Feminist Looking Glass

Capped off by his disastrous decision to expand the “war” in Afghanistan, Barack Obama has fallen alarmingly short of the expectations I and other liberals had for (or at least hoped for) him.  And then I just read that the number of women appointed to senior administration positions has not been anything to brag about.

The Washington Post tracks 515 senior-level government jobs.  During his first year in office, the Post reports that “Obama has named fewer women than Bill Clinton did in his first year in office . . . and not all that many more than George W. Bush did in his first year”:

Of the 376 people the Obama White House announced, nominated and confirmed in those top-tier administration jobs, only 32 percent have been women.  (37 percent if the list is limited to White House officials.)  In comparison, 46 percent of Clinton’s Senate-confirmed nominees in 1993 were women, as were 26 percent of Bush’s first-year nominees, according to a year-end study in 2001 by the Brookings Institution.

Moreover, in terms of racial and ethnic diversity, not much improvement is seen.  69 percent of Obama’s appointees are white, about 16 percent are African American, 10 percent Hispanic and 4.5 percent Asian.  This compares to the figures for Clinton:  14 percent were African American, 6 percent Hispanic and 3 percent Asian.  For Bush, the figures were 9 percent African American, 8 percent Hispanic and 3 percent Asian.

The Post column also reminds us of the criticism Obama took for not including any women in his basketball games.  Shortly after that criticism, Obama played golf with Melody Barnes.  I haven’t seen any reports since that time to indicate whether he has included any other women when playing golf or included any women when playing basketball.  Is anyone aware of whether he has?

Filed under: Politics, Workplace Tagged: | Employment, Politics