Shining a Light Without Illuminating Anything
June 18, 2009
by Judy Silver
|
Tchen (left) with Jarret at the announcement of the council's formation. Photo by L. Sweet
Since March, when President Obama held a press conference celebrating his creation of the White House Council on Women and Girls, I’ve been waiting for word of what this council would accomplish. I’d love to be excited about it, if only I could understand what it’s doing. The council has no budget, its staffers have other full time jobs, its members are predominantly male, and its mission seems fuzzy. During speeches and interviews, the council’s head, Valerie Jarrett, has spoken only tangentially about the council.
Well finally, we have an update on what’s going on. Tina Tchen, who works for Valerie Jarrett, is Executive Director of the council (as a sideline to being Director of the WH Office for Public Engagement), and runs its day-to-day activities. Yesterday, she gave an interview to Michelle Martin of the Tell Me More radio program on NPR. Here’s how she explained what the council has been up to:
Well, one of the things we’ve done with the council is go to each of the federal agencies and ask them to report on what they’re doing for women and girls, what their plans are, so we can co-ordinate those across the board, because what we wanted to convey by creating a council of every federal agency and every major department in the White House, is that the issues confronting women and girls belong to all of those agencies across the board, and we want everyone involved in addressing them, not just one office or one part of one department. So we’ve been out visiting the departments, we’ve been meeting with them, and there’s great stuff going on out there, and we look forward in the coming months to really shining a light on those and expanding those efforts.
Understand now? No? Me neither. Tchen may be shining a light, but she’s providing no illumination.
Tchen (center) and HHS Sec. Sebelius conducting a roundtable with entrepreneur moms
In fairness, Tchen went on to mention health care, access to capital for small business owners, and work-life balance as women’s issues that she cares about and has had meetings about. But she didn’t name anything — other than to have meetings, to “drill down and focus” and, again, shine a light – that she plans to accomplish. At the end of the interview, Michelle Martin asked Tchen how she will know whether she’s succeeded in her job. Tchen responded:
Well, that’s a hard question, because I think there’s a lot to do, and a lot of ways that we can succeed.
Oh. Now I see. –?
Judy, thanks very much for this update!
We are almost at the 100-day mark for this “Council” and have heard absolutely nothing.
Jarrett is busy with the Chicago Olympics bid….
Geena Davis was right—we will have to wait—maybe in 500 years?
I’m speaking only for myself now, and not for The New Agenda, but I stand by my belief that this president is tone deaf when it comes to women. He has been from Day 1.
For all of those people who believe that he is a friend of women because “he has a wife and two daughters,” look a little closer. If President Obama REALLY cares about opportunities open to his daughters and girls of that generation, he is in a unique position to make a grand statement and shatter some glass ceilings. For instance, he could have made his cabinet chairs 50% women. He could have made this White House Council on Women more than just a name on a page. He could have done lots more things that would have paid off very handsomely for him politically. Instead, he has done only the easy, not the bold. There is no other explanation other than lukewarm interest in women’s issues.
For those who say “well, we have so many more important things to do before we get to women’s issues,” I say that if we resolve some female parity issues, the U.S. most likely wouldn’t find itself in many of the predicaments we are in. Thank goodness for The New Agenda, a group that is bringing us all together regardless of political labels, and leading us down that final mile to equality.
I’d love to be excited about it, if only I could understand what it’s doing./i>
That’s an easy one.
A) Providing political cover to Obama to “shut the little ladies up” and not-so-incidentally keep the checks coming.
B) Provide lots of his cronies good paying jobs for doing essentially nothing.
Any other questions?
Sorry, was sure I’d closed that tag.
People who live in a Post Feminist World have a different viewpoint. At least they have not put Kathleen Parker in charge of Title IX administration. At least not yet.
Bye the Bye, I see that Congresswoman Maloney is planning to wound Senator Gillibrand enough in the primary to ensure that she will not be reelected. I gather Maloney’s attitude is “A man, any man rather than Gillibrand”.
Sounds like a whole lotta meetings and not a whole lotta action.
get the votes, get the positions in government, get the power, hit the streets like the recent Letterman protests which was so nice to see, keep up the salvos of emails to sponsors and others who aid and abet mysogy, keep exposing, keep yelling, keep angry, keep active, keep posting, keep talking, men keep hammering home to your young women loved ones that they can do anything a males can do and men start getting more aggressive with the forces that seek to sexually exploit your wives and daughters and sisters and cousins and nieces and aunts and grandmothers and friends and colleagues – there are not nearly enough men getting real angry over the viciousness of mysogyny but that day is slowly coming.
- weren’t they going to give free knitting lessons to poor girls???
(sarcasm fully intended)
After not putting out the word to ease off the sexist bashing of Hillary and Sarah, who in the hell in their right mind can even pretend Obama has true interests of women in his heart and mind?
After his DOJ’s recent brief on DOMA, we need to remind ourselves that with Obama, sometimes “nothing” is better than “something”.
Marjorie on June 18th, 2009 12:20 pm
The phrase “Pentagon Defense Budget” is a powerful one. Eisenhower, when he left office, warned the US people of the dangers of a large defense budget, it would continue to grow. According to the Inter Press Service, the 2008 defense budget was $647.5 billion, while the budget for programs related to climate change were $7.37 billion.
Dollars are an indication of a countries priorities and a large defense budget must be spent in order to justify next year’s budget. How to do that–invent wars, etc. Always bad for women
Dollars for war harm women in a myriad of ways–not spending to reduce global warming, preventing a national health program, recruiting young people to fight with unreal descriptions of their enemy, but a belief that war is a solution warps our sense of humanity. Since women don’t usually participate in war, they are second class citizens. War gives men a sense of invulnerability, of being owed.
I support and admire women such as with Alice Paul. She and Hillary are role models. But they are up against a defense budget that determines US international relations and US domestic spending priorities and attitudes.
On a more positive note, the Dutch are part of a global project “Communicating for Change: Getting Voice, Visibility, and Impact for Gender Equality” financed by a Dutch MDG fund.
In addition to addressing equality in the US, would it be helpful to examine some of the differences between the US and countries such as the Netherlands and Canada regarding women?
Wonderful it’a going to be about all those girls and women in the white house, and federal agencies……….can she look to her
fellow citizens of the USA? So much for the council on HER self
in the white house.
I’m not encouraged, and once more feel disenfranchised.
This whole council sounds like a lot of spin – lots of movement, but going nowhere.
This is to pad their resumes so they can get a public/private job when they leave the White House. Brilliant maneuvers. Paid to lobby, run govt. funds, or take taxpayer dollars.. sponge.
Tina Brown covered this in her article for the Daily Beast (14/06/09) — “what real female power looks like.” Networking.
http://www.conservatives4palin.....e-for.html
Leave your Response Want an avatar? Get a gravatar!
Community Room
February 22, 2012 at 11:22 am
February 17, 2012 at 2:39 pm
February 6, 2012 at 4:25 pm
January 30, 2012 at 2:36 pm
January 26, 2012 at 4:38 pm
January 23, 2012 at 1:04 pm
January 15, 2012 at 11:37 am
January 9, 2012 at 6:36 pm
BUILD your NETWORK
Our Network of College Women
Protecting our Teenage Girls
We’re in the Media »
Click to see our latest stories in the media
More Stories »Recent Comments
The Latest from our Blog
Archives
Pioneer Mentors
Blogroll
Find us Online
Subscribe Entries (RSS) | Comments (RSS)
The New Agenda is a 501(c)(4) organization dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls by bringing about systemic change in the media, at the workplace, at school and at home. More...