Obama Makes History As First President To Only Take Questions From Women At Press Conference

Today, President Obama became the first president in US history to only take questions from women at a White House press conference.

Video:

TVNewser provided a rundown of who the president took questions from,

The first question went to Carrie Budoff Brown of Politico, who asked about cyber attacks.

….

The second question goes to Cheryl Bolen of Bloomberg. Up third, Julie Pace from the AP asked about Cuba and whether or not North Korea was acting with another country. The fourth question goes to Lesley Clark of McClatchy Newspapers. “World news Tonight” anchor David Muir just received a shout out from the president.

The fifth question goes to Roberta Rampton of Reuters. Colleen McCain Nelson was up next, asking about executive actions. Juliet Eilperin gets the next question, asking about the Keystone pipeline. April Ryan of Urban Radio Networks gets the last question, asking about the “state of black America.”

Obama joked at the beginning of the press conference that he was selecting his questioners based on a naughty and nice list, so it appears that all the men in the White House Press Corps were naughty this year.

Zeke Miller of Time talked to the White House to see if this had ever been done before at a press conference:

There are no definitive records of questioners in previous administrations, but everyone at the WH is pretty sure this is historic.

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) December 19, 2014

The White House issued a statement on the questioner list:

.@PressSec statement on questioner list: pic.twitter.com/QA44ySvsL3

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) December 19, 2014

This wasn’t a staged “women only” press conference. It was a normal press conference that the president used to strike a blow for gender equality in journalism. The truth is that journalism/blogs/political websites remain dominated by men. There are very few political websites that are owned, operated and run by women.

President Obama has advocated rights and equality since before he became president. The presidency has never had a stronger champion on issues of rights and equal pay for equal work than President Obama. What Obama has been advocating aren’t “women’s issues.” They are American issues that are based on the concepts of fairness and equality.

The president deserves praise for not just talking the talk. He walked the walk, and this time the entitled Beltway testosterone club got a taste of what life is like on the other side of the tracks.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association