Considering he’s provided me with inspiration for several of my columns, a goal of mine for this week was to avoid mentioning Mitt Romney. But alas, I watched the second presidential debate Tuesday night, and yet again, that man’s mouth provided far too much fodder for criticism.
During the town hall debate, a woman in the audience asked the candidates, “In what new ways do you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace, specifically regarding females making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn?”
This was a great question, as the male-female wage disparity in our country is indeed a very real and troubling issue. Women actually earn a bit more than 77 percent of what men make, but it’s still 23 percent too little.
This income disparity of more than 20 cents per dollar is indicative of a scourge of sex discrimination that has plagued female workers since their entry into the workplace.
In his response, President Obama subtly evaded the question by pointing only to his signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which was the first major piece of legislation passed by his administration. In all fairness, the passage of this bill was an important step forward, as the bill resets the 180-day statute of limitations for filing a wage-discrimination lawsuit with each new paycheck earned by the plaintiff.
Prior to the law, the statute of limitations began with the first discriminatory paycheck, which would typically occur far before an employee would be able to discover that she was being discriminated against.
Mitt Romney, on the other hand, very blatantly evaded the question by refusing to admit that women deserve to earn equal pay for equal work and, in the process, insulted female workers by objectifying them in the middle of a vague and convoluted answer:
“… We took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women’s groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks?’ And I brought us whole binders full of — of women … What we can do to help young women and women of all ages is to have a strong economy, so strong that employers are looking to find good employees and bringing them into their workforce and adapting to a … flexible work schedule that gives women the opportunities that … they would otherwise not be able to … afford.”
Within minutes of Romney’s answer, Facebook groups and a Tumblr blog by the name of “Binders Full of Women” went viral, featuring dozens of macros and user comments mocking Romney’s sexist remark.
Romney’s proposed solution to the morally repugnant reality of sex discrimination is to encourage businesses to provide more flexible schedules to women so that they can go home at the end of the day and cook dinner.
Without question, workplace flexibility is a legitimate example of progressive reform that employers should definitely consider implementing. However, it by no means provides a remedy of any kind to the fact that women earn 77 cents for every dollar men make.
The reason Romney couldn’t offer a better answer is because, quite simply, Republicans live in a bubble. In this bubble, in addition to all their other misguided perceptions, they are convinced the pay gap between men and women doesn’t exist. This delusion was brought to full view when Republican strategist Alex Castellanos condescended to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on “Meet the Press” last April and told her the pay disparity was a myth.
According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, “Women are almost half of the workforce. They are the equal, if not main, breadwinner in four out of 10 families. They receive more college and graduate degrees than men.”
In the wake of all the progress we have made in guaranteeing equal rights for all Americans, a great deal of work remains. Not the least of this work is cementing equal pay for equal work for women.
Moisés Reyes is a journalism grad student at UF. His column appears on Fridays. You can contact him at opinions@alligator.org.
