Kicking. Squealing.
The Paycheck Fairness Act is set for vote today in the Senate. The Act addresses the 77 cent wage gap myth by making it easier for female employees to bring complaint against their employers. The craziest part of the proposed legislation is this:
An entity that receives a grant under this subsection shall use the funds made available through the grant to carry out an effective negotiation skills training program that empowers girls and women. The training provided through the program shall help girls and women strengthen their negotiation skills to allow the girls and women to obtain higher salaries and rates of compensation that are equal to those paid to similarly-situated male employees.
Picture Matthew Lesko running around selling information on how to get government money to teach “Negotiation Skills to Girls”. Also, schools will send their female students on field trips or they’ll set up classes which will, among other things, gin up the feminist animosities of these students at a young age.
The negotiation clause of this proposal is radically feminist in the same way that Title IX is radically feminist and different than the other platitudes about Equal Pay for Equal Work. Those were the goals of feminism; now we’re seeing the tactics. The interesting thing about this legislation is that its supporters are admitting that the pay gap isn’t due entirely to gender discrimination. At least on the surface level. They’re pushing the ball now and addressing the deeper roots of the “problem”. Now it’s also the differences in the inputs rather than just the discriminatory system. But where will these attempts to close the gap end? When the goal is as arbitrary as complete parity – a goal which ignores the different choices made by the two sexes which are dependent on their essentially different physiologies – it can’t stop just at negotiating skills. It will have to address birth and child-rearing and height differentials and the differences in voice pitch and dominance and the innate tendency for people to place more confidence in male leaders.
We see, yet again, that the women’s lobby is playing with 12 men people on the field. They’ll add more if they need to.
Forgive me for being unoriginal…but if there really were a pay gap, wouldn’t business owners hire more women than men to exploit the cheaper labor? Wouldn’t that be the evidence instead self reporting or “surveys” or unknown nitwit trickery? I would like the feminists to show their work on that .77 figure.
Studies have shown that African-American men and shorter men of all races earn less. Why is there not a fairness act for this?
We are fucked.
In the private sector, salaries are just that: private. How would a women know that she’s making less than some guy down the hall?
brian, the bill lets employees openly discuss pay without fear of reprimand. i agree with this measure of the law. i just wish that there was a stand-alone law that would prohibit employers from having policies that prevent employees from discussing pay. but that simple freedom only becomes something worth hashing out if it can be used to increase the pay of female employees.
It would be great to make the lefties choke on the logical conclusion of their witless ideology. Don’t blacks make less on average than whites? And hispanics too? And don’t jews and asians make more on average than wasp white men, the ostensible bogeyman of feminism? By the logic of the feminist-pushed and president butt naked-approved paycheck fairness act, it should be extended to all those other groups who aren’t in line with the highest income and wage earners. Let everybody sue every employer! Perhaps we should also mandate grant money set aside for negotiation skills training on how to demand a raise like a jewish man, the highest paid demographic of them all. Or was it the indian doctors? Damn, I can never keep these things straight.
this is the inevitable result of a refusal to accept the truth that human groups exhibit disparate ability and disparate desire. when you think everyone is the exact same cog popped out of the exact same celestial mold, (except when they aren’t. see: dumb redneck southerners), then you can’t abide the premise that, for instance, women may just prefer lower-value service jobs and family life that affect how much they make compared to men.
Stick a fork in America, she’s done.
One more way to make American workers a bad deal.
The interesting thing about this legislation is that its supporters are admitting that the pay gap isn’t due entirely to gender discrimination.
Two points:
1.) This simply reaffirms the direction that I wrote about in the huge race thread a month ago. The “minority” (women are honorary members) will keep pushing for Equality of Outcome and these measures will seriously distort society, in this case women will be awarded unearned rewards compared to men.
2.) As I wrote 4 years ago in this post over at GNXP, there is more income variation WITHIN a group than there is between a group, yet this “more variation within than between” observation is only useful when minorities are on the receiving end of an observation and it is totally ignored when they are on the proactive end.
Why are feminists concentrated on the variation between male and female incomes when the variation seen within the female demographic is huge?
Revealed preferences indicate that what most women desire is the option to work part-time and still earn health insurance, retirement benefits, and continueing education. Women will trade away income to secure those benefits. Employment laws could losen up to make everybody happy.
“Women will trade away income to secure those benefits.”
those benefits *are* income.
jesus christ. no law should be made to “accommodate” women. the very premise is absurd.
of course , benefits are income. you are quibbling over strict definitions
I argue that BigGov should drop most of the overbearing employment laws and allow employers to offer the pay and benefits to maximize themselves. Jobs will follow. Jobs to accomodate women’s preferences will follow.
Some employers (hospitals, schools) would readily accomodate women’s preferences if not hamstrung by federal employment laws.
@ Heartiste…I think gay men (statistically) may earn more than everybody, currently.
What’s the over under as to whether this will pass? Is this a no chancer or a live possibility?
Why should females get special tutoring in negotiating for a raise? They either bring that skill set and those attitudes or they don’t. Why isn’t that part of competition?
Some more details on what it actually provides along the lines of “making it easier to sue employers over unequal pay” would be very helpful.
Oh, google news just told me that it didn’t even make it past the Senate.
Rather than teach “How to Negotiate a Forty-Hour Paycheck for a Thirty-Two-Hour Workweek, For Girls” training, why don’t they teach “Stay the Fuck at Your Desk All Forty Hours per Week, Bitch”? Would that be racist against women?
Washington Logic: Girls are just as equal as boys. Even more so. That’s why they need help.
It’s just election-year politics. They knew it wouldn’t pass, it’s just another way for Democrats to point at Republicans and screech, “See! War on women! They hate you! They want women to be poor!”
I expect next they will propose a bill that allows women to work three days a week but get paid a full 40 hours. They will justify it by saying women do more childcare and housework during the week so it evens out. They will call it the “Fair work week Act.”
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