By MARY PATRICK
Even with a Democrat in office who often speaks about the importance of diversity, women still are not being named to high-level in jobs in Washington D.C. at the same rate as men.
President Barack Obama has not named more women to high-level posts than President Bill Clinton did back in the 1990s, according to the New York Times. The newspaper reports that by most measures of gender diversity – including how many women hold told cabinet posts – the Obama administration does not look that much different than the administration 20 years ago.
This comes at a time when the United States House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate and private, corporate America have put more women in positions of power.
The New York Times story appeared as the Obama reportedly is considering nominating Janet L. Yellen as the first female leader of the Federal Reserve.
“There’s room for improvement and we’ve seen some missed opportunities,” Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, told the Times. “We’re all watching the Fed to see what will happen there.”
This is happening against the backdrop of a continued rise in the number of female college graduates as compared to men. In 1970, according to the book, “The Rise of Women” by Thomas DiPrete, 20 % of men and 14% of women finished college.
By 2010, the female graduation rate had grown to 36%, while men had risen to only 27%.
According to the World Economic Forum, the ratio of female to male college students is 1.4 to 1.
Interestingly, despite the higher college numbers, gender integration has not happened across all fields. The U.S. Department of Commerce reports that while women have about half of all the jobs in America, they have less than 25% of the jobs in the growing STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and math.
In some areas, the Obama administration has gone beyond previous administrations in appointing women. For example, 42% of confirmed judges appointed by Obama are women, compared to 22% appointed by President George Bush and 29% appointed by Clinton.
However, the number of women in the administration is at 20th Century levels. For example, women hold about 35% of cabinet posts in Obama’s administration, while Clinton had 41% at this same point in his administration, according to the New York Times. Bush had just 24%.
Both Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis left the administration at the beginning of Obama’s second term. However, Obama has appointed Samantha Power as ambassador to the United Nations and Susan E. Rice as national security advisor.
In January, according to the Times, Obama responded to the criticism by saying, “I would just suggest that everybody kind of wait until they’ve seen all my appointments, who is in the White House staff and who is in my cabinet, before they rush to judgment.
“Until you’ve seen what my overall team looks like, it’s premature to assume that somehow we’re going backwards. We’re not going backwards, we’re going forward.”
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