Clinton says half her Cabinet will be women

[The Other Castro]

Clinton could fill her entire Cabinet with women and it would be just as capable as an all male Cabinet. Gender is not being prioritized at the expense of real expertise here. There is absolutely nothing wrong with what she said.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Adam, there's too many politicians on your list. She'd want a few technocrats, especially ones she knows and trusts.

[136or142]

I updated my Cabinet selections to 8 men and 7 women after Justin Trudeau appointed a cabinet with gender parity.  There are several other cabinet ranking positions but I'm less familiar with them.  This would make her cabinet gender equal because if I were here I would choose Elizabeth Warren to be my Vice Presidential nominee.

While I don't really have an issue with mandated gender parity one way or the other, I do find it bizarre and laughable that in the United States where something like 90% of the CEOs of Fortune 500 Companies and at least over 80% of the members of the Boards of Directors of those companies are men, that it's only when women are hired for these positions that questions are raised on 'did they get hired due to merit?"

There already is enormous gender bias, but it's men (and almost always white men) who are the direct beneficiaries of this bias.  I personally regard much of the 'we must hire the best person' nonsense as nothing more than push-back from white males against the loss of this undeserved privilege.  

Anyway, this is my latest cabinet prediction, please tell me which one of these, regardless of their gender, you regard as not being competent:

1.Treasury, Deval Patrick
2.Commerce, Jill Docking
3.Labor, Alyson Schwartz
4.Interior, Raul Grijalva
5.Agriculture, Bill Haslam (depending on what he does with the Anti LGBTQ legislation)
6.Energy, Rush Holt
7.Transportation, Julian Castro
8.Housing and Urban Development, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake
9.Education, Judy Chu
10.Housing and Urban Development, Michelle Nunn
11.Veterans Affairs, Robert MacDonald
12.Defense, Ash Carter
13.State, Tom Daschle
14.Homeland Security, Jennifer Granholm
15.Attorney General, Loretta Lynch

This just shows how few competent people of either gender we have if this is the sort of list you come up with.

Everyone of them is far more qualified to be even President than most of the gang of idiots than ran for the Republican Presidential nomination.

[Blair]

Also lets remember the type of people saying this would have most likely criticized Frances Perkins and Thurgood Marshall as tokens.

[136or142]

Adam, there's too many politicians on your list. She'd want a few technocrats, especially ones she knows and trusts.

I know.  I'm not familiar with all that many non elected policy experts.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Judy Chu? Yeah, it appears she was on a school board in the 1980s, but what else has she done in relation to education? She's not even on an education-related committee in the house.

[136or142]

Judy Chu? Yeah, it appears she was on a school board in the 1980s, but what else has she done in relation to education? She's not even on an education-related committee in the house.

She was a psychology professor prior to getting elected to political office.  Beyond that, the Federal Department of Education is not supposed to have any say in the running of schools or in education curriculum.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Very egalitarian of her.   She's going to win the women's vote, so she feels it important for Trump to win the males.

The men who are going to be outraged by half of cabinet positions going to women were not going to be voting for Clinton anyway.

Yes, she's made sure of that.   drip drip drip.   But she can still help with turnout.

Please describe for me the voter who wouldn't turn out to vote against Clinton because she's a woman, but will turn out to vote against her because she might appoint a female Secretary of the Interior.

It's not about her appointing a female Sec of Interior.  It's her making a deal about promoting people for being female, and how Joe Blow has had it too easy all his life because females aren't getting enough appointments int eh halls of power and female CEO billionaires only make $790 million.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I think King would stay on in Education.

Omg if HRC really wants to set the cat amongst the pigeons, she could appoint Michelle Rhee lmao.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I updated my Cabinet selections to 8 men and 7 women after Justin Trudeau appointed a cabinet with gender parity.  There are several other cabinet ranking positions but I'm less familiar with them.  This would make her cabinet gender equal because if I were here I would choose Elizabeth Warren to be my Vice Presidential nominee.

While I don't really have an issue with mandated gender parity one way or the other, I do find it bizarre and laughable that in the United States where something like 90% of the CEOs of Fortune 500 Companies and at least over 80% of the members of the Boards of Directors of those companies are men, that it's only when women are hired for these positions that questions are raised on 'did they get hired due to merit?"

There already is enormous gender bias, but it's men (and almost always white men) who are the direct beneficiaries of this bias.  I personally regard much of the 'we must hire the best person' nonsense as nothing more than push-back from white males against the loss of this undeserved privilege.  

Anyway, this is my latest cabinet prediction, please tell me which one of these, regardless of their gender, you regard as not being competent:

1.Treasury, Deval Patrick
2.Commerce, Jill Docking
3.Labor, Alyson Schwartz
4.Interior, Raul Grijalva
5.Agriculture, Bill Haslam (depending on what he does with the Anti LGBTQ legislation)
6.Energy, Rush Holt
7.Transportation, Julian Castro
8.Housing and Urban Development, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake
9.Education, Judy Chu
10.Housing and Urban Development, Michelle Nunn
11.Veterans Affairs, Robert MacDonald
12.Defense, Ash Carter
13.State, Tom Daschle
14.Homeland Security, Jennifer Granholm
15.Attorney General, Loretta Lynch

This just shows how few competent people of either gender we have if this is the sort of list you come up with.

Everyone of them is far more qualified to be even President than most of the gang of idiots than ran for the Republican Presidential nomination.

That only proves my point.

[136or142]

Very egalitarian of her.   She's going to win the women's vote, so she feels it important for Trump to win the males.

The men who are going to be outraged by half of cabinet positions going to women were not going to be voting for Clinton anyway.

Yes, she's made sure of that.   drip drip drip.   But she can still help with turnout.

Please describe for me the voter who wouldn't turn out to vote against Clinton because she's a woman, but will turn out to vote against her because she might appoint a female Secretary of the Interior.

It's not about her appointing a female Sec of Interior.  It's her making a deal about promoting people for being female, and how Joe Blow has had it too easy all his life because females aren't getting enough appointments int eh halls of power and female CEO billionaires only make $790 million.

Maybe Hillary Clinton feels that the majority of the 'best people' for cabinet jobs are women.  So, this is also about promoting people for being male.

[This account no longer in use.]

Anyways, I don't believe my position is hard to understand. Hillary Clinton can pick anybody competent, and I'd be fine with it for the most part. I don't discriminate.

[DINGO Joe]

Very egalitarian of her.   She's going to win the women's vote, so she feels it important for Trump to win the males.

Trump is gonna have all male cabinet, except for Sec of Interior, ya know somebody to do a little decorating.

[136or142]

I updated my Cabinet selections to 8 men and 7 women after Justin Trudeau appointed a cabinet with gender parity.  There are several other cabinet ranking positions but I'm less familiar with them.  This would make her cabinet gender equal because if I were here I would choose Elizabeth Warren to be my Vice Presidential nominee.

While I don't really have an issue with mandated gender parity one way or the other, I do find it bizarre and laughable that in the United States where something like 90% of the CEOs of Fortune 500 Companies and at least over 80% of the members of the Boards of Directors of those companies are men, that it's only when women are hired for these positions that questions are raised on 'did they get hired due to merit?"

There already is enormous gender bias, but it's men (and almost always white men) who are the direct beneficiaries of this bias.  I personally regard much of the 'we must hire the best person' nonsense as nothing more than push-back from white males against the loss of this undeserved privilege.  

Anyway, this is my latest cabinet prediction, please tell me which one of these, regardless of their gender, you regard as not being competent:

1.Treasury, Deval Patrick
2.Commerce, Jill Docking
3.Labor, Alyson Schwartz
4.Interior, Raul Grijalva
5.Agriculture, Bill Haslam (depending on what he does with the Anti LGBTQ legislation)
6.Energy, Rush Holt
7.Transportation, Julian Castro
8.Housing and Urban Development, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake
9.Education, Judy Chu
10.Housing and Urban Development, Michelle Nunn
11.Veterans Affairs, Robert MacDonald
12.Defense, Ash Carter
13.State, Tom Daschle
14.Homeland Security, Jennifer Granholm
15.Attorney General, Loretta Lynch

This just shows how few competent people of either gender we have if this is the sort of list you come up with.

Everyone of them is far more qualified to be even President than most of the gang of idiots than ran for the Republican Presidential nomination.

That only proves my point.

That's one way of looking at it.

[RaphaelDLG]

Quotas are bad particularly because they are illogical and unmeritocratic but also because they foster both racism/sexism and fictional monolithic ideas of race and gender.

HOWEVER due process in hiring and promotion needs to be aggressively and relentlessly pursued because sexism is real and hiring and promotion is conducted on the basis of subtle masculine-favored norms.  Hillary would be eminently qualified to ruthlessly introduce such a system of anti-sexist red tape.

It wouldn't be easy but its vastly superior to quotas IMO.

[Reginald]

She must have quite the binders.

[dspNY]

This is a big nothingburger. She could pick a 100% female cabinet as long as they are competent

[ProudModerate2]

I don't think it's ever a good idea to say things like this.
You need wiggle room to pick the most competent people ... period.
They don't need to be 50% men, or 18% Hispanic, or 10% GLBT, etc etc.

[SillyAmerican]

Obvious pander for the woman's vote. I don't care if she wants women, or Hispanics, or whatever in her cabinet, but if she's actually picking a woman over a more qualified (and ideologically okay) man, that should be considered discrimination on the basis of sex, and therefore a crime.

Yes, but of course nobody will be able to prove that anything wrong was done, so Hillary will not have done anything wrong, right? Come on, get with the program. Go Hillary, our feminist hope...

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

As bad a vibe as the fact that Hillary is looking to the example of Justin Trudeau for bold leftist leadership gives off, there seriously is nothing wrong with this because almost any conceivable position will have at least a few potential 'most competent people' for it, and in a whole bunch of cases at least one will, amazingly, be a woman! In very few cases is there ever one obviously, 'objectively' most qualified person for a job.

[Slander and/or Libel]

Almost any conceivable position will have at least a few potential 'most competent people' for it. In very few cases is there ever one obviously, 'objectively' most qualified person for a job.

More, everybody is already implicitly conceding the subjectivity inherent in this by glossing over the fact that the picks for a Democratic President would be entirely different from the picks for a Republican President.

[IceSpear]

I find it hilarious that so many people in this thread think Hillary can't find less than a dozen qualified women for cabinet positions, and therefore will be putting in unqualified ones solely to fill a quota.

In the words of Obama, we don't need a bunch of binders in order to find qualified women!

[Lief 🗽]

Wow sometimes you forget that Atlas is full of sexist teenagers, but threads like these always make you remember.

[Gass3268]

She should go all out and have every person in her Cabinet be a woman, plus a female VP.

[sentinel]

The Senate may or may not have thoughts on that.