John A. Farrell

Barack Obama's Failure to Appoint More Women to His Government Is Blunder

By

December 22, 2008 RSS Feed Print
  • Comment (5)

Related Articles

By John Aloysius Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

I've never been a quota kind of guy. Big organizations are soul-deadening even in the best of straits. Compulsory race and gender scales can make a workplace downright poisonous.

And so, as my Thomas Jefferson Street colleague Bonnie has raged these past few weeks about the lack of female faces in the top ranks of the incoming administration, I was tempted to pick a fight with her. Diversity, thy name is Obama, I thought. Give him time. Hey, wasn't Hillary named secretary of state?

Wisely, I held off. Because when the final round of cabinet appointees was announced on Friday and we got a look at the whole lineup, I had to say, Bonnie was right.

Five women in the 22 top positions of government? This is the best the Democrats can do? For what, arguably, is their most important constituency? 

Gimme a break. What a blunder.

I hope Obama's team has been vetting female legal scholars. By shortchanging gals in the executive branch, he's just ratcheted up the pressure to name a woman—maybe two or three women—to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Tags:
feminism,
Obama transition,
Barack Obama,
Obama administration,
working women

Reader Comments Read all comments (5)

Add Your Thoughts
Your comment will be posted immediately, unless it is spam or contains profanity. For more information, please see our Comments FAQ.

For people complaining about who Obama hires/appoints and doesn't hire or appoint:

The women who are complaining about Obama not appointing more women or creating "women's jobs" -- can you HEAR yourselves? You're doing more damage to our own cause than Obama ever will. Since when do women's rights activists engage in labeling jobs "women's jobs" and "men's jobs?" I'm laughing so hard on this one -- you're rocketing us directly back to the 50's!

Obama is deciding which JOBS are NEEDED NOW to help the COUNTRY. He's not deciding which JOBS would hire the most women, men, blacks, whites, gays, or straights. If it happens that the priority at the MOMENT is safety on roads and bridges, I don't think Obama gives a rat's ass about whether a woman or man fills the job -- as long as they're well qualified and we can ALL be safe. If more women want to go for those jobs, then go for it! He'll probably hire you!

If I decide to be an artist despite the fact that not many artists are in high demand these days, I'm not going to blame the employers (or the President) for not choosing me "because I'm a woman." I'm going to look around for a more marketable job or keep what I love and shut up!

My god, ladies, get over yourselves. There's been enough partisanship over the decades between black v. white, women v. men, gay v. straight, democrats v. republicans. This is the first time in a long time that our President actually makes decisions WITHOUT trying to fill quotas but on what the COUNTRY needs at the moment.

You remind me of my kids. You're so busy measuring "fairness" that you're ignoring the big picture: the COMMON GOOD. I have no doubt that when Obama turns to professions that you call "women's jobs," I'm guessing there won't be men complaining that he's favoring women.

Stop damanging our reputation as intelligent and capable human beings by interpreting every decision Obama makes as "female friendly" or "male friendly." Please.

You sound like my children: they look at numbers rather than what makes sense. If one kid needs a pair of shoes, I buy them. I don't buy them for the other kid if they don't need them.

Laurie Wasielewski of CT 3:03PM January 23, 2009

The reality is that the Obama government lacks the most important diversity that a government needs in order to govern well--and that is diversity of thought! These people are all educated in the same block of colleges, members of the same social elite, and proscribe to a certain paradigm that is based in the elitism of New England. And yes, I went to one of those elite schools and I know the indoctrination. Very few escape--and certain even fewer who stay on the East Coast and work in the worlds of finance and government. By reaching to incorporate more women, Obama could have broaden the intellectual base as well--and allowed for more true diversity of thought. That is what our government really needs.

MontanaMountainWoman of MT 2:57AM December 24, 2008

The Obama cabinet & other high-level appointees are quite homogeneous in their radical pro-abortion views.

There is no diversity of views.

Obama does not have the courage to appoint pro-lifers into leadership positions.

Obama is in the hip pocket of the pro-abortion lobby. The puppet pulled by strings; pay-back time is here after the elections. Just follow the campaign money trail.

So much for independent thinking & diversity. Same old, same old.

Big Apple of NY 11:17PM December 23, 2008

John A. Farrell

John A. Farrell

John Aloysius Farrell is a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report. An award-winning Washington reporter, he has written for The Boston Globe and The Denver Post and is the author of Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century and an upcoming biography of the great American defense attorney, Clarence Darrow.

advertisement

Cartoons

Robert Schlesinger

An End to the NRA’s Angry Swagger

Polls show that overwhelming majorities of Americans, and even of NRA members, favor universal background checks.

Latest Videos

advertisement