Current Article

Is Obama Uncomfortable Around Women?

By Amy Siskind on October 15, 2009 at 7:00 PM in Current Affairs

Republished from The Huffington Post with the express permission of Amy Siskind, President and Co-Founder of The New Agenda.

There’s a sign going up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It reads: “Boy’s Club: Girls Not Allowed.”

Despite much talk of hope and change, President Obama seems largely tone-deaf to women and women’s issues. Post-racial country — yes. Post gender inequality — not so much.

Were we sold a brand that touted diversity, yet delivered a president with a woman problem?

Earlier this week, CNN interviewed me for a segment on President Obama called Where are the women? Good question. Where are they?

The CNN piece was about the latest example of access and the boys club: Obama’s White House basketball game for Cabinet secretaries and members of Congress. Not a single woman was invited to the game. No matter that both Secretary Sebelius and U.N. Ambassador Rice were not only in town but both are hoops players. Hurt feelings? Secretary Sebelius hastened to point out on Leno: unlike Obama, she actually made her college team.

The game last week was hardly an outlier. The Washington Post reports: a log of Obama’s athletic activities, meticulously maintained by Mark Knoller of CBS News, found no women listed among the participants in the president’s various basketball, golf and fishing outings. Neither do women on the White House staff participate in the basketball games Obama’s male staffers, including David Axelrod, have on weeknights.

Obama’s women problem is not confined to sports. When Obama held his highly publicized beer with Skip Gates and Sargeant Crowley, the Editor at MORE asked: Would Obama Talk to Women Over Beers?. Here’s the answer: no! Obama took the opportunity to speak out for Skip Gates, admittedly before knowing all the facts, as a teachable moment on the issue of race. Yet Obama, tone-deaf to women’s issues, was strangely silent when Rihanna was almost strangled to death by Chris Brown. Where was the teachable moment for violence and against women and teen dating violence — both epidemics in our country?

Women’s representation in Obama’s administration is also shockingly low. Of President Obama’s 35-40 czar picks, only 3 are women. Read: over 90% of Obama’s inner circle is composed of men!

The notion of President Obama surrounding himself with powerful women is simply a fallacy. Over 60 picks for cabinet and czars and we can count on our fingers the number of women. This is progress?

And the scant representation of women might explain why women’s issue are seemingly non-existent with this administration. The healthcare bill is especially disturbing. Where is the dialogue on healthcare issues impacting women? How about gender based pricing, domestic violence being a “pre-existing condition,” and, as pointed out by Martha Burk here at HuffPo, reproductive rights.

Reproductive rights. Wasn’t choice the issue used to corral 56% of women to vote for Obama in 2008? Here’s an interesting fact: according to a Pew Poll conducted earlier this month, almost half of Americans don’t know that President Obama is pro-choice.

In fact, since January when, with much ballyhoo, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (which was ushered through the Senate and House by women before it reached his desk), we as women have nothing to show. Yes, Obama did create the White House Council on Women and Girls and appointed Valerie Jarrett to lead it – a notion that I applauded in an op-ed at The Daily Beast. But Jarrett quickly exited stage left to work on Chicago’s 2016 Olympic run, and frankly we have heard bubkas from the council.

So what do we do?

It is time for women’s advocacy groups to take the lead from what the gay rights groups have learned so well. Unite and speak out together. Challenge President Obama on his campaign promises and shockingly low representation of women. Call him out on his women problem and ask him how he plans to address it.

And it is finally time for women’s organizations to end their decades long cold war with Republican women. Women’s organization need to master a skill so inherent to men: negotiation. The Republican Party has promising stars ahead of 2012 including Meg Whitman, Carly Fiorina and Sarah Palin. Leaders of women’s organizations should be making our case to both sides of the aisle.

After all, we have a good product to sell. Our country’s future.

Hadrianus

Yes, he has a problem with women. He’s gay! Look at the drag queen he married.

Katmoon

Scuse me your homophobia appears to be showing. A little education for you:

Being gay does not mean the person hates the opposite sex, they simply prefer their own in intimacy.

Pedophilia and being gay are not related

The people who tend to fear women, are power types, who fear anyone having more power than them, and particularly find it difficult when one of those people is female, as they cannot imagine a woman having any power.
ahs

Nice first comment in a story about women’s issues. You stay classy.

Mairi

Think about it….Meesh is as “manly” as they come! There isn’t a “feminine” bone in her body IMHO. It’s really sad. We have had some tremendously WONDERFUL First Ladies, but I don’t think this one will EVER make that list….not even last. When we DO have a female Prez, she MAY make the list of “First Dudes”, but my guess would be that she would be last on THAT list! Just sayin’…….guess I am no longer “classy” either when it comes to evaluating this sidekick.

Margaret

Funny, and true!!
AnneinPa

dittoes!!! (I don’t care if it’s classy or not!)

to77

not so classy but kinda funny… sorry.

mary

Hadrianus,

Sweetie, thine divine comment portrays some homophobia, no? What’s wrong with ‘drag queens’ anyway? And I reckon our Michele bests Priscilla in the Desert any day.

Meantime, stay classy and don’t give a thought to Amy’s fabulous commentary–it interferes with your ability to reason more than a concept at a time….

stay classy, informed, current and oh soooooo GROOVEY, HADRIANUS!!!OBAMABOT LABUSH IS YOUR MIDDLE NAME!

mary

….on the other hand, you can be sure I’d rather face Godzila himself on Pennsylavia Avenue than Proud MEchele any day….to be fair….but let’s not do to her what the moron leg-thrillers like Matthews and Olberman (take her to the shed) did to Hillary and Palin!!!! I know it’s hard for me, too, but we gotta stick together, people on being FAIR to the fairer sex, no?

HARP

This proves that most socialists are men.
http://deleted BuzzisbackLatte

Obama = a grand failed experiment.
Diana L. C.

He’s a narcissistic man. No woman’s opinion could ever really matter to him.

http://deleted BuzzisbackLatte

Perfectly put, Diana L.C.
PssttCmere

Narcissism is obama’s middle name. And, I wouldn’t discount the idea that he is intimidated by women, as sooooooo many seem so much smarter than he is.

**SayWhatYouWill….It Feels Good**

Katmoon

Post lost.
Sandy

Maybe he should forget the basketball for a while, and concentrate on the job he was hired to do, run the country!2012 cannot get here fast enough. Women, if you were not awake before, this is your wake-up call. This president does not care about you, or womens issues. One term, Barack!

Portia Elizabeth

Great slogan: One Term Barack. We need to organize a Million Women March. Of course we can’t do it ’til after it warms up again. Maybe when the cherry blossoms are in bloom. The real challenge will be to choose a time that coincides with BO actually being in DC.

rosa

Excellent idea!! maybe the gays will march with us.they seem to be able to motivate.
tango

You down with O-T-B? (channeling the Naughty By Nature song “Down with O-P-P”). Hell yah, I’m down with OTB! I think we need to make us a rap song!
indigogrrl

Teh ONCE

CentralMass

His job is to perpetually campaign.

Lou Filliger

Excuse me, but are there men who are not uncomfortable around women?

Mandelay

There are a few, Lou!

Lou Filliger

Then they are much braver than I …..

Ellen D

Yeah, there are men who are quite comfortable with women, and actually LIKE women, but Obama isn’t one of them. I recognize the signs in Obama that I have seen all my life.

When my husband and I became business partners (before we married) he was skeptical that this existed, but I told him that he would come to see it.
Sure enough, we would go to meetings and male clients who knew the areas of expertise of both myself and my partner, would invariably address ALL questions to him. When my partner tried to turn that area of questioning over to me, they would insist on redirecting my area questions back to him.

If you are a woman you know the signs. They can’t look you in the eyes when they talk to you. If you become the only person they have to talk to, they flee.

A famous black star was so visibly uncomfortable with me as the only woman in a production, and it became so obvious, that he finally blurted out to me “As a woman, what do you think of this project?”

Being naturally sharp-tongued I wanted to shoot back “As a BLACK, how do you feel about it?”

However I bit my tongue and smiled sweetly as I gave a non-committal answer.

Oh yes, I have seen men like Obama before.

Lou Filliger

Didn’t I see you on “So You Think You’re A Victim”?

socalannie

wtf?

Lou Filliger

“You know you really shouldn’t take yourself so seriously…
If you wanna know why, it’s cause no-one else does.
Somewhere along the way someone told you you were deep and sensitive
But you’re not…. no you’re not.”

darkknight727

http://www.gallup.com/poll/123665/Hillary-Clinton-More-Popular-Barack-Obama.aspx
Cindy

Thank you, Amy, for this extremely important article.
Keep up your good works!
lark

All I am going to say is that the giant mylar and helium balloon story was the result of Obama’s New Orleans speech one hour before. His speech and the balloon had very few differences and a whole lot in common. Ah, and both had nothing inside. The balloon was thought to have a child but it was as empty as the Obama speech. The difference is that the work to save the child would not be charged to the child’s family while we will all pay for Obama.

Portia Elizabeth

Brilliant analogy, lark!

Both all shiny and followed slaveringly by the press as if expecting, nay, hoping for something to emerge. In the end it was discovered there was just a little boy hiding behind all the hype.

cathnealon

Portia

Yes how brilliant–it’s funny how some universal plan creates the juxtaposition of two very different occurrences to reveal a truth.

Ani

You are right, Amy. Obama and the DNC used the following campaign tactic to get Democratic women (who were Hillary supporters) to vote for him: vote for me or R v W will be overturned.

Threats and bullying. Is this the party you thought you knew?

Women are not just one issue voters, on top of which we are still earning 78 cents on the dollar. ERA anyone.

The Ledbetter Act is still a problem because it give you the right to sue to correct a pay inequity but how do you find out who’s getting paid what in the first place. It is still no guarantee of equal pay for equal work. In some offices, just discussing $$ in this fashion gets you tossed.

FLDemFem

So under the Ledbetter Act, the female Obama campaign workers who didn’t get paid the same as the men for the same jobs could sue Obama for reparations? That would be funny to see..and wasn’t it nice of the Supreme Court to allow the President to be sued while in office?? Who knew that part of the Clinton legacy would be so useful down the line?? Hehehe.

Prem

Meeechelle would probably be threatened or get jealous if he had too many women advisors.

Also, I do think with his Muslim background, at least in Indonesia, and who really knows if he isn’t practicing that faith today (although my suspicions are that he is in fact), women are not highly respected or regarded.

On another note, which seemingly does not have any logic to it to many people, but in his astrology chart he has a Pluto square his Moon—those men do not like women. (I know I’ll probably get a lot of flak for that comment! Ha! But I am a professional astrologer and have seen that aspect in many a man’s astrology chart that have a deep-down resentment of women! They are in need of psychotherapy!)

Psychologically, if his mother abandoned him, he would resent women—classic psychological theory!

Diana L. C.

Hey, quit apologizing. I think this is very interesting. Thanks!
FrenchNail

Prem,

does he really strike you as a Leo? To me he is a classical Cancer. And who knows if he really was born when and where he says… Some say July 18 and not in Honolulu. (Actually with all which has transpired from Hawaii these past two weeks, Honolulu is pretty much out of the race at this point)

Anyway, you won’t get any flak from me on the subject of astrology. Actually, I find that kind of input interesting.
http://N/A breeze

Prem,

MOON square PLUTO

BINGO!!!

http://deleted BuzzisbackLatte

Moon square Pluto would explain alot.

I’ve always considered the birthdate given for Obama as “dirty data” since there’s no confirmation that anything given to the press is correct – ie NO birth certificate.

Aside from the tall stature, he doesn’t strike me as an Aquarian rising, either.

SFIndie

I don’t know why anyone is surprised at Obama’s “discomfort” around women and the lack of women in his administration. We saw his sexist and misogynist behavior in the primaries, and we saw how he did nothing on behalf of women during his 7 years in the Illinois State Legislature. Why would anyone expect him to be any different now? If you supported him, believing his lies about his support of women and women’s issues, then welcome to reality. Obama is behaving exactly as he behaved before. No surprise.

Lyn

Thank you, I’m amazed that ANY group is still surprised that Obama isn’t doing what he SAID he would do, but since they didn’t bother to look at his past actions (or lack of them) and still not only voted for him, but campaigned for, volunteered for ect (and many were nasty to the people that actually took the time to vet him themselves) they aren’t too bright or at the very least naive, so I don’t care what they think now.
I agree the clues during the campaign about his lack of respect for women were pretty clear…right sweetie?

Imperial Dragon

Oh, For God’s Sake, Shut up!! Obama doesn’t care about Men’s issues, actually. If anything, Low-income men are the ones who need liberation,here. Obama and the Democrats still have more female-friendly, anti-male legislation than anything else. Feminism is a lie and a myth! The wage gap is a myth.I Never hear Obama talk about men’s health issues, discrimination against men, etc. How deluded you people are! You don’t know what real oppression is!! You are pampered, and disbelieve that ,too!! GET A GRIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KJMontana

Shut up is always a good way to start a conversation.(snark)

It opens the door to so many reactions from those it is directed toward. We can listen – or – we can tune you out because obviously you don’t value anyone else’s input. So if you are an oppressed male, why the hell should I care?

Portia Elizabeth

Well said, KJ. TY

Docelder

Were we sold a brand that touted diversity, yet delivered a president with a woman problem?

You can tell a lot about his opinion if women by looking at the woman he married. He married one that filled his expectation of what women were to him. Being dumped by his mother for an Indonesian man and later feeling rejected by his typical grandmother… well it figures he would have issues. So, he marries somebody with a permanent scowl who has the outward appearance at least to resent if not hate everybody who isn’t herself. A woman who wears $600 tennis shoes to a photo-op at the homeless shelter. That says a mountain about what he thinks about women deep down. But, his personal baggage aside… I wonder what it must be like to be his daughter?

http://www.BullShit.com OSellingBullShit

I think MO hates herself.

KJMontana

I can see why.
Docelder

Maybe that is a reason to marry a man who dislikes women. No doubt this is a family that could fuel a reality series even without politics. Just having the family go to church would have been entertaining. Well at least as as entertaining as the Osborn’s of the Hogan’s were.

rw

He got 56% of the female vote…. 50% of Americans do not know he is pro-choice.

These stats are depressing.

Obama loves the men in his life and in his head, after all he supposedly wrote, Dreams of My Father, a man he didn’t know. He didn’t write, Accomplishments of My Mother…
Texas Playwright

bho the fraud’s misogynistic, juvenile behavior toward Hillary and then Sarah clearly denotes a problem with women–he’s afraid of them. If he weren’t he’d have manned up and stopped much of the horrible abuse directed toward these two women leaders. When another of my many hopium friends who didn’t bother to vet this puppet in the primary asked me why I wouldn’t vote for him, I said, “For the misogyny alone.” My friend, a man, gave me that patronizing, dismissive smile tone deaf men give women.

I’m still appalled by ANY woman who voted for him, including Hillary, if she did.

rosa

I agree about this opinion about OB . His behavour towards women was enough of a reason not to vote for him, for me. And I cannot believe for one minute that Hillary or Bill would vote for him ,they probably did like I did,once I got in that booth I could not vote for OB or McCain so I wrote the name of who I wanted, which was Hillary Clinton ! She is still the one I want as president .

I can still see the jerk brushing her off and him looking down on her scowling,givng her the finger ,all high school stuff,except hes a little old for that and thats just the baby stuff, the big issues show all the time from his grandma on .

Not suprised

Culturally, Obama can’t have a woman around when his wife is not around. If the woman was a friend of Michelle’s she could be around but only if Michelle was present. Ask any woman in a Black community. Standard behavior.

rosa

I was wondering is there really a feud thing going on with MO and Oprah?

silverfox

so many women were, and continue to be, hoodwinked.

and i am not holding my breath waiting for a woman potus.

enough said
Cathy in Ks.

I agree, I think Obama has a problem with women. I agree with previous commenters who attribute these problems to his abandonment by his real father and the instability of his globe-trotting mother who not only uprooted him at times but also left him in the care of grand-parents. It appears that the most stable part of his childhood were those years he spent with his maternal grand-parents.
Although I don’t like Michelle’s attitude about many things and I don’t like what she said about Hillary during the primaries, I think she has been Obama’s “rock” in his adult life. She strikes me as one “tough lady” who probably had a lot to do with him first entering political life. Obama seems to be locked in the paradox of admiring “strong women” but at the same time being intimidated by them.
http://www.BullShit.com OSellingBullShit

Obama is uncomfortable around his own wife. That’s should tell you how gay this guy is.. Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay.
JMM

EXCELLENT post, thanks for writing it.
ACPD

None of this surprises me. After the overtly sexist and anti-woman election campaign he and his supporters ran, why would anyone expect him to act differently once he got into office? He’s as phony as they come….
yttik

Good article. Yes, Obama is uncomfortable around women, but that’s not even quite the right word. Women are just completely invisible to him. Unless he’s reading a teleprompter quote someone else wrote in an attempt to pander. For Obama women just aren’t part of the equation. They’re an accessory like his wife, his daughters, his dog, his Sotomayor appointment. Women are stage props like that cardboard Hillary cutout his speech writer was so fond of. Beyond that, they don’t even exist in his world.
Sassy

If BOre plays basketball like he bowls, the gals can take him! I’ve been known to foul a few fellows in my younger days.
George W. Bush had Secretary Rice by his side almost constantly, and Karen Hughes was a strong aide to him.
Republican women are not muzzled in today’s world, despite their belief in strong family units.
I predict that the first woman president will come from the Republican party!
Hillary Clinton mastered domestic and foreign issues and look where it got her!
As long as the vast majority of democratic women are lower-income and seeking government services, they will not produce another presidential contender.

mdmdstork

Can you see nerdy David Axelrod trying to play against Kathleen Sibelius? Maybe it’s not just Obama who is intimidated.

http://uppitywoman08.wordpress.com Uppity Woman

That’s ok. Just about ever adult woman I know has a problem with HIM too.
http://uppitywoman08.wordpress.com Uppity Woman

That’s ok. Just about every adult woman I know has a problem with HIM too.

http://deleted BuzzisbackLatte

He (Obama) strikes me as creepy. He always has given off that vibe. He’s not someone you’d want to be around for very long. Ugggh, gives me the creeps just to think about it.
rosa

Actually all the guys around Ob are creepy right down to his snarky press sec. . these people that say he motivates them and his speeches are great , I don’t get that. It just sounds like he is giving us our propaganda to believe ,no emotion ,hes dull to me,he can’t even fake it! Look when Bill Clinton speaks and Of course, Hillary ,Dennis Kusinich ,they mean what they say and have passion. I was trying to remember the dems that really mean what they say .LOL

babawankenobe

Just look at the music he likes- Hip Hop. In most Hip-Hop songs all women are bitties- (street slang for bitches) and ho’s- (a.k.a. prostitutes} to be traded, beaten, sexually abused and then and abandoned for other younger more pliable willing victims. No surprises here from the Obama white house. Women’s rights? An expiration date on that too!
Carmen

He was raised by MUSLIMS! Women are just pieces of property. The clues were all there during the campaign which everyone ignored when people tried to point out that McCain had MORE women on his staff, and PAID THEM MORE than Obama did!

And he does have a sexual identity problem since he most likley had a perverted, drug and alcohol induced relationship with the communist perv Frank Marshall Davis.
ImaLlindatoo

Excellent post Amy. Thank you.

You brought up some excellent points of which I did not pay attention to. I guess I am really getting numb from this presideNot. I noted his “game” of hoops, but said, “of course” when I saw they were all Dem’s (so much for bipartisanness) and just moved on to “ignore the idiot” and didn’t notice the obvious women shut out he keeps displaying.

My problem is that I agree it’s time for women. They bring a common sense approach besides the obvioius highlight on issues important. My problem is I cannot champion just any woman for a job. Not all women are made equal. If I had to choose between Jean Schmidt of OH and Bill Clinton, I would be choosing Bill Clinton. And I think there is no room for me in a womans group because of this mentality. Tell me if I’m wrong.

FLDemFem

I think you are wrong. Any person should be chosen for their abilities for the job. No woman should be hired just because she is a woman any more than no woman should not be hired because she is a woman. Women are people too, and should be treated in the market and work place just like other people..ie men. If Obama had had Hillary’s resume and she had his, I would have voted for him. He doesn’t and never will, so I voted for her. Being a woman was a nice sweetener to the choice, but it wasn’t a factor in choosing my candidate. I am an old time race tracker and when picking a horse, or a race to put a horse in, I always check the past performances. I find that works well for picking candidates too. Hillary’s past performances were stellar, Obama’s non-existent. And that has nothing to do with whether they are male or female. It has to do with what they did and didn’t do. Most women’s groups I have worked with since the ’60′s, including NOW and several local groups, want equality, not preference. Preference is a form of patronage and we have had enough of being patronized, thank you.

ImaLlindatoo

Oh come on. I didn’t type in capitals.

Please free me, I’m locked in the spam filter.

ImaLlindatoo

Thank you,

abbie

What are you all talking about? After all, Ms. magazine put him on their cover with the caption, “This is what a feminist looks like!” (major Kool-Aid drinking going on at that magazine–many of us found it highly offensive at the time and in light of this article, it’s even more disugsting)
Khan Krum

Well, he is the Antichrist. Isn’t that one of the Beast’s characteristic features?
http://pumapac.org dwp

Were we sold a brand that touted diversity, yet delivered a president with a woman problem?

Not all of us were buyers. Many of us recognized the defective merchandise almost immediately.

Next time someone tries to sell you something, opt for foresight.
TeakWoodKite

Secretary Sebelius hastened to point out on Leno: unlike Obama, she actually made her college team.

Take that with SOS Clinton recent comment and you have a duet.

That hurts… You think Palin and Secretary Sebelius would put a can of whoop ass on BO and Axelrod?

I would pay to see BO get Billy Gene’d.
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mary

GREAT COLUMN AMY!

Thanks for an astute, fair analysis! The WashPost and N.Y. Times have been SILENT on this.

Now, please watch THE VIEW and see (it was on Jay Leno’s show a few months ago) just how NERVOUS (nellie) OBAMMA IS SEATED NEXT TO WOMEN. He was touching his trousers, his face, fixing his clothes for every darn second his Empty Suit was seated with these women!

Incredible!

Obamma is truly UNCOMFORTABLE as he does not even LIKE women. PLEASE WATCH HIM ON ‘THE VIEW’ He was absolultely ‘lost’ and AFRAID of htese women. Amazing!

If this prez isn’t gay, I don’t know who would be….

FLDemFem

FYI, most gay men LOVE women..they just don’t want to sleep with them. And they get along beautifully with them. A gay man would have been relaxed and chatty in that venue..a man with misogynist leanings, not so much. Men who don’t like women don’t like them because they feel inferior to them. Psychologically, this can come from being raised by strong women, as Obama was. In the company of so many strong self-sufficient women, he must have felt about ten years old again and not quite making the grade in his own mind. For Obama, that is a very unsettling feeling. It’s no wonder he was nervous.