Democrats Push "Paycheck Fairness" Bill

In response to my post the other day about the misogyny of women who support the Republican Party even though the party is anti-woman, a woman apparently from Texas left a snarky comment about ME having no credibility.  Looking at her "profile" (which naturally hides her identity) she showed a penchant for following Christianist and home schooling blogs  - no surprise with respect to the latter.  Her reading habits indeed typifies to me the women in the GOP.  They are so wrapped up in religious brainwashing and the avoidance of objective facts that they don't know the difference between their ass and their elbow.  She took particular offense at my statement that women don't earn the same wages as men for the same job. Never mind that objective facts support my contention.  The comment author obviously needs to get her nose out of her KJV and open her eyes.  Politico looks at efforts of Democrats to push legislation that would end pay disparities for women.  Here are highlights:

Sick of the fights over contraception and Planned Parenthood? Get ready for a new front in what Democrats call the GOP’s “war on women.”

Five female Democratic senators pressed for legislation Wednesday aimed at closing the wage gap between men and women. The Paycheck Fairness Act would bring up to date the Equal Pay Act, which was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson nearly 50 years ago.

Democrats cited statistics showing that women today are still paid 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, or $10,784 less a year on average. That’s the equivalent of 183 tanks of gas or 92 bags of groceries.

“Women still make less for doing the same job with the same education as men do. The pay gap is as real today as it was 49 years ago,” Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski, the longest-serving female in Congress, said at a news conference.

“We’re saying … we’re mad as hell and we’re not gonna take it anymore.” Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has promised a cloture vote on the pay bill the week of June 4, after the Senate returns from its week-long Memorial Day recess.

Republican opposition has given Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) a chance to frame the issue of equal pay as yet another example of the GOP’s war on women.  “As I look at the record of Republicans on women, it is not good,” Boxer said. “Personally, I say it’s a war on women. The more they protest it, the more I say it, because I truly believe it.”

Democrats counter that the Paycheck Fairness bill is much stronger than the Ledbetter Act. They say Ledbetter keeps the courthouse door open for women to sue for discrimination, while Paycheck makes it tougher to discriminate in the first place. Ledbetter does not address compensatory or punitive damages; Paycheck does. And Paycheck makes it illegal for employers to retaliate against workers for inquiring about their colleagues’ wages.