There’s a push for the Senate to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act before Congress adjourns for the season, which has sparked some pushback from right-wingers given prominent platforms in the corporate media. The Act, which already passed the House, would help enforce and close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act of 1963; under the law, women would actually be able to find out how much their male colleagues make without either of them facing retaliation. A September 22 New York Times op-ed by Christina Hoff Sommers of AEI and an October 4 George Will Newsweek column both attack it as unnecessary–in Will’s words, “It is ludicrous to argue that women should be regarded as victims in patriarchal, phallocentric America and must be wards of government.”
Sommers says the law “overlooks mountains of research showing that discrimination plays little role in pay disparities between men and women,” while Will–relying heavily on Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the conservative Hudson Institute–argues that “pay disparities largely reflect women’s choices.” As an example, Will says women hold so few science and technology jobs and faculty position because they just don’t want those jobs–after all, hardly any women who go to all-women’s colleges, where they’re surely not discriminated against, study those things. At Bryn Mawr, for instance, only 4 percent major in chemistry and 2 percent in computer science. (Will also makes liberal use of irrelevant factoids, such as the fact that women live longer than men, now receive more doctoral degrees than men and may soon be a majority of the workforce.)
Heather Boushey has a good take-down of Sommers’ op-ed on Slate–most of which applies to the Will column as well–in which she makes clear that “Sommers is the one overlooking mountains of research that demonstrate just the opposite.” Both Sommers and Will compare groups of women who are better educated to groups of men who are less educated to “prove” that women sometimes even earn more than men. In an earlier critique, Boushey explained that
there are two ways to look at the gender pay gap. The first way is to ask whether equally skilled men and women in comparable jobs are paid the same. That’s the way to gauge workplace fairness. Do women with similar credentials in similar jobs earn as much as the men they work with? It’s in this context that the answer remains no.
Ten years out of college, women who went to the same kind of college, got the same kinds of grades, held the same kinds of jobs and made the same choices about marriage and number of kids as their male peers earn 12 percent less than those men. Boushey also cites a Cornell study that 40 percent of the total gender pay gap couldn’t be explained by women’s choices, the only culprit Sommers or Will blame.
As for Will’s claim about the sciences, Bryn Mawr chemistry professor Michelle Francl points out in the comments section that nationally less than 1 percent of all students major in the physical sciences, and only 0.66 percent of women study chemistry–so Bryn Mawr”s 4 percent is actually astonishingly high: “I can do the math (and enjoy it, too)–women at Bryn Mawr are six times as likely to major in chem than in the population as a whole. Still think there’s not a difference?”
Speaking of FAIR, which I am all for, but people seemed to be conditioned to go for the overstatement. I mean to claim there is a media blitz because a couple of opinion pieces argue against the Paycheck Fairness Act is a bit much. Most all news reports I have read by the fawning corporate media are all for it. The title of the Act is typical, “The Paycheck Fairness Act,” like the Patriot Act that actually robs people of their rights. I recall Hitler was given absolute power by the “Enabling Act which enabled Hitler to further protect the German people. So pardon my skepticism. Men have taken a beating for a long time now. I recently read a report that for recent college graduates women were receiving more pay than men with similar educational background. I recall reports on how women were being shortchanged in the schools, yet today 60% of college enrollees are women. This victimhood act is played over and over. Then there are those who cite studies showing federeal workers are paid twice as much as workers in private industry. But a study by a government agency based on comparisons with comparable work done state that actually federal workers earn less than their private industry counterparts. So again forgive me for not bowing down to the studies cited in the article. Will and Sommers comments deserve consideration and to dismiss them as being part of some blitz that seeks to keep women down is playing on peoples emotions. It is a well known tactic to play the ref and scream that the ref is biased in order to try and get some favorable calls from the ref. In other times women and men were partners not rivals. But the establishment has found a great issue to divide people. FAIR can certainly point out the flaws in the right, but then when it comes to something they support, they do not hesitate to use the tactics of the right.
I hope we can agree that gender-based discrimination (vs women OR men), is wrong. The Paycheck Fairness Act would make it easier to end any discrimination .
Martha Heinz Says:
October 2nd, 2010 at 10:38 am
I hope we can agree that gender-based discrimination (vs women OR men), is wrong. The Paycheck Fairness Act would make it easier to end any discrimination .
Well said, Martha. But easier does not mean easy. The Paycheck Fairness Act has a possibility of passing whereas the earlier effort–EPA–never got a decent start. It takes a lot more support for an amendment than for an act. Remember a favorite argument against that effort was that employers would simply reduce men’s pay to equalize things. Hence the need for a strong labor movement which will include all professionals as well as the blue & pink collar workers.
You’re right about a strong labor movement, Dennis. The one thing that Will and Hoff Sommers would readily agree on is that organized labor is bad. One thing holds all Rightists together–the hatred of of unions and organized labor. I’m with Michael Moore on this one–everybody who works should be in a union, should be organized to get fair pay for daily work. Bank tellers, office workers, middle-managers, steel-workers. security guards, teachers, aides, 7-Eleven clerks, Home Depot and Wal-Mart workers, etc. Men and women alike, all organized, all together.
P.S.: You rant, Bob, and like many ranters, you contradict yourself: ” . . . (T)he establishment has found a great issue to divide people.” They certainly have, and you’re buying it. Either women should get equal pay, or they shouldn’t. Will and Hoff Summers believe they should not, (I’m familiar with their “work,” and how they think), and I and others (presumably including the people who work at FAIR) think they should. I don’t think Will or Hoff Sommers’ opinions should be taken seriously–the above article alone makes it quite clear that they’re relying on reasoning and evidence that is bad, or poor, to make their points. It’s important to be able to distinguish between what’s real, and what’s apparent, to recognize that the provenance of a study or collected information (and more importantly, the people citing it) is crucial. Will, especially, has been grinding out the same conservative, pro-business line for decades. He’s not at all averse to lying out-right, or using some “study” to prove his point. He’s even cited the work of honest scientists and researchers and then managed to conclude the exact opposite of what the rersearchers found.
The whole fairly modern notion that all opinions or ideas or thoughts have the same critical value, or should be taken equally seriously, is absurd. I can say that the Earth is round, or that Progressives and Nazis are two very different things, and Glenn Beck comes along and says the Earth is flat, and Nazis and Progressives are the same thing. The modern anti-intellectual response, often proffered in the media, is: Well, gee, who’s right here, and who’s wrong? It’s not up to us to decide. Both parties are making (have the right to make!) good points . . . it’s just so hard to get it right here! We don’t want to offend anybody . . . . And so it goes.
P.P.S: In light of the above, Bob, go back and re-read the FAIR story above, and then re-read what you wrote, paying special attention to this line: “The title of the Act is typical, “The Paycheck Fairness Act,” like the Patriot Act that actually robs people of their rights. I recall Hitler was given absolute power by the “Enabling Act(“) which enabled Hitler to further protect the German people. So pardon my skepticism.”
Equal pay for equal work. All workers unionized. This will get the power back where it belongs – with the workers that are making the rich so rich. No wonder the Right Wingers (including Christina Sommers and George Will) are afraid of this Act.
Tom n Beck never said any of that.He did say look at the history of the progressive party and make your own decisions on their goals.They are the worm in the apple.Have been for A LONG TIME.I dont need to change your mind,your a rock head.I just have to vote you out.
yeah Don everybody unionize.My plumber came yesterday.Ninety bucks just to have a look see.Average MD charges 45 bills.Hey maybe Doctors can unionize and charge you 300 dollars for a look see….Sounds good to me.Or would Obama outlaw that?Yet he does not outlaw outrages charges from my plumber Hmmmmm?Of course a totally unionized car(many of the parts bought from private corporations or with their collusion)would just about double in price.Have any problem paying twice as much for your car Don?A CD of you fav group is now about 15 bucks.How about 40?Yeah a unionized world.Great idea
That’s right, Donald–all workers unionized, all in together, even doctors, like You Know Who says. I don’t know where You Know Who lives, but my doctor charges $95.00, up front, before he will do anything. What’s up, Donald, with the hatred of working people by certain people? I can understand a crew of sociopathic sickie-boys like the Koch boys wantin’ to drive the stake into the heart of workers everywhere, but folks of modest means, like the above poster–what’s up with that? I live in Illinois; a strong union state; it’s biggest city is of course Chicago, where I live, where unions have been around for over a hundred years. You know what? As a house-painter, I command a $25.00 per hour wage. The work is difficult; I have a certain set of skills that allows me to conduct my work in a professional, swift, and courteous mannner. I deserve every fuckin’ penny of my wages (I’m underpaid, actually); I’m good at what I do. You know why I make $25.00 per hour? Because unions demanded and fought for and got living wages for their labor, that’s why. I’m not in a union–I’m an independent–but I’d be making what amounts to slave wages if unions hadn’t done the heavy lifting decades ago. Go to a “right to work” state–usually in the South–and painters there make half of what I get, and deserve, or even less. Do they not deserve what I get? I know there are working men and women just as skilled as me down there who are not getting what they deserve. Why? Because of deliberate actions on the part of reactionaries and rightwingers, among whom You Know Who and his asshole, ignorant cohorts must be reckoned. The people, among whom many (sadly, regretfully), are wage slaves, who don’t understand what side of the bread their butter is on.
Miserable ignorant bastards like the above poster and the entire GOP and the Tea-baggers and assorted haters of working people don’t have a fuckin’ clue of what it’s like to actually go out and earn, or to work for some over-bearing jack-ass who thinks it’s fine to fuck someone out of what they earned. Do these assholes have any idea of the torment that the vast majority of working people go through? Do they understand what it’s like to have to choose between making a car payment or putting food on the table? I’m getting by: I have a strong family structure, a wide set of skills, and I live in an area where work is still available, though it isn’t always easy to string favorable things together. I can imagine a world in which the weak and downtrodden and those dis-favored by their happenstance of birth might one day live a better life. To turn that goal into reality is something worth working for; it’s certainly something that’s preferable to the sick, fucked-up, insane world that the GOP and the dumb-ass Baggers, in their vast and outrageous ignorance, would like to visit upon us.
P.S.: I’m going to break my own rule and directly address michael e.: You know what, dude? You’re so fuckin’ stupid that you can’t even see that my above comparisons involving the imbecile Beck weren’t meant to be the exact truth. It was an example, something meant to make a point, and I’m not surprised that it was lost on you. Your ignorance is astounding; your utter inability to see beyond your own narcissistic, vile, idiot, cloistered life usually invokes pity and laughter, but no more. You’re gonna “vote ‘me’ out?” I don’t give a fuck if the GOP takes the House, or the Senate. Our dead democracy really needs to hit rock bottom before, maybe, the dumbest among us (that would include you) realize how God-awful things can really be. I could not care less if Boehner and Angle and Palin and Paul start running the show–I’m looking forward to it. Some great and good fun, whilst your darkest of dark nights, Mr. Obama, rides right over the top of the whole mess. The dopes and miscreants whom you’ve aligned yourself with will implode in two years time, and that will be that, for a little while. So, carry on, numbnuts; keep posting your profoundly dumb and chaotic and pointless screeds. Someone, somehow, might pay attention, and that should keep you afloat ’til the mid-terms. Then you can come in here and crow about the great totalitarian victory and what it means for all of us. Loser.
Tim again you play the wrong hand.I come from a union family.Direct family members were national leaders in the unions.I know unions inside and out.From bottom up… and top down.The good and the bad.At a time when regulation was nil they did important work.Now??You believe you deserve 24 dollars an hour or more.Im sure you do.My training may say i deserve 500 dollars for using my expertise.Even for 5 minutes.And I think the benefit I bring deserves that.But we both have to deal with a thing called competition in the market place.Unions would demand, or force that people pay those fees.I believe in market forces though yes it hurts you and I.This is fair economics 101 no?
I worked my whole life like a dog.Never had anyone in my life who did not.I always laugh at the term ‘working man”as if that does not include all of us.Making good coin or not.14-16 hours a day is the norm for all us “rich folks”.A nephew is in residency.Add up the years of school before he earns dime one.Before he pays off debt and is on the top side.He will be in his 30s.That is the norm.13 years of school after high school and a mountain of debt.By he is not a working man.None of “us” are.This is what we go through.A decade of youth blows by in the snap of a finger .Face buried in a book.Working nights in a supermarket checkout and other jobs that help you live during endless years of study.And then finally as a cardiologist on call 24-7.Not a “working man”just another pampered fuck right Tim?
So your party is the party of the weak and the downtrodden?You ARE the party of food stamps as apposed to paychecks.Newt has it right.You use and exploit peoples weakness to your own benefit and it is contemptible.Read your own blog.You believe in class warfare.You believe that this country- this constitution limits the possibility, the unlimited possibility every man has.I believe we all have a monument inside us.And I believe we can reach it without government ownership of every man woman and child.Even for our own good.I contend you have a very warped understanding of this country born from your ownexperiances and unhappiness.I Never have rarely met a hater in the tea party. Mostly JUst hard working people who want this government(and the next)to play by the rules.Yet read your blog to me.YOU SIR are the hater.Read your own blog.It drips with disdain and hatred.For those who disagree with you and your party.In one long paragraph you intoned toward me….”Loser-profoundly dumb-numbnuts-miscreant-narcissistic-vile-idiot-living a cloistered life-pitiful-ignorant bastard-tea bagger-dont have a fuckin clue-asshole-over bearing jackass-a tormentor-sick fucked up-dumb ass ignorant-fuckin stupid-with astounding ignorance”Wow Tim tell me again who the haters are?I will simply say to you I think you are wrong.Wrong because you view this country in a very negative light.As does the party now in charge.I agree wholeheartedly that the incoming administration will be full of problems that we must all watch with six eyes.I do not think they could do worse.I don’t think anyone in the history of the electorate could do worse.If they fail.If they dishonor us as our representatives than yes they will go also.AS far as my “over reaction” on Beck.Remember your method is to paint someone (imbecile BEck) in some negative light… And see if it sticks, as a way to disempower them.It is Chicago politics.We will not let it slip by anymore.Some people refer to Obama as that imbecile ….man child bla bla bla.Yet would you have it so?Or believe it?
P.s Word is Michelle will divorce BAM if he does not drop out.Or that Hilary will be his VP.Or that he will turn pro golfer.What is you guess Tim?Or will he just get crushed in election in the good old fashion way?
Cheers Tim