Senate Republicans Unite to Defeat Equal Pay for Women

[The Straight Story]

Senate Republicans Unite to Defeat Equal Pay for Women: Amy Siskind

Fresh off their November election victories, which enjoyed majority support from women for the first time in decades, Republicans in the U.S. Senate promptly failed in their first opportunity to show they’re serious about issues important to female Americans, writes Amy Siskind, president and co-founder of The New Agenda.

For the first time since 1982, exit polling showed women voters favored the GOP in the 2010 election. “What does the GOP do with this historic opportunity? Blow it!” according to Siskind.

This week, the Senate refused to debate the Paycheck Fairness Act, which aims to lessen the disparity between men’s and women’s salaries. Although the vote was 58 in favor and 41 against, the motion needed 60 votes to proceed. Not a single Republican voted to hear the bill—a stupid move on the GOP’s part, Siskind argues.

“Wise up there GOP—if you have any hopes of taking the White House in 2012, you’ll need women voters. But after shooting down the Paycheck Fairness Act today and perpetuating a boys’ club in Congress, you ain’t showing us much.”

http://www.allgov.com/Opinion_from_the_Right/ViewNews/Senate_Republicans_Unite_to_Defeat_Equal_Pay_for_Women__Amy_Siskind_101120

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. Their constituency: Fat, rich, old, white, male christians

Everyone else? Fuck off.

[SammyWinstonJack]

4. +1

:thumbsup: Everyone else? Eat shit and die, quickly. :mad:

[Quantess]

14. add heterosexual to that list.

(or at least, heterosexual appearing)

[ChairmanAgnostic]

18. right. missed that one.

[11 Bravo]

21. No, add CLAIM to be heterosexual to that list.

[Quantess]

28. Precisely.

[JoePhilly]

41. ... and their wives, apparently.

[saracat]

2. Second time I am reccing this. Somehow this story doesn't have traction. I wonder why????

This is both a Civil Rights and economic issue.

[The Straight Story]

3. Maybe because dems controlled house/senate and it still is just sitting there (nt)

[Darth_Kitten]

6. Of course, it's just probably not a hot topic because it's only about women.

It's like, ho hum, what does it really matter than women are undervalued and underappreciated in society?

Women are so used to it. :sarcasm:

[bluetrain]

36. erg delete the sarcasm tag and you'd be closer to the truth, sadly

[Darth_Kitten]

5. Republicans seem to like their women dumb and silent....

:(

[trotsky]

8. And financially dependent upon a man, evidently. n/t

[Darth_Kitten]

23. When were the good old days, when women just couldn't vote?

Women are too upptiy these days, they expect things. :sarcasm:

[HopeHoops]

7. So, I assume all of the GOP Senate women will be happy with a 30% pay cut now?

Seems reasonable.

[blondeatlast]

9. Check out the (no doubt) TAX-EXEMPT orgz that opposed the bill:

Funny--not a trade union in the bunch:

American Bakers Association
American Housing & Lodging Association
Associated Builders and Contractors
Society for Human Resource Management
College and University Professional Association for Human Resources
Eagle Forum
National Association of Manufacturers
American Apparel and Footwear Association
American Gas Association
Associated General Contractors of America
Food Marketing Institute
Human Resource Policy Association
International Franchise Association
National Association of Convenience Stores
National Federation of Independent Business
National Retail Federation
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
National Roofing Contractors Association

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-182

[blondeatlast]

10. Dear Senators Collins, Snowe, and Hutchinson--when will you publicly announce

your 30% pay cut?

[EternalOptimist01]

11. ummm I'm new... but...

I'm new I hope no one gets upset if I post an opposing point of view...I decided to test the waters...

This  New York Times  article explains the inherent problems with the bill.

But that wage gap isn’t necessarily the result of discrimination. On the contrary, there are lots of other reasons men might earn more than women, including differences in education, experience and job tenure.

When these factors are taken into account the gap narrows considerably — in some studies, to the point of vanishing. A recent survey found that young, childless, single urban women earn 8 percent more than their male counterparts, mostly because more of them earn college degrees.

Also,

The problem is that while the debate proceeds, the bill assumes the answer: it would hold employers liable for the “lingering effects of past discrimination” — “pay disparities” that have been “spread and perpetuated through commerce.” Under the bill, it’s not enough for an employer to guard against intentional discrimination; it also has to police potentially discriminatory assumptions behind market-driven wage disparities that have nothing to do with sexism.

:shrug:

[Darth_Kitten]

12. So older women with children deserve to earn less....

wow, do MORE work and get paid less, ladies. :sarcasm:

Also, you mean a woman working her tail off getting an education will get a slightly higher income than a guy who doesn't?

Wow, it's so much fun being a girl. :sarcasm:

[blondeatlast]

17. That poster can never relate to our "fun."

Are you surprised?

[Darth_Kitten]

22. Work longer, get paid less, pay more for services, get blamed more...

it's so much fun being female. :(

[Yupster]

25. It's like my wife and I

We both have master's degrees in education, and we're both the same age, but I earn over ten times what she earns.

[Darth_Kitten]

32. Why?

:(

[Yupster]

33. Because when our kiddo was born, my wife

decided she'd rather stay home than work.

Now, 10 years later she has gone back to working a few hours a day in a non professional job just to get out of the house a little but still be home when kiddo gets home.

The stats would say massive gender discrimination I guess. Personally I wish she'd go back to work because we could use the money but I can't make her get a full time job.

[blondeatlast]

16. EDITORIAL, not article. Big difference. And what is your own position?

It's always wise to comment on an article here, even wiser to comment on an editorial.

And testing the waters? Fine--as long as you paid attention to the DU Rules you agtreed to as you made your way to your very first post...

[EternalOptimist01]

20. Well...

The op-ed that I linked to makes the case that there are more dynamics to a pay scale than just gender. I don't like qualifying my remarks, but sexism in the work place does exist in a big way.

I've seen it on many levels. It's unfair and it's maddening. I've watched men with families get big raises and watched women, who were also raising a family, get little raises. The justification was, well he's expected to raise a family. This was in a fortune 100 corp, white collar position just a couple years ago. I saw it with my own eyes when this happened to a female engineer I am very good friends with.

Pay is confidential and the only way she knew about it was because she works with the payroll system. It was wrong and unfair.

However, this situation isn't corrected by a bad bill that makes blanket generalizations about wage differences. That's the point of the op-ed.

Paycheck Fairness Act wiki 

Columnist Daniel Fisher criticized the legislation in Forbes magazine, saying that the elimination of the "reason other than sex" defense that could be used by employers under existing law would mean that wage differences based on an individual's salary history and negotiating skills would be treated as being evidence of discrimination, despite the fact that the employer's actions were not based on gender.

Software engineers are all across the board in regards to skills, performance, and education. One size does not fit all. Raises and salaries reflect that diversity.

[Yupster]

26. The most interesting relationships are

the ones where the workers are on a salary scale.

I was a teacher on the district's renumeration and benefits committee for a few years and an interesting statistic was shown.

Male teachers made more money than female teachers of the same age, considerably more.

It was interesting because the salary scale was gender neutral.

So where did the disparity come from?

The biggest difference was experience. The average 35 year old male teacher had almost two years more experience than his 35 year old female counterpart, with an even larger difference at age 50. This was probably because many women take time off when they have a baby.

The other reason was the male teachers were more likely to do extracurrcular work, coaching, teaching summer school, etc. In fact at some of the schools of the district we had male teachers coaching female sports because even though over 2/3rds of the teachers were female, we couldn't get enough female teachers to volunteer to coach. The main reasons were they wanted to get home when their kids got home, and they just weren't as interested in sports.

[Odin2005]

13. the corporatists need pay inequality and sexism in order to drive down wages.

Any profession that becomes seen as "women's work" become low-paying because corporations use sexist attitudes to drive down wages. This is why teachers and nurses are paid crap.

[blondeatlast]

15. See the list of oppositional sponsors in my post above--it says all you need to

know and completely reinforces what you stated here.

[AnArmyVeteran]

19. KATIE COURIC never said who blocked the vote!

Last night I watched Katie COURIC and she didn't even say who blocked the bill. She just called the blockers "oppositions" without saying they were republicans. Two other instances on her show pertaining to other issues COURIC REFUSED to put any blame on republicans. Instead she opened her non-news program by saying it was a bad day for the Obama administration for not getting more convictions against the Bali terrorist bomber. COURIC didn't say the majority of the convictions were rendered impossible because Bush and republicans TORTURED the prisoner. Neither did she say the terrorist would spend at least 20 years in prison and then not go free because he would continue to be 'detained'. COURIC spewed out the faux noise talking points just as well as the rabid liars on faux noise.

Katie COURIC is NOT a journalist. She's just another right wing media whore. She might as well work for faux noise. There are no excuses for the deliberate LYING by COURIC last night. She sounded similar to Bill OReilly, Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck last night. She's definitely a right winger.

[KoKo]

24. Kick...

[BrklynLiberal]

27. Allthe repuke women who voted to kill this should be forced to take a 30% cut in pay..

[opihimoimoi]

29. The GOPers HATE WOMEN??? Who woulda Thought???

[ChoppinBroccoli]

30. When I Posted This On My Facebook Page.............

.............I ended up getting into a heated debate with my FEMALE cousin. Her argument was that it was a vote to, and I quote, "keep government the hell out of America's business." Even when the government was trying to end discrimination AGAINST HER, her work-age daughter, and her mother who is currently searching for work, she was against it. Actually took up the cause of her oppressor because the "government is bad" brainwashing was so deeply ingrained. I asked her how that Stockholm Syndrome was treating her.

This is the problem with America. We don't have a voting populace of educated voters looking to who can better their respective stations in life. We have mindless followers who are conditioned to clap like trained seals every time their overlords pull out a fish. When you can get women to applaud the fact that you voted for continuing their inequality in the workplace, you don't have voters or constituents, you have cheerleaders.

Apparently she and her ilk are all just sitting around waiting for the free market to correct this injustice, since we all know that the private sector does everything faster and better than the government. It's been over 100 years since women gained the right to vote in this country, and in that time period, the private sector has done nothing to end the unequal treatment in the workplace. And when the government tries to step in and fight on your behalf, you boo and throw tomatoes, because.............well, all I can figure is that you either don't WANT to be paid equally, or you feel like you don't DESERVE equality simply because you were born with a hoo-hoo instead of a ha-ha. Sad.

The argument ended like 99% of arguments with right-wingers end. With her taking her ball and going home, telling me, "I'm not listening to any more of your rants."

[Skittles]

31. this post worthy of its own thread

you are 100% correct

[Yupster]

34. Sorry for the laziness, but

what does the proposed bill actually do?

[bluetrain]

35. kick

[niyad]

37. kick for more visibility

[sufrommich]

38. Ugh, why any woman would vote for the GOP is a mystery to me.

I hope this bites them in the butt.

[hobbit709]

39. Senate Blue Dogs enabled them to defeat it.

[Phentex]

40. kick

kick

[niyad]

42. kick for continued visibility