WiA 2009: not quite done yet

The meeting is over now, but I still have so much to say and no time right now write it all up. But I will say:

• I saw Michelle Obama!! (through a window with many Secret Service agents in between, but still! She was maybe 20 feet away!)
  
• Tina Tchen (Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and Executive Director of the White House Council on Women and Girls) is really awesome. She's my newest feminist hero.
  
• Ms. Tchen assured us that the White House is very interested in promoting science, diversity, and women's issues. Which we knew already, but it's always nice to hear again.
  
• We were able to show Ms. Tchen how these issues relate to each other when talking about women in science, and she said herself that she hadn't seen some of those connections until we pointed them out to her.
  
• The OSTP fellow who met with us, Sarah Stewart Johnson, is a woman astronomer herself! Glad to see that one of us has infiltrated is working with the White House staff!
  

We should also remember that the Executive Branch is only one of three in the federal government. While it's good to know that one is already on our side, we still need to make our voices heard to our legislators also.