Thursday was International Women’s Day. It was also the day the picture above was taken in the Oval Office.
Notice anything about it? Anything, you know, missing?
Pictured — on the US side — are President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats among other men.
Trump is speaking with Chung Eui-yong, the South Korean national security adviser who announced the offer and acceptance of a meeting between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump sometime before May, and other members of the South Korean delegation.
You might notice that there are a whole lot of dudes in the picture. Hell, even the paintings in the photo are of dudes! I see you George Washington and Thomas Jefferson!
The only woman in the whole photograph — whether real or in a painting — is sitting behind Trump and to his left. She appears to be either a note-taker or a translator.
As Politico’s Susan Glasser tweeted about the photo Thursday night: “Happy International Women’s Day.”
Trump has been criticized in some circles for the dearth of women in top jobs in his administration. Of the 23 Cabinet and Cabinet-level posts filled by Trump, women hold just five, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. That means just 22% of his senior level Cabinet jobs are held by women, well below the 35% of women in President Obama’s 2nd term and less than the 30% of women in Obama’s 1st term. In fact, the 22% of women in Cabinet roles is the lowest since George W. Bush’s 1st term when that number stood at 19%.
Trump defenders note that a number of his senior staff — White House adviser (and daughter) Ivanka Trump, press secretary Sarah Sanders, senior counselor Kellyanne Conway — are women.
True enough. But in the room where perhaps the biggest foreign policy moment of Trump’s presidency — the news of a meeting between him and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — went down, there were no women present besides a notetaker or translator.
And, as we all know, you need to be in the room where it happens to see how the game is played, the art of the trade, how the sausage gets made.
