The Politics of No Place to Go

Today is Equal Pay Day. I got this information from a mailing from NOW.

Equal Pay Day — observed this year on April 20 — is a symbolic date when women’s earnings into a second year finally catch up to the salary made by men in the previous year. In recent decades the gap has narrowed only because men’s wages have stagnated, and progress is moving at the glacial pace of a fraction of a cent per year. The disparity between women’s and men’s pay is a huge barrier to women’s equality that costs them hundreds of thousands of dollars over their lifetimes. The wage gap undermines women’s struggle for independence by compromising their financial security. Equal pay for equal or substantially similar work is more important than ever now that many women are the prime breadwinners during this recession, which has seen many more men lose their jobs. Sex-based wage discrimination is undoubtedly a factor in the high mortgage foreclosure rate, which continues unabated.

Pay Gap Always Present – Several recent reports document that from the moment they graduate from college women are penalized with a lower salary compared with identical male counterparts — for instance, an average of $4,600 less for female MBA grads. An oft-cited reason for the pay gap is that women take time out of the paid workforce to care for children and thus lose out on promotions and pay increases. The Catalyst study, however, showed that the salary difference existed even for women with no children. Center for American Progress economist Heather Boushey testified at a recent congressional hearing that the pay gap grows over time. One reason is that women are less likely than men to negotiate for a high salary, and the cumulative effect over a working career is great.

Huge Lifetime Losses – A small hopeful change in 2009 was an increase to 80.2 of the earnings ratio for the median weekly earnings for female full-time workers compared to male median weekly earnings, according to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. However, a more important statistic relates to women’s annual earnings. In her median annual earnings, a woman working full time made 77.1 percent (this amount has declined slightly in recent years) of the pay made by a man working the same hours, in 2008. The figure is lower for women of color and is a prime reason for the perpetuation of economic vulnerability of these groups.

African-American women, for instance, are paid 67.9 percent of men’s wages, and Latinas take home 58 percent of what men are paid. Experts estimate that the gender wage gap costs women between $700,000 to $2 million in lifetime earnings; lifetime losses range higher for women in top professional categories. The gender-based pay gap creates serious economic insecurity for women and their families and is a major factor of old age poverty for women.

PFA Addresses Wrongs – Among the remedies found in the Paycheck Fairness Act is a provision that allows wronged women to collect compensatory and punitive damages — a standard practice in discrimination cases based on race or ethnicity that is still unavailable to women. The new act will also prohibit employers from retaliating against their staff for sharing salary information with each other; this will allow an employee to freely determine if she is experiencing wage discrimination and take appropriate action. This provision alone might have spared Lilly Ledbetter the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars and the need to take her case all the way to the Supreme Court.

Employers Must Prove Reasons – The act limits acceptable justifications for an affirmative defense, which is “factors other than sex” used by employers to explain lower wages of their female workers. Currently, employers can claim a broad range of reasons, such as women’s “weaker” salary negotiations skills, to rationalize paying women less. The Paycheck Fairness Act will require employers to show that the pay gap is truly caused by factors other than sex-stereotyping and relates directly to job performance. The act also establishes a grant program that would train women on how to gain better jobs and encourage them to break out of low-paying job categories. Finally, the Paycheck Fairness Act improves guidelines on the collection and publication of wage discrimination information and research.

The Lily Ledbetter Act was a needed clarification in the Title VII employment discrimination law. Now, we must follow through on the momentum and take the next most important step by securing passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act.

You can see one of my pet peeves in action in this description. The politics of no place to go which is what the Democratic Party plays on us day in and day out as women. They also play it on the GLBT community and they’re playing it on the Hispanic and Black communities. Witness these two headlines. Pro-Gay Hecklers Repeatedly Interrupt Obama At DNC Fundraiser which shows how the GLBT community is getting tired of the lipservice paid to DADT. The White House pledged to change it and is now reportedly trying to block a vote on the measure until after the November Elections.

A group lobbying for the repeal of the ban on gays serving openly in the military is “disturbed” by word that the White House is quietly working to postpone a vote on repeal until after the midterm elections.

“I am very disturbed by multiple reports from Capitol Hill that your Congressional liaison team is urging some Members of Congress to avoid a vote on repeal this year,” the executive director of the Servicemembers Legan Defense Network, Aubrey Sarvis, wrote Obama in a letter to the White House dated today. “The upcoming House and Senate votes will be close, and very frankly, Mr. President, we need your help now.”

Advocates — with the backing of legislators including Senator Joe Lieberman — had hoped to include the repeal measure in this year’s Defense Authorization, with the support of key military leaders. But Sarvis’s letter, urging Obama to “reaffirm” his campaign promise and to strengthen his commitment to gay rights issues, is the most public sign yet of doubts that repeal will come this year.

Then there’s this one from the Hill: Dem to Obama: Push immigration or I’ll tell Latino voters to stay home.

A congressman from the president’s home state is threatening that he will urge Latino voters to stay home this November if the Democratic Party does not make a concerted effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (Ill.) is arguably President Barack Obama’s biggest Democratic critic in Congress. And he’s not fond of Obama’s top advisers at the White House, either.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) member has strongly criticized the administration’s policy on deportation and questioned its commitment to far-reaching reform.
Some Democrats have felt little urgency in pursuing the controversial issue, partly because they see no risk that Hispanic voters will bolt the party for the GOP. But Gutierrez says they are missing the real political consequence of inaction.

Seeing any pattern here?

Sadly, we lost Dorothy Height, one of the key figures in the civil rights movement who fought to integrate the YWCA back in the day.

As president of the National Council of Negro Women from 1957 to 1998, she led the group to expand its mission. Her initiatives included training thousands of women –housewives, teachers, office workers, students — to work as community advocates. Back in their own communities, they pushed for better housing, schools and stores. It was a way to help women escape what Height called the “triple bind of racism, sexism and poverty.”

One of Height’s most visible accomplishments was the Black Family Reunion Celebration, a three-day cultural event in Washington, D.C., with related events around the country. Founded to counter negative images of the African American family, it has been held annually since 1986.

“Her fingerprints are quietly embedded in many of the transforming events of the last six decades as blacks, women, and children pushed open and walked through previously closed doors of opportunity,” Marian Wright Edelman, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, wrote in 2006 in the Baltimore Times.

Wouldn’t it be a great day to make a symbolic movement towards actually doing things to make some of these initiatives real rather than just giving them lip service at campaign time ? We could do this in remembrance of folks like Dorothy Height who put her actions where her beliefs stood.