Author: Margie Omero

Ivanka Trump Could be the Most Powerful First Lady Ever

Kate Andersen Brower, Washington Post – December 16, 2016

But unlike her predecessors who weren’t the wife of the president, Ivanka appears poised to be an adviser, advocate and hostess all at once. Which could revolutionize the role — and make her the most powerful first lady ever.

Read More

Women and Minorities Could be Missing from the Cabinet’s ‘Big Four’ Jobs for the First Time Since 1993

Jena McGregor, Washington Post – December 16, 2016

Now that Donald Trump has named ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as his pick for secretary of state, the transition has reached a milestone of sorts. Nominations for the most prized jobs in the Cabinet — the people who lead the Departments of State, Defense, Justice and the Treasury — are all in place, filling what have come to be known as the “big four” jobs. As The Post wrote in 2011, these are the “original departments created by George Washington, with the heftiest portfolios” — the most high-profile positions and among the foremost voices guiding the president’s thinking on critical military, foreign affairs, justice and economic issues.

Read More

Trump’s Cabinet is Mostly White and Male. What will that Mean for Policy?

Gretchen Frazee and Kenya Downs, PBS NewsHour – December 16, 2016

President-elect Donald Trump and his transition team have received scathing criticism for putting together one of the least diverse cabinets in recent history. The cabinet is nearly all-white and all-male — and mostly older and affluent.

Read More

Presidential Gender Watch 2016 Reflects on the Role of Gender in the Presidential Election at The Atlantic’s Politics & Policy Briefing

How did gender influence candidate strategy, voter engagement and expectations, and electoral outcomes in the race for the nation’s highest executive office? Panelists unpacked these themes during “The Politics of Gender: Women, Men, and the 2016 Election,” a discussion among political strategists, scholars, and commentators convened by The Atlantic, and underwritten by Presidential Gender Watch 2016, on December 13 at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

Read More

Men’s-Rights Activists Are Finding a New Home With the Alt-Right

Claire Landsbaum, New York Magazine – December 14, 2016

Back in May, while addressing a crowd of supporters in Spokane, Washington, Donald Trump took time to lament the current state of gender relations. “All of the men, we’re petrified to speak to women anymore,” he said. “We may raise our voice — you know what, the women get it better than we do, folks, they get it better than we do.”

Read More 

Melissa Harris-Perry: “Since When” Has Racism or Sexism Disqualified an American President?

Emily Crockett, Vox – December 14, 2016

At a Tuesday forum hosted by the Atlantic on gender in the 2016 election, political commentator and Wake Forest University professor Melissa Harris-Perry said she wasn’t surprised that Donald Trump’s racism and sexism didn’t keep him from winning the election.

Read More