Obama announced this Wednesday that he intended to appoint Janet Yellen to succeed Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Federal Reserve when he steps down this January. Her chair(wo)manship, should she be confirmed, would be an encouraging milestone in an administration that has had a mixed record on female appointees – while averaging roughly the same gender breakdown on appointees as the Clinton administration at 43%, top level positions and a number of specific areas continue to be highly male-dominant, and not for lack of qualified female candidates. In the Departments of Justice, Veteranâs Affairs, and Energy, male appointees outnumbered women 2 to 1. And if you try and factor in the Mommy Track, remember that weâre the only industrialized nation in the world without mandatory paid parental leave – many of the women professionally stymied by the necessity of staying home need not to have been. Yellenâs appointment is a promising beginning, but it is a beginning nonetheless.  From state legislatures on through, we need to lessen the gender disparity in American government – not only because it behooves us as a country built on principles of the equality of humanity to act like it, but because weâre in dire straits, and more women in government could be an important part of the solution.
The fact that the Obama administration is on par with the Clinton administration in terms of female appointees is good – the White House itself employs a nearly equal ratio of men and women. But the White House is just one small part of the larger picture. A record number of women are serving in our national legislatures – with ârecordâ meaning 78 women in the House and 20 in the Senate, 18% and 20% respectively. The state legislatures, while receiving far less attention than their national counterparts, are far worse. In California, female legislators hold just 26% of the available seats. And yet thatâs higher than the national average of 24%, which of course represents a range from a somewhat cheering 40% in Colorado to a decidedly dismal 10% in South Carolina.
Moreover, despite the cherished American exceptionalism racket, weâre middling to mediocre compared to other nations in terms of percentage of women in legislatures. The Guardian compiled a list of women in parliament globally, and weâre tied, at 78th. With Turkmenistan. Pakistan, in which girls like Malala Yousafzai face the possibility of getting shot in the head for daring to get on a schoolbus, has us beat by 26 spots. Uganda, where sleeping with the person you love can legally enable the state to take your life, is 19th. The UK has us beat by 25 spots, (though you figure Kate and her flowing chestnut locks have to account for at least 20 of them). And you know whoâs number 1? Rwanda. Because after the population was utterly decimated by genocide, there were barely any men left.
So why does it matter? Representational government doesnât mean that if you donât have the number of Maltese-Americans in Congress precisely proportional to their populational presence, the Constitution will spontaneously combust. âBy the peopleâ carries in it a significant amount of leeway. But gender is one of the most fundamental possible distinctions between people, and itâs one with group-specific needs. While itâs certainly reductive to say that only women can properly understand the needs of other women, there are areas in which men havenât done the best job (hereâs looking at you, Texas state legislature). Further, women are more likely than men to introduce legislation about womenâs rights, reproductive health, childrenâs health, health care generally, and welfare: areas I think we can agree deserve further attention.Â
But this article isnât why women need more women to be in government – our entire country benefits by having more distaffs on staff. Thereâs substantial research contributing to the idea that diverse personnel fosters innovation, something that a system as stunted as ours dearly needs. In that vein, a Credit Suisse Research Institute study of 2,360 companies globally found those with boards with female representation outperformed those with none. In another study published in the Harvard Business Review, researchers found that female leaders were consistently rated by their subordinates and peers as generally more competent than their male counterparts. And this was in a variety of areas, not just those considered to be more female-friendly – you know, ability to communicate, resolve conflict, distribute hugs and lollypops, etc.
So yes, the appointment of Janet Yellen is landmark, watershed, a fabulous inflection point in the eternal graph of hiring practices. (And letâs not forget the fact that sheâs tremendously qualified and likely to do a killer job). But letâs also not forget why her appointment is so remarkable: because it is a reminder of how much work is still left to be done. There are still dozens of the highest-level government jobs that have never been occupied by a woman. How is it possible weâve only had male Librarians of Congress? (There are male librarians?) Secretaries of the Treasury, Veteranâs Affairs, Defense have been exclusively men, when everyone knows women make GREAT secretaries. NASA Administrator, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, White House Chief of Staff, Directors of the FBI, CIA, NSA, National Intelligence – so far the only time any of these jobs have been held by women has been on The West Wing. Is there some measure of self-selection? Sure. Is that enough of a factor to explain why jobs as disparate as Comptroller of the Currency and – well – President have never been held by women? Not even close.Â
Â