Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Obama Creates White House Council for Women

Today, Obama created a White House Council for women, which I believe is a big step for women all across the United States. The purpose of the new panel is to analyze how the government's policies will impact females. This panel will be headed by Valerie Jarret, who is a senior adviser to President Obama. Valerie Jarrett is a very powerful and influential women from Chicago, and a loyal supporter of Obama. During the primaries against Clinton, Jarret described one of the challenges Obama campaign's faced was “to introduce him to the American people so that they can see what the Women around him (Obama) know”.


Photo of Valerie Jarret

In a speech to introduce the Council, Obama stated that “It's up to us to carry on that hope, to ensure that our daughters and granddaughters have no limits on their greatness, no obstacles to their achievements, that they have opportunities that their mothers, their grandmother and great-grandmothers never dreamed of".

Obama also said that “I sign this order not just as a president, but as a son, a grandson, a husband and a father. These issues are not just women's issues. When women make less than men for the same work, it hurts families who find themselves with less income and have to work harder just to get by."

Here's the link of the news article for more info on the new White house Council.

We already saw a preview of Obama's interest in shattering the glass ceiling in the passing of the Lilly Ledbetter law, which created a policy of a woman's right to equal pay for equal work. I believe that the new White House Council for women is one of the first steps Obama will take to finish shattering the glass ceiling which Hillary left undone. This Council is a big deal in that it shows the amount of dedication the Obama administration is willing to put into women's rights. Who knows, maybe the White House Council for Women will help the Obama administration shatter the glass ceiling.

3 comments:

Emily R. said...

This is awesome. Go Obama!

Gary Chompytooth, PhD. said...

This is a wonderful thing the President is doing. I think the only thing that makes me upset is the fact that this council didn't exist before! It's amazing how even in the new millenium we have only recently made this step, and it still surprises me every time I hear that women STILL aren't getting paid as much as men.

Even though there is more tolerance of sexist comments than racist comments, I believe that is because people are a lot more comfortable with women than they are with ethnic minorities, and so they are more comfortable with joking about them. You would think that if we are comfortable enough to make jokes about women in the same way that we do about men (and yes, I believe there are just as many sexist jokes and stereotypes about men as there are about women) then we would be treating them equally. Good for Obama for trying to fix what is really an ancient, backwards problem.

Gary Chompytooth, PhD. said...

I would also like to comment upon WHY Obama is able to pass all these laws and bills and makes councils having exclusively to do with a minority group - it's because he isn't part of that minority. If Hillary Clinton had won she would have had to wait a while longer before creating councils of this nature, as people would revert to their stereotypes of women and say that the only reason she wanted to be president was so that she could help people of her own kind. This is why Obama hasn't really done a whole lot having to do with his own race, because he would face similar stereotypical comments, and people would doubt his authenticity and authority as President.