Wednesday, February 25, 2004
A troubling survey came out last week. The Center for Women in Government and Civil Society at the University at Albany reports the percentage of women in governor-appointed leadership posts nationwide dropped last year to 32 -- that after a consistently upward trend between 1999 and 2001, from 29.8 percent in the former year to 35 percent in the latter.
Why should you care? You should care if you're a man who desires government that takes care of your daughter's needs or your wife's needs as responsively as it looks after your own. You should care if you're a woman looking for fair consideration of your own interests.
Why is this happening? In a word, (make that two words) don't know. But here's a clue. Look at what happened in Mississippi last month. The Associated Press issued the following dispatch: "In office only a few days, Republican Gov. Haley Barbour already is facing criticism for his selection of state agency directors. The criticism is less about the people he has chosen than about the demographics of the group -- all male, mostly white. Television reporters asked Barbour at a pre-inaugural event in Tupelo why he had not appointed women as agency leaders.
"'The kinds of jobs we've been dealing with so far -- corrections, the highway patrol, public safety, the Bureau of Narcotics -- not exactly the key jobs pointed in that direction,' Barbour said. 'Give us a little bit of time.' Days later in Jackson, he was asked to clarify what he meant.
"'There are very few women who have chosen these fields, corrections and others,' Barbour said ... the day after his inauguration. 'So the people that you have to choose from in these fields, who've had the opportunity to rise high enough in management to have a proven record, the vast, vast, vast majority of them are men just because those fields tend to be chosen by men and less by women.' "
All I can say is, "Yeah, right." This is the type of atavistic argument that had some credence back in the '60s and '70s, but nowadays sounds just a bit too much like horse-hockey. And it's one that voters should not tolerate.
I'm not for quotas -- I'm four-square opposed to them. But numbers tell a story, too. And when appointments go 100 percent to one demographic group and 0 percent to another, that can't be anything but the result of discrimination. The only way "boys will stop being boys" in this regard is if "girls" squawk when they stop "acting right." One hopes a howling media will tame Barbour into submission and force him (and other backward governors, whether of the Republican or Democratic party) to be more fair-handed in appointments.
Compliant
It wouldn't be a bad idea for women to start squawking on the national level, either. In fact, we've been remarkably compliant about the president's appointments to high office. Right now there are three women in the Bush Cabinet, or some 20 percent of the 15 slots (one unfilled at the Department of Housing and Urban Development at the moment). However, when you add in the fact the six "Cabinet-rank members" are all pale and male, that means 3 of 21 of the country's most powerful appointed officials are women, or a paltry 14.3 percent. Sorry to have to pose the question, but where's the outrage?
Another indication: During his eight years in office, President Bill Clinton nominated 440 people to the federal bench. Among them, 131, or 30 percent, were women. Of President Bush's 216 nominees to date, 46, or 21 percent, have been women. Women's groups gave the Clinton White House unending grief (as well they should) about boosting those percentages. Where are they now? Can they even get a toe in the door? To go back to the second question, "Why is this happening?," I still don't know. But maybe the states are following the federal lead (as they often do) and women are too busy doing other things to notice.
X Bonnie Erbe, TV host, writes this column for Scripps Howard News Service.