The Sierra Vista (Arizona) Herald’s April 15th editorial “Being free and equal can be depressing” reveals gross –and perhaps willful- ignorance of the facts about the alleged “gender pay gap.” In my opinion it is another example of the media drinking the political Left’s Kool-Aid.
According to Kate O’Beirne, Washington editor of National Review, in her book Women Who Make the World Worse, there is no gender pay gap. “Gender pay gap” was touted by ‘60s radical, anti-war feminists sporting “59 Cents” buttons. It was codified in the 1972 Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) passed in the House of Representatives 354 to 23 and in the Senate 84 to 8. Lawmakers were assured the bill “enjoyed virtually unanimous support of American women.” It didn’t. The bill had to be ratified by 38 states within 7 years to become law. The first year the ERA sailed enthusiastically through 30 state legislatures. It needed only eight more states to become law. The momentum stalled after constitutional experts showed it was a dangerous transfer of power from the states to unelected judges and federal bureaucrats and threatened elimination of protections women already enjoyed. Even feminists’ own lawyers were unable to defend the ERA’s misleadingly simple language admitting its’ full effects were unknowable. Indiana was the 31st (and last) state to ratify the ERA and the bill failed to become law. In response feminists pressured lawmakers to extend the ratification time frame by three years. During that time five states rescinded their ratification
An AFL-CIO survey found equal pay was “very important” to 94 percent of working women. The phraseology was intentionally deceptive. Feminists didn’t want equal pay for equal work. They wanted to get the same pay for doing different jobs than men. For example a waitress should be paid the same as a NASA scientist. Senator Patty Murray’s (D-WA) Fair Pay Act would have required employers to report their method of establishing wage rates to the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission – a poison dart at the very heart of free enterprise and, not inconsequently, a verse from Socialist scripture.
Since the Equal Pay Act in 1963 sex discrimination in hiring, promotion, or pay has been illegal. The “glass ceiling” does not exist and hasn’t for decades. One would think the minutely documented monograph by Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Christine Stolba would have silenced the shrill voices of deception. Roth and Stolba state categorically “One of the greatest harms the feminist movement inflicted on American women was to send the message that women are only fulfilled if their salaries are equal to men’s and that a preference for more time at home is somehow flawed. Neither men’s nor women’s education and job choices prove social inequality”.
Warren Farrell, Phd. and author of The Myth of Male Power, served proudly on the board of directors of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in New York City and proudly wore a 59 Cents button. His research into the subject revealed a much greater discrepancy in pay between never-married men and married men (62 cents to the dollar) than between women and men (80 cents to the dollar). He learned that as far back as the 1950s, there was a less than 2 percent gap between the average wages of never-married women and men. Never-married white women between the ages of 45 and 54 actually earned 106 percent of their never-married white male counterparts. Census data shows women who work part-time make $1.10 for every dollar earned by male part-timers who work the same number of hours. Farrell found womens’ employment and education choices explain 80 percent of the pay disparities. By making different choices women can easily earn the same pay as men. There are thirty nine occupations where women earn at least 5 percent more than men such as aerospace engineers (118 percent), speech pathologists (129 percent), and auto mechanics (129 percent). Over two dozen college majors such as computer engineering, civil engineering, and history will lead to higher pay for women compared to their male colleagues. Farrell concludes that well over twenty years ago, men and women were paid equally when they had the same title and the same responsibilities.
“Equal pay for equal work!” appeals to most fair-minded Americans of both genders (including me). But the “devil was- and is – in the details.” Those details are the hidden agenda feminists don’t want the average American woman to know. They are what doomed the ERA and is the danger in media editorials swallowing the feminist movement’s Kool-Aid.
