Valerie Jarrett confronted Obama about "macho" White House

[brooklynite]

Source: Axios

Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to President Obama, writes in "Finding My Voice: My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward" (out Tuesday from Viking Press) that she confronted him about a "general macho atmosphere" in his West Wing that "was causing women to feel uncomfortable":

What they're saying: "If you notice," Jarrett told Obama, "in meetings the women rarely talk. And when you aren't there to ask their opinion, they are becoming increasingly mute." Jarrett writes that in response, Obama invited "over a dozen of the senior women for dinner at the White House to discuss what was going on."

&quot H)e gave us his undivided attention for two and a half hours."

&quot H)aving the president himself assure (the women) of their value ... gave us the courage and confidence we needed to make our voices heard."

Read more: https://www.axios.com/valerie-jarrett-obama-macho-white-house-book-7266d21c-3d00-4531-b8af-ba5d3698a594.html

[Laurian]

1. Confronted seems like the wrong word.

Informed would be more appropriate. He wasn’t resistant, just unaware of the macho atmosphere that was noticeable when he wasn’t present.

How refreshing to know that he seriously, respectfully and consistently considered the input of women in his administration.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. The direct copy/paste of the square brackets in the OP article

along with the use of an adjacent quote mark, just screws with the formatting on DU since DU uses BBS-style square brackets for post format functions. It also results in emoticon activation in some instances. You'll probably need to use regular parenthesis instead and add a space between the quote mark and parenthesis! I.e., something like this -

" (H)e gave us his undivided attention for two and a half hours."

[Phoenix61]

3. What a real leader acts like.

Miss him every single day.

[narnian60]

5. +a million

[djacq]

4. "undivided attention" "assure of their value"

Thank you Obama.

[ehrnst]

6. The women then used a technique called "amplification"

When President Obama took office, two-thirds of his top aides were men. Women complained of having to elbow their way into important meetings. And when they got in, their voices were sometimes ignored.

The Post is exploring how women gain, consolidate and experience power in politics and policy.

So female staffers adopted a meeting strategy they called “amplification”: When a woman made a key point, other women would repeat it, giving credit to its author. This forced the men in the room to recognize the contribution — and denied them the chance to claim the idea as their own.

“We just started doing it, and made a purpose of doing it. It was an everyday thing,” said one former Obama aide who requested anonymity to speak frankly. Obama noticed, she and others said, and began calling more often on women and junior aides.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/09/13/white-house-women-are-now-in-the-room-where-it-happens/

[question everything]

7. Of course it was. Starting with keeping Favreau there instead of firing him

after "capping" Clinton's breast

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/12/favreaus-sexist-photo-is-no-laughing-matter