Obama calls on ONLY men at press conference.

[Luminous Animal]

I remember how upset men were.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/press-conference-president-nuclear-security-summit

The fact is, Obama regularly calls on mostly men. I looked up about 30 press conferences and the questioners were predominately men.

[kelly1mm]

1. Did you search for DU OP's that point out that fact and/or applaud it? I have looked

but can't find any........

[Luminous Animal]

2. Nope. But I looked all over the news to find out if it was even reported.

It wasn't. Also not reported is the fact that, regularly, women are, by far, in the minority when the press conferences are opened up to women.

I also find it laughable that people cannot take this for the gesture in which the Admin intended. That is; in putting together the list for Obama, his press team noticed those who had rarely been called on to ask him a question. The team decided to give them an opportunity. They all happened to be women.

I think it is #1) A good thing to notice and address the bias (and I hope there will be more balance in the future and #) to applaud the Admin for highlighting the bias in his year end conference by calling on the women.

[kelly1mm]

3. Actually I would agree with you IF two things were present. If the Admin had stated we are going to

take questions from those not called on much (regardless of gender) then I would be VERY supportive of that. If it turned out that was all women I would be fine with it.

Second, they probably should not have made the joke about 'naughty and nice' in connection with this outreach. Can you not see how it at least seems that men would be 'naughty' and women 'nice' according to the administration with this outreach?

[Luminous Animal]

4. They did state that they called on those who were not called very often.

"The fact is, there are many women from a variety of news organizations who day-in and day-out do the hard work of covering the President of the United States. As the questioner list started to come together, we realized that we had a unique opportunity to highlight that fact at the President's closely watched, end of the year news conference," he said, according to Time Magazine's Zeke Miller.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/19/obama-women-press-conference_n_6356440.html

And, I do think it was a lame joke but I don't think it was directed towards men but to the entire press pool which includes women that he does regularly call on. I think it was supposed to be in spirit of the season.

[kelly1mm]

5. The quote says nothing about them not being called on, just that they are women and do hard work. nt

[Luminous Animal]

6. Sorry. It was in another tweet. I'll see if I can find it.

[kelly1mm]

7. Again, I am ALL FOR calling on any reporter (of any gender) who is not being called on

in a fair manner (making some adjustments for size/scope of media operation they represent) and have no problem if it is all women (or all men) who thus get called on.

I DO have a problem when you make a conscious effort to make anything single gender, no matter your 'good' intentions.

[Luminous Animal]

8. Here we go from Mark Knoller of CBS News

https://twitter.com/markknoller/status/546030050710388736

It states:

TV reporters were advised in advance that @PressSec wanted other reporters not regularly called on to get to question the Pres.

[kelly1mm]

10. hmmmmm, ok that seems logical. I wonder why the 'on the record' quote above does not mention

that. Further, if that is the main reason, (not regularly called on) I would assume that some enterprising young GOP staffer is out there right now crunching the numbers to make sure that these 8 reporters were the 8 reporters that statistically were those least called on. It was just a coincidence that they just happened all to be women. Or maybe not.

[Luminous Animal]

11. To begin with, women are… by far… the minority when called on to question the President.

By far. And most of these women are from major news organizations. In the 30 or so press conferences that I pulled up from the White House site, not one of the women called on today were ever called on to ask a question in the past.

So we have the Admin addressing the imbalance and I am not afraid of the GOP's ignorant spin on the issue.

[kelly1mm]

12. I never knew the Obama Administration was so biased against women. I did a google search

search and found that the White House pays it's women staffers less too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/08/us/politics/as-obama-spotlights-gender-gap-in-wages-his-own-payroll-draws-scrutiny.html?_r=0

If these 8 women had never been called on in 30 pressers before than they certainly would meet the test of being unfairly treated so I have no problem then with them being called.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

9. .

[GusBob]

13. This whole topic is LMFAO hilarious

BO is trolling us all. I think the next 2 years are gonna be a lot of fun. Peoples' heads will be spinning out of control and exploding at the same time.

Am dying to know who came up with all this 4th quarter game plan. Genius

[NCTraveler]

14. A man told me I was suppose to show up here and shriek.

So here I am, shrieking. Not sure why, but I do what I am told.

[demmiblue]

15. "Trying to resurrect the sex wars again?"

Quote from another thread.

Someone here (actually, many ones) has a sad.

Thank you for pointing out the double standard.