Trump’s gender parity falls short

WOMEN APPOINTEES

POLLY MOSENDZ AND TOM RANDALL NEW YORK • Women have been named to 27 per cent of the appointed roles filled by President Donald Trump so far, according to a Bloomberg News analysis of records newly released by the federal government. That number falls far short of overall representation in the U.S. labour force, where women account for 47 per cent.

The gender breakdown of Trump’s first wave of appointees was based on a list of appointee names obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests by ProPublica.

The non-profit publication sent requests to the Office of Personnel Management and some two dozen federal agencies, though only six responded.

The ProPublica list includes 436 people, mostly hired in late January, and doesn’t include appointees who require Senate confirmation. The White Houses reportedly expected to appoint about 520 employees during a transitional period.

There is evident gender disparity in the roster of Trump appointees. The most lopsided departments included Commerce, Treasury, and Energy — where fewer than 15 per cent of the appointees were women.

The highest ratios of female appointees, roughly half, were in the State Department and Health and Human Services.

Trump’s cabinet, among the most visible roles in any administration, includes four women out of 24 positions. President Obama named seven women to his first cabinet.

The Obama administration drew criticism at times for the perception that the atmosphere at the White House was challenging for women. Anita Dunn, a onetime White House communications director in the Obama administration, complained of a boys’ club atmosphere.

“Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women,” Dunn told the journalist Ron Suskind in a book published in 2011.

Still, there appears to have been a much smaller gender gap among appointees in the Obama era.

The New York Times, in a report published in 2012, found that women held about 43 per cent of appointed roles in the Obama administration. The same report found President George W. Bush named women to roughly one-third of appointed roles.

Wednesday marked International Women’s Day, and a nationwide protest against President Trump included rallies in Washington, D.C., and outside the Trump International Hotel in New York City.

“I have tremendous respect for women and the many roles they serve that are vital to the fabric of our society and our economy,” President Trump said in a tweet.