Flanked by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett and wife Michelle, Barack Obama announced today the creation of the White House Council on Women and Girls.

“The mission of the Council will be to provide a coordinated federal response to the challenges confronted by women and girls to ensure that all Cabinet and Cabinet-level agencies consider how their policies and programs impact women and families,” reads the memo announcing the Council’s creation.

I’m excited about this announcement– I think it shows that Obama is at least willing to entertain conversations like this– but my optimism is cautious. I found it interesting that some of the coverage of this announcement focused on the political upside of Obama’s decision. The Washington Post’s Chris Cilizza speculated that,

“Obama has both personal — his wife and two daughters — and political reasons to make this sort of high profile move to ensure that women’s needs are being addressed by his administration.

In 2008, 53 percent of the electorate was female and Obama carried that group 56 percent to 44 percent over Arizona Sen. John McCain. That is a significant improvement from Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) performance in 2004 when women made up 54 percent of the electorate and the Democrat won them by only three points.

Obama and his team know that if he can maintain his 2008 margin among women in his reelection race in three years time, he will be sitting pretty. Expect then more symbolic moves like the establishment of the Council to demonstrate Obama’s commitment to women and women’s issues.” [emphasis mine]

It doesn’t do any of us– women, the LGBT community, any of us– any good if these actions are for the benefit of press and  politics considerations.