April 28 will mark Equal Pay Day — the point in 2009 when the average woman’s wages finally catch up with what the average man earned in 2008.
And on that day, we’re asking you to raise your voices in support of fair pay for women by blogging, tweeting, and posting on Facebook about this crucial issue. Please sign up to Blog for Fair Pay on April 28, and help us spread the word!
Last year, more than 80 bloggers took part in Blog for Fair Pay Day 2008. You can check out their posts here.
And things have definitely changed since then! In January, Congress passed and President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, marking a critical step in giving women the ability to challenge unequal pay.
But despite this success, pay equity is still a major issue in the movement for women’s equality. Women still earn only 78 cents for every dollar earned by men — and for women of color, the numbers are even worse. African-American women earn 69 cents and Latinas earn 59 cents for every dollar paid to men. We need to make sure that once women challenge pay discrimination, they have the tools they need to prove their cases and hold their employers accountable.
A bill currently before the Senate, the Paycheck Fairness Act, would build on the success of the Ledbetter bill and deter wage discrimination against women. The bill has already passed the House this year, and there's strong momentum to move it forward in the Senate. Please write to your Senators and urge them to support the Paycheck Fairness Act -- and please sign up for Blog for Fair Pay Day on April 28!
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I support both of these bills. Anytime people are paid less for equal work, discrimination has occured. Talent and effort must be justly rewarded. Our society depends on the success of its individuals.
If the mean for wages for men was trimmed, say by 5% on either side, we would remove many men who are not representative of us as a whole. In other words, we would remove the CEO's, which most men are not. My guess is there would still be a pay gap. This gap would have appropriate and inappropriate elements to it. But the catch up day would be closer to the end of January than the end of April!
Contacting Sen. Cornyn is like friggin pulling teeth. I swear.
Well, I take that back. Its reading the email REPLIES thats bad.
Is it possible there is another viable view on pay equity for women?
I believe there is:
See "An In-depth Look at 'Pay Equity' For Women" at http://battlinbog.blog-city.com/male_matters_looks_indepth_at_pay_equity_for_women.htm
Many feminists assert, “When men dominate a job, the job pays more; when women dominate, it pays less.” They mean, in other words, "Which sex dominates a job determines the job’s pay." Actually it's the other way around: a job’s pay determines which sex dominates the job. Just as society has steered women into low-paid jobs, its imposition on men of a “primary” provider role, thus tying men's self-worth to their net worth, continues to steer men away from low-paid jobs and into jobs which pay more (but which men pay more for with greater seniority and education, as well as with a job accident rate six times higher than women’s and a job death rate 15 times higher).
Many feminists also believe women should average the same pay as men. This presumes, incorrectly, that women are a primary or sole provider as often as men are. Suppose men weren’t expected to be primary providers and didn’t need a well-paid job to feel attractive to women and respected by family, friends, and society at large. (Feminists and the media have said successful women drive men away. By telling women this, they likely discourage many women from moving up and therefore help keep women's average pay lower than men's.) Men, feeling little or no need for impressive pay to impress anyone, would average an income much less than it is now (meaning men's job-market choices have created the gender wage gap as much women's choices have). If money meant nothing more to either sex than economic survival, the average pay for each sex would, of course, fall somewhere in between women’s current average and men’s current average. As it stands now, many employers, in an effort to "help" women raise their average pay to that of men’s, voluntarily replace — or are pressured to replace — equal-opportunity programs with equal-results programs. The upshot sometimes is blatant discrimination against men, not to mention lowered employee morale and gender friction if unqualified women are selected solely to yield the "proper" gender balance.
Advocates for women's pay equity no doubt strongly support the Age Discrimination In Employment Act. Without it, they might argue, employers who are concerned only with profit and a desire for cheap labor would routinely replace older employees with younger ones at lower wages. Yet these same advocates seem to believe employers' concern for profit and cheap labor suddenly evaporates when it comes to paying men more than women for the same work! In sum, the advocates believe employers would get rid of older workers to save money, but will not get rid of men to save money. I call upon the advocates to explain this.