Women’s History Month: Women in the Cabinet
Women’s History Month is observed each March in the United States. It provides a time to honor the many historical contributions of women and girls. This week btw looks at the history of women officials who have served in past and present presidential administrations. President Trump has recently appointed several women to powerful positions in his Cabinet. But he is not the first president to do so. Read this article to find out more.
A Brief History of Women Cabinet Officials
The Cabinet is a group that advises the president and is made up of the heads of key departments. It is the president’s job to nominate people to those seats. (The Senate must approve many of these Cabinet nominees before they can begin their work.) In all American history, a total of 72 women have been appointed to presidential Cabinets. (43 of these have been appointed by Democrats, and 29 by Republicans.) Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president to appoint a woman to his Cabinet in 1933. He nominated Frances Perkins to the role of Secretary of Labor in 1933. Including Roosevelt, only twelve presidents have appointed women to Cabinet or Cabinet-level positions.
While Perkins was the first white woman appointed to a presidential Cabinet, it was President Jimmy Carter who nominated the first African American woman. Carter chose Patricia Roberts Harris as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in 1977. Later, Aida Alvarez became the first Latina Cabinet member. (President Clinton nominated Alvarez to lead the Small Business Administration in 1997.)
Elaine Chao became the first Asian American Pacific Islander woman on a Cabinet. She was appointed in 2001 by President George W. Bush to lead the Department of Labor. In 2021, President Joe Biden selected Deb Haaland to lead the Secretary of the Interior. She was the first Native American woman to serve in the Cabinet.
Historically, women are most often appointed to the role of Secretary of Labor. (To date, seven women have held this position.) No women have ever served as Secretary of Veteran Affairs or Secretary of Defense.
How Does the Trump Team Measure Up?
Currently, women hold 25percent of the seats in Trump’s Cabinet. Pam Bondi is Attorney General; Kristi Noem is Secretary of Homeland Security; and Brooke Rollins is Secretary of Agriculture. This percentage also includes three other positions that are often considered Cabinet-level in terms of power and importance: Linda McMahon (Department of Education), Tulsi Gabbard (Director of National Intelligence); Kelly Loeffler (Small Business Administration); and Susie Wiles (White House Chief of Staff).
President Trump has nominated another woman to serve in his Cabinet. The U.S. Senate has not completed approval votes for Lori Chavez-DeRemer for Secretary of Labor. Elise Stefanik has also been nominated to be the Ambassador to the United Nations. If all of these individuals are accepted by the Senate, it would raise the number of women serving in Trump’s Cabinet when compared to his first term from 2017 until 2021.
At that time, Trump appointed two women to Cabinet positions: Elaine Chao as Secretary of Transportation, and Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education. He also chose two women to fill other Cabinet-level positions: Nikki Haley as U.S. Representative to the United Nations, and Linda McMahon as Small Business Administration Administrator. By the end of his first term, about 26 percent of Trump’s Cabinet roles (seven positions total) had been filled by women.
For a recent comparison, during his four years in the White House, President Biden appointed a total of thirteen women to his Cabinet. That means that half of his Cabinet positions were filled by women–the highest percentage of female Cabinet members in history. This included the first female Vice President, Kamala Harris. The administration with the second-highest share of women in the Cabinet was President Bill Clinton’s second term (1997-2001), in which 41 percent of Cabinet seats were held by women.