Female Adviser Joins Obama on the Links

An Obama adviser became the first woman to play a round of golf with the president since he took office this weekend, after the president caught heat for hosting an all-male basketball game earlier this month. (Obama has played 23 rounds of golf since last January.) His penchant for weekend golf outings with the guys, as well as a young male, “dude”-calling staff, has led women's advocates to worry that Obama is excluding the fairer sex, an accusation the president has shrugged off. According to statistics provided by Obama’s administration, half of all White House employees are female. Though Obama counts Valerie Jarrett among his senior advisers and closest confidantes, some within or close to the administration say the president’s female advisers are less visible and thus, influential, than their male counterparts. The president called the accusations surrounding the basketball game “bunk,” adding that he’s surrounded by strong women at home and at the office. Though an adviser to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign said Obama “has a certain jocular familiarity with the men that he doesn’t have with the women,” five White House women told The New York Times they didn't detect any sexism, though one said not being into sports was slightly alienating. Melody Barnes, Obama’s chief domestic policy adviser, joined the president on the links on Sunday.