more persons in a group of ultra conservative white men than in a more mixed population. If this makes me either a racist or a sexist, I'll wear that badge with pride.
LOL. I was thinking more like bivalve mollusks, but you're right, they do nurse by sucking off the teat of federal largess.