Last week, newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made headlines by nominating 15 women to his 30-seat Cabinet. Asked why he did it, he replied, “Because it’s 2015.”
Last I looked, it was 2015 in the United States, too. And yet, only seven of America’s 22 Cabinet-rank positions, excluding the office of the vice president, are held by women.
Why can’t the United States do what Trudeau managed? If half of the members of Canada’s Cabinet can be female, why couldn’t we get to 50 percent, too? We’re talking about finding, at minimum, 11 women out of the almost 160 million in this country who could serve in the Cabinet at once, even fewer than in Trudeau’s highly qualified group.
The above excerpt was originally published in Politico Magazine.
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