For International Women’s Day on Tuesday, President Trump tweeted that he has “tremendous respect for women” and that they are “vital to the fabric of our society and our economy.”
I have tremendous respect for women and the many roles they serve that are vital to the fabric of our society and our economy.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 8, 2017
But a new analysis shows that he has found very few of them suitable to help run the federal government.
After ProPublica released a list of all the officials Trump has appointed to federal agencies, Bloomberg analyzed their gender breakdown through name analysis and crosschecking with public profiles.
It found that of the 436 people hired by Trump so far, just 27 percent are women.
Among the more high-profile 24 people nominated to his cabinet so far, just four are women—about 16 percent. Trump is on course to have a smaller share of women in his first cabinet than Presidents Obama or Clinton and on par with President George W. Bush.
That’s a far cry from proportional representation of women in this country, who make up half the population and just under 47 percent of the labor force.
It also doesn’t stack up very well against corporate America, where diversity has already long been lacking. Among the largest American companies, women make up over a third of managers and about a quarter of senior executives. They hold about 20 percent of board seats on Fortune 500 companies.
No U.S. president has ever had a government staffed by equal shares of men and women. But about 43 percent of the people Obama appointed in his first term were women and Clinton had about the same share. Even Bush appointed about one-third women to positions in his administration.