Pete Souza/OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE PHOTO - President Barack Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office on July 31, 2011.
Friction about the roles of women in the Obama White House grew so intense during the first two years of the president’s tenure that he was forced to take steps to reassure senior women on his staff that he valued their presence and their input.
At a dinner in November 2009, several senior female aides complained directly to the president that men enjoyed greater access to him and often muscled them out of key policy discussions.
Wonkbook: Gingrich and Romney have the same problem
Those tensions prompted Obama, urged on by senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, to elevate more women into senior White House positions, recognize them more during staff meetings and increase the female presence in the upper ranks of the reelection campaign. “There were some issues early on with women feeling as though they hadn’t figured out what their role was going to be on the senior team at the White House,” Jarrett said in an interview Monday. “Most of the women hadn’t worked on the campaign, and so they didn’t have a personal relationship with the president.”
The women’s-inclusion issue in the Obama White House is featured prominently in a controversial new book to be released Tuesday, “Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington and the Education of a President,” by journalist Ron Suskind.
The book, based on more than 700 hours of interviews, including one with Obama, quotes a number of top officials describing a difficult work environment at the time for women, due largely to the dominating roles of male officials such as economics adviser Lawrence H. Summers and chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
The acknowledgment Monday by White House officials of discontent among high-level female staffers in the early days came even as Obama aides tried to paint the Suskind book as inaccurate. The book was reported with cooperation from the White House, but now it could backfire, raising questions about Obama’s management style in the early stages of his administration. Suskind’s full media blitz begins Tuesday with appearances on NBC’s “Today” show, public radio’s “Fresh Air” and Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.”
One of the most striking quotes in the book came from former White House communications director Anita Dunn , who was quoted as saying that, “this place would be in court for a hostile workplace. . . . Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women.”
Dunn says she was quoted out of context and told The Post on Friday that she told Suskind “point blank” that the White House was not a hostile work environment.
On Monday, Suskind allowed a Post reporter to review a recorded excerpt of the original interview, which took place over the telephone in April. In that conversation, Dunn is heard telling Suskind about a conversation she had with Jarrett.
“I remember once I told Valerie that, I said if it weren’t for the president, this place would be in court for a hostile workplace,” Dunn is heard telling Suskind. “Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements for a genuinely hostile workplace to women.”
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