Some women wanted more from W.H.: Politico

Quoted via Politico:

After Barack Obama’s election, some in the women’s movement thought big – pushing for a Cabinet-level office, or even a blue-ribbon Presidential Commission on Women.

But when Obama announced his plans Wednesday, he brushed aside those requests.

Instead, he started the White House Council on Women and Girls — a sort of inter-agency task force with no full-time staff, no Cabinet-level leader and no set meeting schedule.

Women’s advocates who filed out of his East Room announcement Wednesday said they were delighted that their issues would get White House-level attention, whatever the forum.

But Obama’s move left others in the women’s movement questioning why he simply wouldn’t give the panel the prestige and heft they feel it deserves. Some activists already are strategizing about new ways to elevate women’s issues, beyond what Obama did. more