from the WAGE project:
Employers pay women less than they pay men for the same reason male dogs lick their balls - because they can. And like male dogs, employers won't stop willingly.
THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR NOT PROVIDING EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK. PERIOD. FULL STOP.
It is a systemic problem in need of a system-wide legal solution; it has been ongoing for more than 40 years without the 'free market' providing anything resembling a problem.
There is absolutely NO factual basis to claim that women don't want to earn equal pay - as was done by a Wisconsin conservative law maker who took as his factual authority his understanding of something claimed by the blond idiot Ann Coulter. There is absolutely NO factual basis for a claim made by a Texas woman in that state's Republican party that men are better negotiators. And there is absolutely no rational assertion that demanding to be paid fairly and equitably will result in being perceived as inferior in any way, or as whining. These right wing women just make stuff up; it has no validity or substance. Those are all radical right wing excuses -- BAD excuses - for cheating women.
It is a systemic problem, part of the larger problem of suppressed compensation for large sectors of the labor market, and is reflected (for example) in the failure to adequately raise the minimum wage to keep pace with inflation. It is reflected as well in the disproportionate number of women in so-called 'C-class' positions (CEO, COO, CFO, etc.) and in the smaller percentage of women in the more important positions of authority in government than the percentage of women in the population (governors, members of Congress and the Senate, and of course NO woman president EVER).
Conservatives hate women, they hate minorities, and they are the servile puppets of bad economic policies and corporate entities whom they serve instead of their human constituents.
Recently we had two examples of failed Republican thinking:
from MSNBC, quoting MN Rep Andrea Kieffer:
“We heard several bills last week about women’s issues, and I kept thinking to myself: ‘These bills are putting us backwards in time. We are losing the respect that we so dearly want in the workplace by bringing up all these special bills for women, and almost making us look like whiners,‘ “ Kieffer said last Wednesday.In some Minnesota counties, women make considerably LESS than the average of $0.77 to every $1.00 earned by men for equal work. In Minnesota, where the minimum wage is below the federal level, in some counties the average is considerably lower.
Kieffer is playing the front-person for the Republican line which is trying out the stratagem of using their token women to make misogynistic statements for a change, after the epic failure of their male-dominated "legitimate rape" and other public relations fiascos. The right wing women are not any more successful; the problem is the message and the policies, not just the messenger. We've seen other radical right conservative women fail, from Michele Bachmann on pretty much everything, to the offensive claims of women like Phyllis Schlaffy that "good" women are never sexually harassed in the workplace:
"Sexual harassment on the job is not a problem for virtuous women."
- Phyllis Schlafly
Of course, we KNOW that is a false assumption, and blaming victims for bad conduct by employers and those in management positions in authority over them. NO woman 'deserves' to be harassed, just like no woman - or man, or child - deserves to be raped or otherwise sexually coerced.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/phyllissch383405.html#o4LlVbJxGCugL5CG.99
Sexual harassment on the job is not a problem for virtuous women.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/p/phyllissch383405.html#o4LlVbJxGCugL5CG.99
And the same criticisms of factual deficiency can, of course, be said of any policy or legislation from the right relating to women's reproductive health, privacy, or freedom of choice.
Kieffer, a good little empty-headed plastic dolly reciting pre-recorded lines like an old "Chatty Cathy" doll, is just following like a good little soldier where she is directed to go by the big old white men in charge of the MNGOP. There is not an original thought in the mix, or an independent idea.:
continuing from MSNBC:
Republicans continue to demonstrate they do not value women, or view us as equal, ranging from comments like Rush Limbaugh's comment that
“I wasn’t completely shocked or surprised. This seems to be a pattern of really sort of ignorant remarks by Republican lawmakers in this state as well as around the country. I think what we’re seeing is these legislators and other Republican elected officials really, truly showing their stripes,” Ken Martin, party chair of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, told msnbc.
Equal pay pits women against women in Texas
The battle for equal pay continues to be a dividing issue in states around the country, including Texas. Cari Christman, executive director of a political action committee for Texas Republican women, last weekend struggled to explain the GOP’s opposition to fair-pay laws. Women don’t need measures like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, she argued in a television interview, mostly because “women are extremely busy.” In an attempt to clarify her counterpart’s comments, Beth Cubriel, executive director of the Texas Republican Party, this week explained that men are better negotiators than women.
"we already have museums for women, they're called malls" to the Texas governor Repbulican candidate, Greg Abbott, who would undo the Lily Ledbetter Act -- and did, regarding women college professors in the Texas state education system (as well as in his own office, ditto minorities, who are paid less than white men).
Conservatives believe thing that are demonstrably NOT TRUE, and which are usually hateful, hurtful and demeaning. Facts are not the friends of conservatives; they appear to be totally unacquainted with them.
If we leave it to the radical right, women will lose the vote, be kept at home mostly barefoot and pregnant, less educated, dependent for financial support, and probably stuck in corsets and long dresses with high collars and long sleeves, and no freedom or equality. The GOP and worse, the tea party are oppressors and do not believe in or value women, the family, genuine equality or freedom. Their evil actions give the lie to their words, and to add insult to the injury, they don't even make the effort to produce credible lies. The radical right deserves to lose badly in the 2014 election cycle, and this is an issue that will hurt them more than most. Conservatives must go.
