Some members of the Television Critics of America are quarreling with my recent razzing of their awards. I accused them of being testosterone-blinded and I stand by that, firmly so. But they did catch a goof I made, which needs to be corrected. I reported that more than 80 percent of TCA members are male. Not so, according to TCA Secretary Rick Kushman of the Sacramento Bee, who informs us of the actual gender split: 60 percent male, 40 percent female.

That’s not too bad compared to the major film-critics’ groups, which are capriciously governed by 80 percent men - that’s where I got the number and mistakenly applied it the TV critics’ group, too. As a professional awards-watcher, I care about the gender balance of kudos groups because it’s obvious that, while film critics, for example, huffily insist that their decisions are based upon only the most highfalutin standards, they’re actually governed by hormones. In the years when Oscar voters endorsed "The Greatest Show on Earth," "Hamlet," "Gigi," "Out of Africa," "The English Patient," "Ordinary People," "Titanic," "Forrest Gump" and "Shakespeare in Love" as best pictures, some critics’ groups backed "High Noon," "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "The Defiant Ones," "Prizzi’s Honor," "Fargo," "Raging Bull," "L.A. Confidential," "Pulp Fiction" and "Saving Private Ryan." Male film reviewers gushed so fanatically over "Pulp Fiction" in 1994 that New York Times reviewer Janet Maslin predicted that their ra-ra-ing, in historical terms, was "bound to look suspect from afar." A few years ago when "A Beautiful Mind" swept the Oscars and Golden Globes and "Mulholland Drive" pulled off shocking victories at some critics’ awards, a disgusted female member of the New York Film Critics’ Circle said that men pushed through the "Mulholland" upset "because they were turned on by the movie’s hot lesbian action."

The Television Critics of America is just as guilty of male bully dominance. Just look over its lists of past award winners and compare them to the Emmys. Only 2 women have won the 18 awards bestowed for individual achievement in comedy or drama series. Those two are butt-kicking gals surrounded by casts of hooligan guys: Jane Kaczmarek (she won twice for "Malcolm in the Middle") and Edie Falco ("The Sopranos").

Twice over the past six years since TCA nominees have been revealed publicly, women weren’t even nominated in two categories. In all other cases they received just one or two nominee slots, never three or more.

"You want to know what hypocrites we are at TCA?" one member once snarled at me with a devilish wink. "Remember all those years we gave the Emmys hell for never rewarding Sarah Michelle Gellar for ’Buffy the Vampire Slayer’? Well, we never gave her an award either!"

TCA did give "Buffy" an honorary Heritage Award at the end of its run, but that was only after Gellar and the show lost in competitive races every year to male rivals.

Helen Hunt may have won four Emmys and an Academy Award, but she never won a TCA Award. Neither did such other Emmy champs as Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Heaton, Sela Ward, Gillian Anderson, Christine Lahti or Allison Janney.

Out of the 20 TCA Awards given away for career achievement, only 2 went to women: Lucille Ball and Angela Lansbury.

On the program side, sure, TCA’s list of winners is an honor roll of quality TV work, but somehow it failed to include such chick-friendly Emmy champs as "Sex and the City," "Friends" and "Picket Fences." Yes, the awards did hail "Ally McBeal," "Desperate Housewives" and "Gilmore Girls," but the vast majority of winners are programs appealing to guys’ allegiance to other guys or else their hormonal need to rebel against authority: "EZ Streets," "Boomtown," "Sports Night," "Deadwood," "The Sopranos," "The Daily Show," "Late Night with David Letterman," "NYPD Blue," "Arrested Development," "The Larry Sanders Show," "It’s Garry Shandling’s Show," "The Shield," "24" and so many awards for "Homicide" that you lose count trying to tally.

This public debate we’re having right now over the male hijacking of TCA’s awards wasn’t initiated by me. It began because some of The Envelope’s forum posters expressed outrage over the current list of nominees and I chose to quote their gripes in this column, particularly "Atypical," who fumed, "They continue the tradition of citing the single woman alongside the four other menfolk" in the races for individual achievement. A TCA leader responded by saying that such repeated slaps at women were the result of the fact that men tend to get the meatier roles on TV, which is an interesting point to ponder, but the organization refuses to admit what is so ridiculously obvious to outside award-watchers: their kudos, over all, are drowning in testosterone.

If that allegation is true, it means the TCA awards are biased and thus cannot be taken seriously as a measure of the best of each TV year despite the clear quality of winners over all. That’s a very serious charge leveled against an organization that exists to champion the highest ideals of the TV industry.

Photo: Misogyny, They Wrote? Here’s a TV mystery worthy of Jessica Fletcher: why is Angela Lansbury only 1 of 2 women honored with the 20 Career Achievement Awards bestowed by the TV Critics of America?