McCain denys women equality in the workplace

[the_orf]

This attorney chose to sue Goodyear under the more difficult Title VII rather than under the Equal Pay Act which was designed specifically for this purpose and has a longer statute of limitations. You can read about the Equal Pay Act here and Title VII here.

What sort of idiot goes before the court knowing the statute had run out?
One with another agenda. I don't think I'm being too cynical when I suggest that the unprecedented expansion of liability that the "Ledbetter Fair Pay Act" would have created might have more to do with creating more work for lawyers and scoring political points than actually helping Ms. Ledbetter.

While Ledbetter's team obviously screwed up--and they did screw up, as you can read in a court transcription here, about halfway down the page--this shouldn't have been a straightforward matter of choosing Title VII over the Equal Pay Act. Title VII has ample precedent that each individual short paycheck was a new and discrete act of discrimination. The reasoning is sound, and the precedent cited by Ginsberg in her dissent (a 1970s case in North Carolina where black workers received less than their white counterparts) is the more applicable one, compared to the case Alito cited (a 2005 case that was about one specific pay raise).

What's really infuriating is that the Supreme Court has effectively said, Discrimination may be illegal, but if you can be sly enough and get away with for six months before anybody finds out, then it's okay and you can't get in trouble for it.
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[DollarBill]

I'm all for equal pay for women... except for in the 4 major tennis tournaments. The women play best of 3 set matches instead of best of 5. IT'S MAY Y'ALL!!! FRENCH OPEN!!! VAMOS RAFA!!!!

[mpbrockman]

While Ledbetter's team obviously screwed up--and they did screw up, as you can read in a court transcription here, about halfway down the page--this shouldn't have been a straightforward matter of choosing Title VII over the Equal Pay Act.

Yeah, I read the transcript. I still suspect this was a clumsy attempt to expand liability rather than a simple error. The idea that Ledbetter's team could have gotten that far off the path seems incredible to me. Perhaps I'm being overly suspicious - but this reeks.

Title VII has ample precedent that each individual short paycheck was a new and discrete act of discrimination. The reasoning is sound, and the precedent cited by Ginsberg in her dissent (a 1970s case in North Carolina where black workers received less than their white counterparts) is the more applicable one, compared to the case Alito cited (a 2005 case that was about one specific pay raise).

What's really infuriating is that the Supreme Court has effectively said, Discrimination may be illegal, but if you can be sly enough and get away with for six months before anybody finds out, then it's okay and you can't get in trouble for it.

Here Ledbetter's attorneys actually helped the SC make things worse for women. Who are the "activist judges" now?

Remind me to start a thread sometime about how Antonin Scalia makes Dick Cheney look like a rank amateur in the pure f***ing evil department...

[Justin D.]

how hard could it be to make babies?

Let's just say that if you haven't done it yourself, you probably won't understand.

God, that's so sexist.






Yeah, McCain's ideas are outdated and can be dickish. Nothing really new there. However, did anyone else listen to him give his speech this morning? If not, he gave it as if it was the year 2013 and he was looking back on all the that has been achieved since he became president. Things like ending the war in Iraq, Iraq becoming a democracy, better teachers in schools and better treatment of teachers in general, and the end to the world hunger crisis. The funniest and most confusing part of his speech was when people interrupted it to applaud as if the things he was saying had actually happened. I actually screamed at my radio. "What the fuck?! What are you people doing? He didn't actually do those things! Are you going to applaud if he says he taught everyone how to fly? Seriously, what the fuck are you people doing?!"

Oddly enough, yelling that is the most productive I've felt politically in the last few months besides actually voting.

[mpbrockman]

However, did anyone else listen to him give his speech this morning? If not, he gave it as if it was the year 2013 and he was looking back on all the that has been achieved since he became president. Things like ending the war in Iraq, Iraq becoming a democracy, better teachers in schools and better treatment of teachers in general, and the end to the world hunger crisis.

Oh, the audacity of hope.

[slappywhite]

Huh, he didn't bring up Earth being conquered by Martian overlords though, funny how you only remember the good in retrospect isn't it?

[nadine]

Because women are less powerful in this country, and gender descrimination is everywhere.

It's hard for little girls to grow up when top women in this country mostly consist of beautiful actresses, and we've only 1 female supreme judge.

Otoh, there are benefits that come with it: Women have less pressure to earn money to support children, so their career choice tend to go more towards less-paying but creative jobs.

However, even that job tends to go away after the second child, after which the cost of daycare for 2 kids tend to be more then what the woman makes. So she becomes a homemaker. Which I think is a great profession, but it keeps the women from say, becoming CEO or owner of her own little company.

Anyways, as a result there's very little women occupying the highest echolon of power, and when they try to, they get cast in a negative light, look at the vitrole that surrounds Hillary Clinton (hey I'm supporting Obama, but I hate how she is villified.)

This is my 7 am rambling. My cat woke me up. Now he's sleeping on my lap.. unfair!

[York99]

I can't understand how gender can affect a salary, other than the prejudice that a female employee will "use up" company resources and such if she gets pregnant.

Not to take away anything from the plight of women, but these studies are notorious for being extremely misleading. For example, they will figure out what two people -- a man and a woman -- who started working at a company at the same time are making 10 years later. They will publish the fact that the man is making more without taking into account that the woman took 5 years off to raise children. So the man is getting paid more because he has more experience, not because he's a man.

I point this out not to throw the bullshit flag at the argument. Rather, I think that women have a legitimate case, but by backing it up with misleading statistics, exaggerations and sometimes full-blown lies, they injure their case by diminishing the credibility of the arguments.

The truth shall set you free.

[Jessica]

I know personal stories are not the same as good stories, but I have been in a job where guys with less education and experience and less managerial responsibility were paid as much as I and the other women in the office. So it does happen.

[Wesley]

My company (and industry) loves female leaders.

Until a year or so ago, we had a female President. We have a female head of National Sales. A female head of R&D. A female Vp of Multimedia production (and 6 out of 8 multimedia producers are female). A female VP of Human Resources (in fact, a 100% female HR department). In my own department, I was (until a recent merger) one of three men in a department of 20 or so. Every single Marketing manager and coordinator we had was female. Half of the VPs for our discipline groups were female. Gernder-speaking, I'm VERY often the minority at meetings. In fact, the only "power" executive-level position I have not seen a female in within my company is head of Finance (but I don't think that counts since the guy occupying the job has done so the entire time I've been here). Since the merger we're a little more male dominated, but we probably still have a 60/40 female-to-male ratio of employees and I'm sure that we'll be back to more female than male executives within 2 or 3 years.

[York99]

I know personal stories are not the same as good stories, but I have been in a job where guys with less education and experience and less managerial responsibility were paid as much as I and the other women in the office. So it does happen.

I've had lots of jobs where guys AND women with less education and experience and less managerial responsibility were paid more than other men and women, too.

I point this out only because I don't think gender is the only variable involved. It may very well be the cause in many situations, but too often the other variables aren't looked at and people throw the gender card unfairly.

[Jessica]

In this case, Justin, all the women had a certain job title. Which is generally, in the field, much higher than the job titles of the men in question. It wasn't just that an individual was paid more. The jobs open to women in that work place had a set of requirements including college degree and experience. There was a job position - that some how only men got - that required only a high school degree and less no direct experience. In the field I was in the "women's" job was considered more prestigious and would have paid higher at other places. In this place the job that only went to men was higher paid.

I understand what you are saying Justin, but please, I know what experiences I've been through. Please don't try to rationalize it away. That in itself is one of the ways that gender oppression works in this culture. Making women question the validity of their own experiences is a way of showing that they are not believed - a big deal in modern gender politics.

[KathyRose]

tsk tsk tsk tsk ... such squabbling over an insolvable conundrum.

Do you think there will EVER be universal equity in salaries and job opportunities? How would his be achieved? Would some governmental agency put together a master formula, factoring in the relative worth of every type of job to society, times some standardized evaluation of performance level on the job, to compute the equitable salary for each individual in the society? You know, some companies already do this, but who ensures equity between companies ...?

I won't belabor the hypothesis, but here's the point: somewhere, there will ALWAYS be a John or Joe or Suzy who makes more than a Charlotte or Joan or Charlie in the "same" job. So what?

How Charlotte or Joan or Charlie feels about this depends on what they think they need to be happy ... Aaaaaaaaaahhh - therein lies the crux! The question to be asked is not "do I have as much as him or her?," but "do I have enough ... to be satisfied with my own life?"

If you have food on the table and a roof over your head, should you refuse to enjoy it because someone else has more bounteous food and a more opulent roof? ... If you see life as an acquisitions contest, you will always lose and will never enjoy what you have.

It's your choice. Face it - life is not fair. You can make yourself eternally miserable by focusing on what you are not getting and what the other person has ... or you can be eternally happy by discovering when enough is enough, to fulfill your needs.

It's a Taoist point of view.

[nadine]

Taoism can also lead people to just accept their lot in life. Very popular in feudal China. Good for keeping people in their place.

[York99]

I understand what you are saying Justin, but please, I know what experiences I've been through. Please don't try to rationalize it away. That in itself is one of the ways that gender oppression works in this culture. Making women question the validity of their own experiences is a way of showing that they are not believed - a big deal in modern gender politics.

I'm sorry if it came across as me trying to diminish your experiences. I was offering a counter-point only to show that there is inequality on both sides. I concede that women probably get the short end of the stick more often.

The comparison here is that I once was told that I didn't get a job because I was a straight white male. No joke. It was a family friend who was doing the hiring, so I had a leg up in the cronyism department. But as a friend, he leveled with me. This was not at all a government mandated Equal Opportunity thing or even a company policy. They just wanted to look like they were more diverse. It sucked. I have no doubt that black people are discriminated against more than white people, but it does happen both ways and I think it's important to point that out.