Groups Push Obama For Cabinet-level Office on Women

Letter here (.pdf file). Excerpt:

'As leaders of women’s organizations and advocates for women’s equality, collectively
representing over 14 million women, we are writing to elaborate on the need for historic levels of women’s appointments and the need to restore and strengthen executive branch offices for women.

We applaud your initial appointments of talented women and we encourage you to further gender balance your White House, Cabinet, and executive appointments. The U.S., with women composing just 17% of the members of Congress, ranks 71st among the world’s parliaments in representation of women. With women so underrepresented in Congress, we believe it is crucial for women’s representation to increase dramatically at the executive branch of decision-making. Many of us will be submitting names of excellent and diverse women for your consideration.

Like you, we believe that we are at a time of real change in our nation’s history. Through both words and actions, you have encouraged and challenged the nation to think transformationally.

In this spirit, we urge you to create a Cabinet-level Office on Women that will deal not only with the status of women, but with the many inequities women face in our society, our nation, and our world. Such an office is even more necessary today, because of the increased disparities and backward movement of the past eight years.'