Senate Republicans derailed a Democratic bill Wednesday curbing paycheck discrimination against women, an effort that even in defeat Democrats hoped would pay political dividends in this fall’s congressional elections.
Wednesday’s vote was 53-44 to halt GOP tactics aimed at derailing the legislation, but that fell seven short of the 60 votes Democrats needed to prevail.
The outcome on the Senate floor was not a surprise, but Democrats were playing to a wider audience.
With public opinion polls showing Democratic voters less enthusiastic than Republicans this year, Democrats aimed the measure at women, who historically lean more toward their party than men. They were also casting the issue as a crucial one for the middle class because so many families rely on female wage-earners — and promised to revisit it before Election Day.
“I want everyone to know, everyone in the Senate and everyone in the United States of America, though we lost the vote, we refuse to lose the battle. We are going to continue the fight,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., the measure’s sponsor.
Too many excuses, Republicans. At least admit that the problem exists. Women do not get equal pay for equal work in too many cases. Perhaps if there were more Republican women in the Senate things would look different. This issue isn’t a matter of ideology. It’s a matter of fairness and equality.
If one sits in the upper gallery of the House of Representatives during the State of the Union Address, the problem becomes instantly visual. When I attended, I was sitting to the left of the speaker, who was the President. When I looked down on the floor, where the power of the world sat, to my left was this sea of gray. Dark gray suits, gray hair, more or less gray white men. To my right there was an artist’s pallet of color. The people were different colors, different genders, and they were wearing an array of different colors. They looked sort of mish mashed in there with their collective “coat of many colors” but somehow I knew that was where the life of the country was. That visual spoke to me like nothing else has and it happened a good 15 years ago. Have things improved. Absolutely not.
Yes, the problem exists, look no further than President Obama’s own staff. Jay Carney was asked about it yesterday and his response was… well, our pay gap isn’t as bad as other pay gaps. Wow, way to lead by example.
There are already laws on the books which make it illegal to pay women less than men for the same work, this is redundant.
It has the appearance of senate Democrats being in a panic and realizing that they very well could lose control of the senate. So, they will use this in an attempt to resurrect the ‘war on women’ as a last gasp tactic before the midterms.
BTW… I think Republicans should have just passed it and moved on.
If there are already laws on the books, then how come you made the white house remarks? Obviously they aren’t working.
Jay Carney didn’t have facts and figures before him. It would have been stupid to give a serious response without looking at the numbers.
The women senators and justices didn’t even have their own bathroom, for God’s sake. You think pay is going to automatically right itself?
This issue frustrates me like no other. From a personal standpoint, I do not want my female friends and family to suffer from discrimination; my experience is that most large companies, non-profits, government agencies all make huge efforts to ensure pay equality for women. I have put in a personal effort over the years to mentor several very bright, promising young women to get them in position to assume leadership roles and to take on responsibilities that will put them on the fast track.
In many of the cases that I have observed, the women made choices that hindered their career progress. Several left the company to follow their significant others. Some took a leave of absence to focus on personal and family issues. Some decided to move into positions that were less risky, but put them on a different (lower) salary track. Many are still around, but are content as members of a team rather than as the leader.
I am sure there are cases of discrimination in some professional sectors. But if it exists substantially in the high-tech sector, it must be very subtle because I have not observed it in many years.
The WP fact checker gave three pinnochios to the claim that women only make $0.77 on the dollar.
Kelly, Thank you for an honest assessment. What you have said should not fall on deaf ears. Women very often aren’t their own best advocates. I have seen that over the years myself. (and have been frustrated by it)
I cannot tell you how many college educated women I know who simply feel that their mates are smarter than they are and it goes downhill from there.
I myself didn’t go for the top leadership positions because I had too many responsibilities at home to really devote the time it took, or so I thought in my own mind. (that’s another story for another day)
I don’t think women should be hired over men or promoted because of gender. Nor do I think they should be held back. However, if you have 2 flag holders, one male and one female, they should both get the same pay. But wait, what if the man has a lot more seniority. Seniority does count on the pay scale. Additionally, women often are out of the work force for a while because of family responsibilities.
Finding the happy medium isn’t easy. But the Republicans should at least admit that the problem exists and work with the President to find that happy medium. I agree that we have to be mindful of judges becoming too involved. We all know of examples where food for thought has become a full course meal.
I have plenty to say on that subject privately in my own ex work place.
If they aren’t working, which they obviously aren’t if Obama doesn’t even pay women equal pay for equal work, then what is passing another law going to do?
Will this “new” law force President Obama to finally end his war on women and pay them equal to their male counterparts?
Well, lets examine the data and talk specifics. I am not going to talk about something in the abstract without any facts.
The sudden attention on this issue is politics.
But there are real issues with the way we socialize girls and boys, as Stewart’s “Daily Show” guest last night was discussing. Long-term we should collectively work to consider “leadership” as opposed to “bossiness” in a more equivalent way across the sexes.
@Rick, that’s an entire topic for a thread. Remind me if I forget.
Excellent point.
What about equal pay for male hoes
“Too many excuses, Republicans. At least admit that the problem exists. Women do not get equal pay for equal work in too many cases. ”
Republicans have admitted that the problem exists by pointing out President Obama’s hypocrisy on the issue, not to mention senate Democrats don’t pay women staffers equal pay either.
The question is, will this law fix it? I say no, if the President of the United States doesn’t even pay women the same as men nothing will fix it. This is yet another example in a long list of where the President has a golden opportunity to lead by example but has failed to do so. All the while talking smack… I don’t get it.
Where is the example? You have failed to provide an example.
I think it’s up to those advocating for a new law to provide apples-to-apples wage comparisons for women with the same level of seniority, same hours, same responsibilities, and same duties/tasks as men in the same positions.
Barbara Mikulski can rant all that she wants to, but her information appears to be limited to anecdotal complaints and reports. The magnitude of the problem and the types of businesses that may be engaged in discriminatory pay practices have to be identified in order to create a course of action that addresses the underlying issues. A new law may or may not be justified.
It is hard to imagine that women are uniformly paid less than men for the same roles/seniority levels. With the huge emphasis on cost savings by corporations, it would be a simple matter to cut labor costs by employing women if they could really be hired for discounted wages. Yet the overall labor participation rate for women has declined significantly since 1999.
Why do you suppose that the labor participation rate for women has declined? what influences that?
I basically agree with you. However, I think a lot goes on around America that we don’t see and that women are at a significant disadvantage the further we move from Northern Virginia.
I’d love to work fewer hours to earn $.77 to my partners $1.00 and then get to spend $1.54 of the combined household income on myself. Power to earn is certainly one thing but the power to spend is far more enjoyable. I don’t think it fair to talk about equal pay without talking about instances where men are at a disadvantage because of cultural expectations.
Women spend more money on clothes, housing, health care and as they live longer receive more in retirement benefits. Managing the household and talking care of kids would be lots more fun than working 10 hour days and another 2.0 hours commuting.
Having done it both ways, I think I enjoyed earning money more.
Rick mentioned socialization of girls, and that got me thinking. Coming from the perspective of a female in a female-dominated profession, and having served in a management role for a few years now, I can tell you from firsthand experience that many women engage in some incredibly self-defeating and unprofessional high-school behaviors. Just a few examples:
Many women want to maintain workplace friendships on the same level as before they were in management. This creates endless conflicts and perceptions of favoritism.
They will cry freely in the workplace.
They will use the words “bitch” or “know-it-all” a lot when another female asserts herself. A woman who develops strong professional relationships with male colleagues must be sleeping with them.
Many women like uniformity of thought, embrace the status quo, and have no room for outside-the-box thinking.
Women openly declare “My family comes before my job” in the workplace, and they demand infinite flexibility from their managers and coverage from their coworkers which they can’t return in kind because, well, they have kids!
Women still judge each other’s hair, clothes, shoes, manner of speaking, etc., and decide who will or will not fit into the workplace social hierarchy.
The bald truth is that many women hate to see other women succeed or get ahead of them. Whatever they can do to undermine another female colleague creates fodder for gossip and a means of elevating themselves without really having to excel at what they were hired to do.
Don’t get me wrong–I’ve worked for and with many amazing females. But I’ve seen these awful behaviors a lot, too. If there’s a glass ceiling for women who act that way, they’re the ones out there polishing it and adding thicker layers to it. They’d probably worry that if they banded together to demand wage parity, that the women they dislike might end up making more than they do.
Just my opinion based on my own observations. Results may vary.
Much of what you said I have seen also, in the other female dominated career path.
I will probably get swatted down and damned for what I am going to say next but here it goes, the other people who exhibited some of the characteristics you mentioned were second career military dudes. You had to watch them like hawks when it came to back stabbing. They took on a group-like persona. Most, not all. Different locals? Didn’t matter. Same behavior popped up along with telling how much better the army (or Navy) handled such and such.
I am leading us off topic. Sorry. I knew some females who would jingle their car keys if in a meeting before announcing how much more important their families were.
Over in the world of Software Engineering … I probably managed 100 people over a span of 10 years. About 30% women.
Many of the best that I had on my teams were women. The best ones were customer-focused and willing to work hard. So were many of the men, but the women made less fuss about it. My observation is that there was less ego there. Same level of capability, but less ego.
And the women that could write code were more likely to learn the customer’s business side and be able to speak to it well, whereas a male would be more likely to have an attitude of “I’m technical – that’s not what i specialize in”. the best women that i worked with set themselves apart this way – more likely to go beyond what people expected of them, less likely to limit what they could learn or what they can know.
I worked with plenty of nightmare women too, plenty of negative characteristics (pushy, lazy, incapable), but none that I didn’t see in men.