Republicans like to tell women what women care about. So for years they’ve been telling us we don’t care about equal pay. Oh, yes, we have better things to worry about, like asking our bosses for their approval for our birth control methods.
But on this matter, as on many others, reality has proven Republicans wrong. They are, quite frankly, out of touch with real women. So says a Gallup poll released Monday, which shows that a plurality of Americans cite equal pay as the top issue facing working women.
Yes, 39% of all Americans think equal pay/fair pay is the most important issue working women face. Forty-one percent of women rank it as the most important issue, 37% of men agree, and 42% of working women agree. This places equal pay way above even jobs as the most important issue facing working women.
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To wit:
Nearly four in 10 Americans say equal pay is the top issue facing working women in the United States today, a sentiment shared by roughly the same proportions of men, women, and working women. About twice as many Americans mention equal pay as cite the second-ranked issue — equal opportunity for advancement. No other issue is cited by more than 10% of Americans.
Sadly for the Republican Party, they bet against equal pay, voting against it seven times.
In March, I called Republicans out for their 2014 strategy regarding how to win women voters, which was to inform women that they shouldn’t care about equal pay because… Obamacare roll out glitches.
The Washington Post reported that Republicans thought Obamacare glitches trumped equal pay, “The troubled roll out of the Affordable Care Act is an issue that GOP candidates believe they can use to return fire on the criticism that the party is hostile to women.”
That’s some high cotton mansplaining, because not only are Republicans telling women what they should care about, but they were trying to bad mouth another program that just so happens to economically benefit women in order to do it. Sigh.
Ladies, you shouldn’t care about the preventative care that is now free to you under Obamacare, or the access to affordable health insurance for your family and children. There was a GLITCH! That is all you girls should be thinking about.
Texas Republicans championing Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott, who is running against state Senator Democrat Wendy Davis, told women they were “too busy” to care about equal pay. When that didn’t shut women up, they said that Republicans can’t get behind legislation that would make it possible for women to sue if they found out they were being given the shaft regarding equal pay, because women are bad negotiators. Some call that victim blaming, I call it a very bad dodge of the obvious fact that women deserve to have their hard work honored the same as anyone else.
Naturally, after telling women there was no need for equal pay, Greg Abbott got busted paying women in his office less money for the same job. You can see why Republicans are really against equal pay: Cheap labor.
Republicans have tried saying that the pay gap that they don’t want to ensure doesn’t exist does not exist. Now, if this were true, they wouldn’t care if it were against the law — no harm, no foul.
Instead, Fox News (R-Cable) has gone out of their way to smear the pay gap as a myth. President Obama has been forced to correct them, “Even worse, some commentators are out there saying the pay gap doesn’t even exist. They say it’s a myth, but it’s not a myth. It’s math. You can look at the paychecks, look at the stubs. I mean, Lilly Ledbetter didn’t just make this up. The court when it looked at the documents said, yep, yep, you’ve been getting paid less for doing the same job.”
Former President Jimmy Carter slammed Republicans for this, saying that not supporting equal pay is abuse.
Nothing says winning like denying the existence of the issue a plurality of all Americans agree is the top issue facing working women. It doesn’t exist, you ladies don’t care about working for less (‘cuz clearly you’re not working for money – just a hobby job for the wife), you’re too busy to care about equal pay (see above), and if you did care, well too bad, you suck as negotiators.
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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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