WASHINGTON - Late night show hosts Jay Leno, Dave Letterman and Conan O'Brien are all funny and all men, but what you can't see is that every person writing their jokes is a man, too.

The Daily Show's Jon Stewart made a joke about it saying, "Um, I've always felt that diversity is the most important part of a writing staff, um."

But former Letterman writer Nell Scovell isn't laughing. In a scathing piece in "Vanity Fair" she writes about "late night's all-male gag order," the boys clubs that make up the writing staffs.

"I don't know whether they are intimidated by women, they don't care about women, they don't want to reach women. I don't know," said Linda Stasi, media critic for the New York Post.

"I had no way of knowing how the odds were stacked against me," Scovell wrote, describing a stint writing for Letterman in 1990.

As for the recent scandal, she says she was aware of rumors about his relationships, and of those between other high-level male staffers and female employees.

She wrote, "Did that create a hostile work environment? Yes. Did I believe these female staffers were benefiting professionally from their personal relationships? Yes. Did that make me feel demeaned? Completely."

She says it created an atmosphere of "sexual favoritism."

"Sexual favoritism in the workplace is really when a supervisor is having a consensual sexual relationship with a subordinate," said Wendi Lazar, partner at Outten & Golden LLP law firm.

Scovell left Letterman after just 13 weeks and went on to a successful career on shows like "Coach." Her hope now is that the late night boys club lets in some women and treats them like one of their own.

There are some exceptions to the late night show "boys club." Tina Fey was head writer at "Saturday Night Live" and David Letterman's head writer for many years was a woman. Still, women remain the minority in late night show writing.

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