Obama should appoint a woman to Commerce, because jobs for women are not a given.
January 5, 2009
by Sheryl Lee
Women’s unemployment is rising as fast as men’s. The most recent version of Obama’s economic stimulus package, revealed Saturday, is expected to cost taxpayers $775 billion and create or preserve 3 million jobs, but it does nothing to allay concerns that women will not receive a fair share of job creation dollars.
Women typically suffer greater hardship than men in times of economic downturn. More women in government means more support for issues that affect women, according to the UNIFEM report released this Fall. For this reason, Obama should appoint a woman to replace Bill Richardson, who has withdrawn as U.S. Secretary of Commerce-designate.
In U.S. News & World Report, Bonnie Erbe writes, “Barack Obama Should Replace Bill Richardson in Cabinet With Kathleen Sebelius“:
She wouldn’t be as much fun for reporters [as Richardson], but she’s an incredibly capable person and beloved governor who deserves to be in the cabinet. She played an important role in the Obama campaign and would boost the number of women in top administration jobs, a point I’ve blogged on in the past.
Erbe previously expressed concern about the dearth of women in Obama’s cabinet:
[I]t’s important to reinforce the fact that Obama’s breaking no new number with his female appointments. […] Just because I’m talking quantity does not mean I’m not also concerned about quality. But read the New Agenda list of women [found here] he passed over. There were plenty of experienced, talented, professional women available to fill any of his cabinet posts.
Women should take this into account when he’s up for re-election four years from now.
This week in the Greensboro News Record, Eileen Boris, Lisa Levenstein and Sonya Michel looked at the parallels between Obama’s economic stimulus plan and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, the latter of which neglected to provide for women. In their article “Obama’s stimulus plan must include jobs for women, too,” they wrote:
Women make up 46 percent of the labor force, and they’re almost as likely as men to be the principal supporters of their families.
However, women are not likely to be hired for jobs rebuilding infrastructure. Therefore some women, they argue, ought to be trained and hired for “nontraditional” employment, ie. “men’s work.” Nevertheless, they say, his won’t be sufficient to ensure women get equal support:
[E]ven if the stimulus package guarantees women an equal chance at the new jobs, it still won’t address the occupational sectors in which most female wage-earners are concentrated, such as education, child care, social work, health care and care for elders and those with disabilities.
This echoes Linda Hirshman in her New York Times Op-Ed piece of December 9, 2008,”Where Are the New Jobs for Women?”:
Maybe it would be a better world if more women became engineers and construction workers, but programs encouraging women to pursue engineering have existed for decades without having much success. At the moment, teachers and child care workers still need to support themselves. Many are their families’ sole support.
The New Agenda co-founder Amy Siskind notes:
Meanwhile, two open Senate seats in both Illinois and Colorado have recently been given to men, continuing a pattern of moving representation of women in this country to a standstill or backwards. As well, Sheila Bair, the sole woman on the Bailout Team is being pushed out by proposed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Pew Research recently reported that in 43% of all U.S. homes, women make more of the decisions on household finances (men make more in 26%, and in 31% of homes it is equal). After carrying 56% of the female vote in the 2008 Presidential Election, we had hoped that President-elect Obama would give the women of this country a voice. Thus far, he has failed to deliver. Filling this seat with a qualified woman would be a step in the right direction and alleviate the hemorrhaging of woman from our country’s leadership.
Working conditions and wages for women are also areas of concern. Women, on average, still earn only 78 cents for every dollar earned by men, and in fields where women are underrepresented, support for women’s retention and career success must also be given consideration.
Bottom line: Obama should appoint a woman to Commerce. As Bonnie Erbe says, if he doesn’t, women ought to file that information away until he’s up for re-election in 2012.
UPDATE:
Kansascity.com reports that Gov. Kathleen Sebelius doesn’t want the post.
The Chicago Tribune heard a rumor that Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm might be the pick.
The Seattle Stranger reports that Washington State Gov. Christine Gregoire has made a sudden trip to Washington D.C., but her office, while saying there will be an announcement of some kind tomorrow, won’t confirm anything about the nature of the announcement.
The New Agenda member Kevin explains why he believes appointing a woman to Commerce is important for women.
Daphne Merkin writes in The Daily Beast about how women are systematically denied access to economic arenas.
Bravo Sheryl.
One of your best pieces to date!!!
What a great tie in of how our President-elect has performed so far. We need to spread this far and wide.
Thanks, Amy.
Spot on. You nailed the most important aspect of this. Thank you.
Sheryl,
You said “300 million jobs”. Is this a typo? I’ve heard Obama talk about 5 million, 17 million less than Clinton created, but not 300 million.
Sheryl
Great work! You managed to weave a lot of different things into the whole with a good sense of logic and flow. Not easy to do. Thank you for doing the research, organizing the info and writing a great piece!
Two tips for future reference
1. When using acronyms (like UNIFEM) always spell out the name of the org so readers who don’t know what it means (I include myself in that ignorant bunch) can be educated. Otherwise, such junctures can become a wall the reader hits and some don’t continue on (thanks to the increasingly short attention span of the American public).
2. The reference to infastracture jobs comes late in the piece and a bit out of the blue. Perhaps more logical to put up in the first paragraph to help make sense of the opening claim regarding women’s concerns about being left out of the stimulus package.
Sorry….
3. Title: …appoint a woman as Secretary of Commerce, instead of ‘to Commerce.”
Hi Amy,
The radio show was great tonite.
I think we know what we need to work on, and it’s a long list. I think the planning, strategyzing and tactical moves are what we need to think about.
We need a voice in the media. The question is how do we get one and can we get a voice without having to compromise the message to such an extent that it’s drowned out anyway. Maybe the use of targetted boycotting can create an avenue for gaining access to the media and influence over the message.
One thing I think we need to think about is the differences between the women’s movement and others such as the civil rights and gay rights movements. Women are not and do not form a community. Many other groups do. We are parts of other communities, but don’t make up a community of our own in the same way that there is a “black community” for example.
Gender dynamics are very complicated and because we give birth to men, we sleep with them, they are our brothers, fathers, husbands and sons, we are not a separate “community” from them. The familial relationships we have with men often isolate us from our cause. Because of this reality, we need different approaches, support systems and strategies to moving us forward.
Educating children and adults about women’s history and oppression in this country and the world is severely lacking. and is very important The civil rights movement is a big part of what our kids are learning in the public school systems. Almost every 10th grader knows of MLK Jr. and Melcolm X, but most college educated women don’t know about Alice Paul, Elizabeth Caddy Stanton, Margret Sanger and so on. I learned of Susan B. Anthony in high school, while learning about the abolitionist movement to end slavery. It wasn’t until I was in college and taking women’s studies courses that I learned of her women’s rights work. We have taught a whole generation about the Civil Rights movement and the history of black slavery and segregation in this country, but they know almost nothing of women’s struggles and our History. This is truley appaulling. This is a big peice of the puzzle and until people understand our history and oppression, we will not move forward. Through education, we can create a collective consciousness about sexism and misogyny that does not currently exist. The success of erasing our history and struggle is exactly what has kept us invisible.
Sorry for being all over the place, but I’m just thinking out loud.
Thanks for listening my thoughts.
Ack! 3 million, not 300 million. Fixed it. Thanks.
I think this organization is on the right track.
[...] Amy Siskind of The New Agenda must have read our post on the Double X, where we call for scrutiny of the next Congress’s legislation in order to ensure that women benefit from any stimulus packages that are proposed. She pointed me in the direction of this post by Sheryl Robinson, Obama should appoint a woman to Commerce because jobs are not a given. [...]
[...] Obama should appoint a woman to Commerce, because jobs for women are not a given. (by Sheryl Robinson at the New Agenda) Women typically suffer greater hardship than men in times of economic downturn. More women in government means more support for issues that affect women, according to the UNIFEM report released this Fall. For this reason, Obama should appoint a woman to replace Bill Richardson, who has withdrawn as U.S. Secretary of Commerce-designate. Is Obama listening? See below. [...]
[...] read this excellente post by Sheryl Robinson over at The New Agenda: Obama should appoint a woman to Commerce, because jobs for women are not a given. Sneaky, [...]
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