The president, after all, is an unabashed First Guy’s Guy. Since
being elected, he has demonstrated an encyclopedic knowledge of college
hoops on ESPN,
indulged a craving for weekend golf, expressed a preference for
adopting a “big rambunctious dog” over a “girlie dog” and hoisted beer
in a peacemaking effort.
He presides over a White House rife
with fist-bumping young men who call each other “dude” and
testosterone-brimming personalities like Rahm Emanuel, the often-profane chief of staff; Lawrence Summers, the brash economic adviser; and Robert Gibbs, the press secretary, who habitually speaks in sports metaphors.
The technical foul over the all-male game has become a nagging concern
for a White House that has battled an impression dating to the
presidential campaign that Mr. Obama’s closest advisers form a boys’
club and that he is too frequently in the company of only men — not
just when playing sports, but also when making big decisions.
While the senior adviser Valerie Jarrett
is undeniably one of the president’s closest White House confidantes,
some women inside or close to the administration complain that Mr.
Obama’s female advisers are not as visible as their male colleagues or,
they suspect, as influential ....
Mr. Obama, in an interview with NBC
on Wednesday, called the beef over basketball “bunk,” saying that the
players were largely picked from a regular Congressional game and that
the list of invitees was reviewed by women on his staff. “I
don’t think it sends any kind of message or signal whatsoever,” said
the president, who often points out that he is surrounded by strong
females at home (where he is the only non-canine male). He added, in
the interview, that he had hired women into “some of the most important
decision-making positions in this White House.”
Ms. Jarrett
similarly rejected the notion that the West Wing had been overrun by Y
chromosomes, saying such complaints were “a Washington perception that
has nothing to do with the reality on the ground.”
She cites the prominent women Mr. Obama has appointed to top positions, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and six other cabinet-level officials; Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor; the health care czar, Nancy-Ann DeParle; and the domestic policy adviser, Melody Barnes. According to figures provided by the administration, there is a 50-50 gender split among White House employees.
Still,
some high-profile sectors of the White House — economics and national
security, for instance — are filled with men and exude an unmistakable
male vibe. Mr. Obama’s inner circle includes Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Emanuel and
his senior adviser, David Axelrod (“The Boys,” as they are known to some female staff members).
Women in important White House jobs tend to be less visible than their
colleagues, even as the administration is trying to elevate their
profiles. (In the same week as the basketball game, Anita Dunn, the
White House communications director, hosted a group of women reporters
for an off-the-record meeting with Ms. Jarrett over chocolate chip and
oatmeal cookies.)
One Democratic media strategist says that
while Mr. Obama does place women in important roles, his comfort level
with staff members is not always perceived as equal.
“There is a
sense that Obama has a certain jocular familiarity with the men that he
doesn’t have with the women,” said Tracy Sefl, an adviser to Mrs.
Clinton’s presidential campaign who speaks regularly to some female
aides in the administration.
In interviews, five women who work
in the White House or advised officials there described the culture
with more of a collective eye-roll than any real sense of grievance or
discomfort. One junior aide, who like the other women spoke on the
condition of anonymity because of concerns about appearing publicly
critical, said that the “sports-fan thing at the White House” could
become “annoying” and that her relative indifference to athletics could
be mildly alienating. And while this is not uncommon in any workplace,
sports bonding can afford a point of entree with the boss ...
Mr. Obama
is hardly the first commander in chief whose penchant for sports and
other guyish stuff (comic books, “Star Trek”) has become part of his
presidential persona. The first President George Bush presented himself
as a horseshoe-playing, pork-rind-eating Texan. He was followed by the
Big Mac-gobbling, cigar-chomping Bill Clinton and the brush-clearing, bike-busting George W. Bush. It worked to good effect, said Mark McKinnon, a media adviser and mountain bike companion of the latter Mr. Bush.
“We
see them as president but know they can also shoot hoops and put the
hammer down on a chain ring, which makes them more accessible, normal
and likable,” Mr. McKinnon said.
Recreation is only one source of
affinity within a White House culture, people there say. Obama veterans
describe a camaraderie forged over a grueling campaign and a merciless
nine months at the White House. It is not about gender, they say, but
shared experience.
“Many of us have known each other for a long
time, and we have brother-and-sister kind of relationships,” said Jen
Psaki, the deputy press secretary, who works in an office with seven
other spokesmen under 35, all “brothers” from the campaign.
Other
women in the administration say that any discussion of White House
culture should account for how politics has long been dominated by men
but is now more inclusive. Ms. Dunn, who had to take a typing test
three decades ago to work for a campaign, rejects the notion of a boys’
club. She calls the Obama administration “refreshingly
un-self-conscious” about matters of equality, maybe to a point where
they neglected the “optics” of the all-male basketball game.
Ms.
Dunn said that she recently hosted a baby shower for an administration
official and that no men from the office were invited. She is
comfortable with that — just as she is fine with never playing
basketball with the president.
“That is just part of the culture here that I am excluded from,” she said. “And I don’t care.”
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