Trump Administration the Most Male-Dominated in Nearly 25 Years | Sojourners

Trump Administration the Most Male-Dominated in Nearly 25 Years

Image via Flickr/NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

Eighty percent of nominations for top positions in the Trump administration have been men, according to a new analysis from The Guardian. This makes the Trump administration one of the most "male-dominated federal government in nearly a quarter-century," with a gender ratio of four men to one woman for top posts in the administration. 

Conversely, George W. Bush's administration in his first term had three men to every one woman, and two women served for every five men in the Obama and Clinton administrations. 

The Guardian reports: 

The Obama, Bush and Clinton administrations, Gips said, all made efforts to pick administration officials who “looked like America” in terms of their race, gender and viewpoints, and under Obama, geography. But doing so took work. “There’s always a government in-waiting who want to come in, and unfortunately, they often are mostly white men.”

The 80% figure comes from an analysis of 408 political nominees Trump has sent to the Senate for approval – 327 men and 80 women. The Senate has confirmed 129 of those nominees, and a handful are holdovers from the last administration. 

These statistics contradict the administration's pledge “to be very broad and diverse, both with the Cabinet and the administration," as the current cabinet consists of a lower distribution of women and people of color since Ronald Reagan's first cabinet. 

Don Gips, the White House personnel director for the first term of the Obama administration, said, "If you’re not intentional about it [diversity], it won’t happen." 

Read more here.