Chuck Grassley says Republican women in the Senate do not sit on the Judiciary Committee because they do not want to do the job

It was not very beautiful: 11 white senators, lined up to question the woman who had made allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court candidate Brett Kavanaugh – which happened because he There is not a single woman senator on the Republican side of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate. Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) explains this lack of diversity: Republican women apparently do not want to be there because it's too much work.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Grassley made this statement while speaking with reporters on Friday – before coming back later.

"It's a lot of work – maybe they do not want to do it," Grassley said. "My 33-year-old chef de cabinet told me that we had tried to recruit women and that we could not do the job."

According to WSJ, Grassley came back later to say that he did not want to isolate women. .

"We have trouble getting men to the committee. It's a lot of work, whether you're a man or a woman, it does not matter, "he said.

In an attempt to clarify his remarks, Grassley said he hoped more women would join the justice committee next year. He thought that on average, every woman in the US Senate, that she sits in the judiciary or another committee. , probably works more than the average man. "

Grassley also said that he thought "probably five" would be the right number of women in the US Supreme Court, consisting of nine members. He voted in favor of the confirmation of Judges Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court, appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, respectively, and against the confirmation of Judges Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, both appointed by President Barack Obama.

The Judiciary Committee of the Senate is over 200 years old. The Republicans still have not brought a woman.

The Senate Judiciary Committee was created on December 10, 1816, according to the committee's website, as "a public forum for discussion on social and constitutional issues." In nearly 202 years, Republicans have been able to find no women to sit on the panel.

And it's not that women in the Senate, be they Republican or Democrat, are not in the Senate. A total of 52 women were appointed to the Senate, starting with Rebecca Latimer Felton, who served only 24 hours after her appointment to Georgia in 1922. Eighteen Republican women served in the United States Senate.

The Senate currently has 23 women, including 17 Democrats and six Republicans: La Sens. Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, Joni Ernst from Iowa, Susan Collins from Maine, Cindy Hyde-Smith from Mississippi, Deb Fischer from Nebraska and Shelley Moore Capito from West Virginia.

Democrats have found women to complete their ranks on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Among his 10 members, there are four women, including Senator Dianne Feinstein of California.

This disparity did not favor the Republicans during the Kavanaugh hearings: the optics of 11 white Republicans questioning the candidate and Christine Blasey Ford, a professor at Palo Alto University, accusing her of sexual assault he denied) was bad. That's why the government has hired a prosecutor to do some of the interviews. And the committee members composed exclusively of whites and men, who nominates Kavanaugh, are also very bad looking.

The GOP seems aware of the optics, but instead of appointing a woman to the committee, Grassley said they simply could not find one, despite the fact that at least five members passed the bill.