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A cadre of Democratic officeholders in Washington -- mostly women -- is taking to the microphones this week to frame as a women's heath issue the Obama administration's requirement that Catholic institutions provide contraceptive coverage to their employees. But first there were scores of Republicans -- mostly men -- offering remarks about how the administration is compromising religious freedom with its rule.

Just the optics of those competing dynamics would seem to favor Democrats in the coming election with women voters. Complicating things, however, are news stories trickling out about internal strife inside the White House about how to handle the issue, which has the chattering class saying it’s a loser for President Obama. Add to that an emerging line coming from some influential Republicans that the flap is another example of the trouble with “Obamacare” -- though there’s anxiety on the GOP side about how that line might actually tip the scales to Democrats because it could reopen Mitt Romney’s wounds on health care.

In all of this you have the perfect backdrop for a renewed culture clash and gender war in Washington.

Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney’s communications chief, asserted while making his way through the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday afternoon: “This is a religious liberty issue. This is not a contraception issue.” And, he added, that is precisely why the administration is having trouble with it.

But it’s impossible to ignore gender here. Note that even those Democrats criticizing the administration or encouraging officials to expand the rule’s religious exemption are, by and large, men: Sens. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Joe Manchin of West Virginia; Senate candidate Tim Kaine of Virginia; and Reps. John Larson of Connecticut and Gerry Connolly of Virginia.

Out front in support of the policy are women: Sens. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Barbara Boxer of California, and Reps. Diana DeGette of Colorado, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and Florida’s Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chair of the Democratic National Committee.

New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte, for one, has joined her male colleagues on the GOP’s front lines this week. At a weekly press conference staged by Republican senators, she offered remarks that Fehrnstrom would later echo: “I’ll say this: This is not a women’s rights issue. This is a religious liberty issue.”

By and large, the commentary coming from Republican officeholders, the party’s presidential candidates and the Republican National Committee has focused almost exclusively on the discomfort the issue raises about First Amendment rights. In fact, Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Manchin (D-W.Va.) teamed up this week to introduce legislation that would exempt all religious institutions from compliance, citing those very rights. (The rule exempts churches but not church-affiliated institutions such as hospitals and universities.)