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From David Leonhardt's cool and meaty interview with the president. Obama says:
And so part of what we have to do is to recognize that women are
just as likely to be the primary bread earner, if not more likely, than
men are today. As a consequence, eliminating the pay gap between men
and women, and the pay gap between fields, becomes critically
important....
I
think that if you start seeing nursing pay better and teaching pay
better, and some of these other professions, you’re going to see more
men in those fields, although there’s a little bit of a chicken and an
egg — if you start getting more men in those fields, then the
stereotypes about this being a woman’s field and all the gender
stereotypes that arise out of thinking that somehow they’re not the
primary breadwinner, those stereotypes start being whittled away.
LEONHARDT: Did Michelle ever make more than you did?
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, sure.
Probably only
for a brief time, because I was working three jobs most of the time
that I was in the State Senate.... But when I started campaigning for
the U.S. Senate and I had to drop some of those jobs, then she carried us for a couple years.
OK, so the last part comes off as a bit defensive. But mostly, hey, he gets it.
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OK, I'm going to wade into the hornet's nest on the equal-pay bill. Before I begin, let me say that I actually tried to read the Senate bill and have now decided to give up my dream of running for legislative office someday, because it's hard to decipher the gibberish without reading 20 other pieces of legislation.
The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act does does seem "mild," as Richard Ford puts it so well (and this post explains it quite well, for the nonlawyers among us), though I do think it would probably lead to more lawsuits, not fewer. But I think there are multiple and complex reasons besides plain old discrimination that women make less than men, and not only does this bill not address these, but they aren't necessarily problems that can be fixed by any legislation. For example, how many of us take jobs that might be less financially rewarding but allow for flexibility so that we can be home when our kids need us or so that we can dash out for the 3 p.m. piano recital? How many women choose to take a few years off to spend time with their kids while they are young? That inevitably leads to situations in which 40-year-old men are making more money than 40-year-old women doing the same job, because they have more experience. Clearly, if the situation is reversed, and a man has taken a few years off to stay at home, his female co-worker who hired a nanny and slogged through 50-hour work weeks should be making the bigger salary.
I look at how the business world has changed since I was a kid watching my parents hard at work, and I think one of the great improvements that women (with the help of technology) have brought to the workforce is a better grasp of work-life balance. Would men have figured out the benefits of telecommuting on their own? Or flexible scheduling or job sharing? Maybe, maybe not. We have a long, long way to go, and pay equity is an enormous part of that. But I think the solutions are more likely to come from within—more women executives, more women running businesses—than to come from on high by government decree.
Lastly, I don't want to get to a place in our society where the government is deciding what jobs are worthy of what wages (and, yes, I know this bill doesn't do that), because I think one of the costs would be that employers would respond to that infringement on their rights by becoming less accommodating of their employees. And that would be giving up a whole lot of what we've worked for.
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Over on "Convictions," Richard Ford elaborates on our objections to McCain's opposition to the Equal Pay Bill. Here's the full post. He concludes:
I have to say it’s hard for me to believe that anyone who is really committed to equal pay would oppose this mild and sensible piece of legislation—it doesn't open us up to lawsuits for "all kinds of problems"—only for the problem of discriminatory pay. Opposition suggests that McCain is most concerned with reducing the absolute number of cases filed—whether or not they have merit.
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I want to say amen to your excellent post about McCain and equal pay, Emily. The only thing I'd add is this: I found McCain's comments about the bill particularly dismaying because he invoked an old canard—that women are less qualified than their male peers, and that (by implication) is mainly what keeps their pay low—instead of dealing with the possiblity that discrimination exists. While campaigning in Kentucky, the AP reported, McCain expressed his oppposition to the equal pay bill by noting that what women need is more training:
"They need the education and training, particularly since more and more women are heads of their households, as much or more than anybody else," McCain said. "And it's hard for them to leave their families when they don't have somebody to take care of them.
"It's a vicious cycle that's affecting women, particularly in a part of the country like this, where mining is the mainstay; traditionally, women have not gone into that line of work, to say the least," he said.
Now, to be fair, this quote is taken out of context and I don't know what he said before it. But as a sentiment, this simply doesn't deal with the reality of gender discrimination in our country. Nor will more training help any woman who is being paid less than she should be because of it. McCain's proposal is not a viable alternative, in other words; it's a form of putting one's head in the sand and redirecting voters away from the real, if vexed, issue: that sexism still exists, and we need to find a thoughtful legal way of dealing with it.
Read the rest of the equal-pay conversation on XX Factor.
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I've got more to complain about: Last night, Senate Republicans killed the Equal Pay Bill, which would have undone the Supreme Court's bad deed in a case last term called Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. Lily Ledbetter sued Goodyear for sex discrimination because she earned less than men in similar positions—a fact she proved in court. But on appeal, the Supreme Court found that Ledbetter's suit was too late, by setting the clock according to Ledbetter's first unfairly low pay check, rather than the ongoing low salary she continued to receive years later. It didn't matter when she found out she was being shortchanged—only when Goodyear started doing so.
John McCain said Wednesday that he supports "pay equity for women" but opposes the fix for Ledbetter's plight in the Equal Pay Bill because it "opens us up to lawsuits for all kinds of problems." That has a nice anti-litigation ring, but does it make sense? As Rich Ford pointed out in Slate after the Supreme Court's decision, the clear lesson the case holds for employees is, "Sue early and often. If you suspect your boss might be discriminating with regard to your pay, you can't afford to wait around until you're sure." The Equal Pay Bill might give rise to more meritorious law suits. But couldn't it also stave off some losers? And what does it mean to be for pay equity for women while opposing what's on offer to actually help achieve it?
(Cross-posted on Slate's legal blog, "Convictions.")