And most of his “playmates” are not even administration members. They are friends and pseudo-celebrities…

A regular pick-up game is NOT silly.

It’s an opportunity to build stronger relationships with coworkers and your boss (the president). It’s also an opportunity to have someone’s ear and discuss things in a low-key setting.

Things come up at these games. Everyone shoots around to warm up. You chat about stuff. Usually, it’s casual (how are the kids doing?) or goofy trashtalking. That stuff MATTERS. It’s the glue that holds social relationships together. You build common ground. You gain familiarity and trust. Also, sometimes work stuff comes up out of nowhere, and you wind up having a conversation that actually has some effect.

Obama deserves credit for the general inclusiveness of his administration, but that does not entitle him to a pass for failing to recognize one of the most subtle ways in which women are excluded in the current workplace. It’s about socialization and the access and opportunity that these kinds of “games” offer.

I may not agree with the approach NOW has taken, and I wouldn’t necessarily agree that this is a high priority concern compared to others, but it is very real. I wonder if maybe you’ve never participated in these kinds of events in a workplace setting to see the access it gives you to people you wouldn’t otherwise get a chance to talk to, whether it’s through company softball or pick-up basketball games with colleagues, or golf outings (a popular place for deals to be made), which is why you think it’s just a silly game.

They are using a silly basketball game to try and illustrate a real issue. That is trivializing the real issue.

Instead of crediting Obama with giving women great opportunities in his administration, NOW focuses on a non-issue.

When people talk about glass ceiling and exclusive behavior that exists today, it’s not about refusal to hire. It’s about being able to participate in the social networking activities that allow for career growth. This includes golfing and pick-up basketball.

Does that mean that most or even more than a few people would be interested? Probably not. When I organized regular faculty-student pick-up games, I always made it clear that women were welcome and invited to play. But to be honest, the reality is that once we had a solid group coming that already had some level of experience or skill on the court, we had a hard time getting more than one or two other women or older faculty members of either gender to want to run with us. And I’ve always been a bit concerned that my overuse of sports references and analogies is exclusionary of non-sports fan, a group that is disproportionately female.

Is NOW over-reacting? There are more important things to worry about. However, you’re trivializing a completely legitimate complaint about the barriers that women face in the workplace.