I have noted before that the Republican party—with Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin leading the charge—are challenging the image that Democrats are the party that promotes women.

Insider-D.C. news site Politico published an article yesterday on the growing caucus of women in the Republican House ranks. U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-WA-5, is the fourth ranking member in house Republican leadership as Vice Chairwoman. But it's the nine freshman—out of the 24 female Republican reps—Politico is interested in. (There are twice as many, 48, Democratic women reps.)

And McMorris-Rodgers' protege, freshman U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA, 3), a former McMorris-Rodgers aide and state house legislator in Olympia—is featured in the piece, which begins:

Republicans have a new weapon in their messaging arsenal — a growing, influential caucus of younger GOP women intent on fighting back against Democratic claims that the party is anti-woman.

The new group doesn’t neatly fit the traditional model of women who run for office —the older, post-career PTA moms with grown children and more time to devote to politics. Four of the nine Republican GOP freshmen are under 50. And they aren’t moderates in the mode of Senate GOP women such as Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe.

Rather, they are rock ribbed, younger, conservative working mothers, a new breed of GOP representative that Republican male leaders are more than happy to have deployed on the front lines, to act as the public face for a party that still suffers from a gender gap in their rank-and-file. On Tuesday, a handful of them will take to the House floor in a series of speeches titled, “I am a Republican woman” — a coordinated effort to argue that the Republican Party’s priorities, like job creation, lower gas prices and a fiscally responsible budget, are also women’s issues.

They go on, giving the mike to Herrera Beutler:

Like her former boss, Herrera Beutler thinks women in the conference should be working to promote the advancement of women, but doesn’t easily accept the feminist label, preferring instead to call herself “pro-woman, just like I’m pro-family, just like I’m pro-man.”

“That is one thing we need to be careful of, dismissing our perspective or abilities because we’re women,” Herrera Beutler said. “The temptation is [there], because we don’t believe gender or skin color determines potential, we believe your work, effort and actions develop your potential. That’s a Republican philosophy, but in that we need to be careful not to stifle your perspective."

Herrera Beutler's office tells PubliCola that Herrera Beutler will be one of the female reps taking the floor Tuesday night for the speech-in if her schedule permits it.