White House “Women’s Council” In the Works
No, not that kind of women’s group.
According to Chris Cilliza’s The Fix, “President Obama will sign an executive order tomorrow [that's today now, readers] to establish a White House Council on Women and Girls.” Cilliza’s intel may be good, but his analysis of the move leaves something to be desired.
Writes Cilliza: “Obama has both personal—his wife and two daughters—and political reasons to make this sort of high profile move to ensure that women’s needs are being addressed by his administration.”
Well, allow me to retort.
Is it really necessary to note that men should be interested in women’s issues because they, like, know a few of them? Does Cilliza report on the stimulus bill by writing, “Obama has personal reasons to pass his bill, because he knows several humans”? Does he report on Obama’s FDA appointments by writing, “Obama clearly has a personal stake in this issue, seeing as the President himself consumes food to sustain life”?
No—only women’s issues would need to be explained through “personal” reasons. Obama’s a man! What the hell would he want to help women for? Oh, he has two lovely daughters.
Ugh. Okay. Back to less infuriating details on the new ladies’ group:
According to a White House memo, “The mission of the Council will be to provide a coordinated federal response to the challenges confronted by women and girls to ensure that all Cabinet and Cabinet-level agencies consider how their policies and programs impact women and families.”
The council will be headed by Valerie Jarrett.
Photo by Bascom Hogue
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4:42 pm
i love this stuff. it’s an example both of ingrained patriarchy blahblahblah but also the laziness that such frames enable. the sentence is pure fluff – the mission statement of the council speaks for itself (not that it says much). also there’s the sad part at the end about “women and families,” i.e. “women and the kitchen with which they should be familiar.” a really positive move on the part of the administration (can anyone imagine bush stressing the importance of addressing women’s needs?) but lame beauracraspeak as usual.