President Obama signs equal pay law

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

I love seeing families that defy traditional gender norms! There are men and women with MDs, PhDs, etc. who choose to stay at home.

If more men were stay at home fathers, to the point where there was a pattern to be observed rather than outliers, employers would change their policies accordingly.

Single father families also challenge traditional gender norms. Unfortunately, if these men are not in fields where they can work from home and set their own schedules, they find themselves in workplaces that are unwilling to accomodate a single father. This is not only because of the time commitments of the family situation itself but also because having family responsibilities that rival career responsibilities defies norms of masculinity and maleness.

I completely agree! I'm actually fine with being the main breadwinner because in the end, I get paid well for a job I love. My husband would make much less and be miserable the whole time. He'll eventually find something he doesn't mind doing everyday, but right now he's just bored! For those who think gender discrimination doesn't occur, I can attest to being discriminated against multiple times after I graduated from med school. It shocked me then...I thought in 2000 that those things didn't happen anymore. And, I was dead wrong!

[Coramoor]

Originally Posted by AOII Angel

Wanting to work part time, be a stay at home mommy should have no bearing on the millions of women who work full time in this country. Considering that child bearing years only apply to a very specific part of the years a woman can work and that the vast majority of women do not have more than 2 children, using the likelihood that a worker may become pregnant as a reason to pay every woman in the US less than her male counterparts is RIDICULOUS! My husband would LOVE to be a stay at home house husband...I already support our family. Should men get paid less because some men decide not to work? Shoot, my husband has an MD with advanced fellowship training at Hopkins...if you want to talk about wasted education, he's an excellent example!!

That is the point in contention! You cannot prove that women that work full time is experiencing pay inequality because other women choose to have families or work part time. The study you quote cannot go to prove what you are presenting as fact.

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by Coramoor

That is the point in contention! You cannot prove that women that work full time is experiencing pay inequality because other women choose to have families or work part time. The study you quote cannot go to prove what you are presenting as fact.

Hmmm...did I actually quote any studies? No. I actually was addressing reasons others proposed for lower wages amongst women. I'm confused. Are you saying that women aren't paid less or that they aren't paid less because of their ability to bear children? If you want to argue statistics, you actually need to read the studies and evaluate their methods. They probably address the confounding factors that you point out. Just because a problem is multifactorial and complicated doesn't mean it can't be researched.

[AGDee]

If you read about Lily, you see that she was 1) far above child bearing age for this to be an issue, 2) worked in a Goodyear factory, 3) worked with 9 men and the lowest paid of the men made 15% more than her 4) she was hired in 10 years prior at the same rate as the men and did not receive raises at the same rate

She didn't take a maternity leave, she didn't have less experience. She did the same job as the men and should have received the same pay. That's what I see equal pay for equal work to be about.

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by AGDee

If you read about Lily, you see that she was 1) far above child bearing age for this to be an issue, 2) worked in a Goodyear factory, 3) worked with 9 men and the lowest paid of the men made 15% more than her 4) she was hired in 10 years prior at the same rate as the men and did not receive raises at the same rate

She didn't take a maternity leave, she didn't have less experience. She did the same job as the men and should have received the same pay. That's what I see equal pay for equal work to be about.

Isn't it sad? It didn't stop there either. After suing for discrimination, she was demoted and put on an assembly line requiring her to flip Hummer tires as a frail >60yo woman. She had to take early retirement because she couldn't handle the work after being in management for years. I seriously will never buy another Goodyear tire in my life! At least for her suffering, she can settle for being a hero to working women everywhere!!

[Eclipse]

Originally Posted by AOII Angel

Isn't it sad? It didn't stop there either. After suing for discrimination, she was demoted and put on an assembly line requiring her to flip Hummer tires as a frail >60yo woman. She had to take early retirement because she couldn't handle the work after being in management for years. I seriously will never buy another Goodyear tire in my life! At least for her suffering, she can settle for being a hero to working women everywhere!!

AND the issue with this particular case (and the law that President Obama signed) addressed is a person's ability to file suit after 180 days. The Supreme Court ruled that because Ms. Letbetter brought her claim more than 180 days after the *initial* incident of gender discrimination that she could not legally sue her company. The new law states that a claimant has 180 days from each instance of discrimination, which in a case about pay, would be 180 days from each paycheck because each check would be a new incident of discrimination, to file a lawsuit.

The law makes no claims about what employers can or should pay their employees. If an employer can justify because of experience, knowledge, performance, etc. that certain classes of employees have and do performance at a higher rate than others, then there is nothing to prevent them from doing so.

[AOII Angel]

Originally Posted by Eclipse

AND the issue with this particular case (and the law that President Obama signed) addressed is a person's ability to file suit after 180 days. The Supreme Court ruled that because Ms. Letbetter brought her claim more than 180 days after the *initial* incident of gender discrimination that she could not legally sue her company. The new law states that a claimant has 180 days from each instance of discrimination, which in a case about pay, would be 180 days from each paycheck because each check would be a new incident of discrimination, to file a lawsuit.

The law makes no claims about what employers can or should pay their employees. If an employer can justify because of experience, knowledge, performance, etc. that certain classes of employees have and do performance at a higher rate than others, then there is nothing to prevent them from doing so.

Very true! We can just hope that these gender inequalities will be caught, and those people will be sued frequently enough to make it not worth their while to discriminate. Considering there are women in this world who are still regarded as property, I can't be too dismissive of this new law.