Wednesday, January 28, 2009

A win for Women and all people

It is wrong to pay a Woman less than a man for doing the same job.

This seems to me to be so commonsensical as to hardly be worth discussion. It is also wrong to pay an equally qualified Hindu, or a Texan, a Toyota driver, a redhead or anyone with the middle initial J. less for doing the same job.

And if you keep this discrepancy hidden from the employee against whom you discriminate, you still deserve to be punished, regardless of how long it takes to discover your wrong-doing. If you don’t like that, then play fair, pay fair, and it won’t be an issue for you, will it?

Finally, the United States is coming to its senses in this regard, with passage in Congress this week of the so-called Ledbetter bill.

Miss Ledbetter was a Goodyear worker who of course was not told, for years, that She was making less than Her male colleagues. That’s not exactly information that employers make available to their employees. Yet She was expected to figure it out within a certain “statute of limitations” – the onus was on Her, in other words, to play detective.

And, in other words, since the company failed to do what was right within a certain of time, the company – and our government, until now -- felt as if Ms. Ledbetter should be the one punished.

That seems to me to be nonsensical as to hardly be worth discussion.

I am very conservative in most of my politics. I find that supporting this bill does not violate my conservative viewpoint at all. If you do the same job, having the same levels of expertise, educational degrees, whatever, then you deserve equal pay regardless of whether you wear boxers or panties under your uniform.

5 comments:

get zapped said...

Amen! Like said, it's not rocket science, it's just plain discrimination and oppression. Thank you for bringing this Bill to our attention.

Lone Grey Squirrel said...

Great news. It seems remarkable that it has taken so long in a place like USA. However, in other parts of the world inequaility between sexes and the glass ceiling for women is still very much the reality. Worse still, in some places, women don't even get the opportunity for an education and are still considered the property of men.

But then any progress should be rightly celebrated.

StayAtHomeKat said...

Right On.

Men out there--- born of Woman!...stand up for your Mothers, Wives, Daughters, Sisters, Aunts, Cousins, Friends... for all Women you do not know and all the Women you will never be so fortunate to meet.

Janice Thomson said...

Hear, Hear!
A job well done has nothing to do with race, colour, or gender - when will the whole world learn this?

Eastcoastdweller said...

Get Zapped: I say, thank You to Lily Ledbetter for Her courage and perseverance -- thousands of Women -- and men, too -- will have justice thanks to Her.

Lone Grey: Yes, let us celebrate any progress -- for progress anywhere makes things a little better everywhere.

Kat: Standing, Kat, standing until the day I die.

Janice: Those who oppress will never yield easily; the oppressed must never yield at all.