The Fed Chairmanship: And just what does gender have to do with it?

Article here. At a time when policy missteps at the Fed (not like even qualified Fed chairmen can't make mistakes) will have serious consequences not just for the US but the world, the very last thing that needs to happen is to have *any* irrelevant factors in the decision of who'll be the next Fed chairman be introduced. Well as even feminists have been saying for decades, what's gender got to do with someone's qualifications? But maybe for *today's* feminists, it does. Can the rest of us afford this myopia? Excerpt:

'President Obama’s choice of a replacement for the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, is coming down to a battle between the California girls and the Rubin boys.
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The choice of a Fed chair is perhaps the single most important economic policy decision that Mr. Obama will make in his second term. Mr. Bernanke’s successor must lead the Fed’s fractious policy-making committee in deciding how much longer and how much harder it should push to stimulate growth and seek to drive down the unemployment rate.
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But the choice also is roiling Washington because it is reviving longstanding and sensitive questions about the insularity of the Obama White House and the dearth of women in its top economic policy positions. Even as three different women have served as secretary of state under various presidents and growing numbers have taken other high-ranking government jobs, there has been little diversity among Mr. Obama’s top economic advisers.

"Are we moving forward? It’s hard to see it,” said Ms. Romer, herself a late addition to Mr. Obama’s original economic team, chosen partly because the president wanted a woman.'