Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Not With A Bang But A Whimper

The US Senate failed to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act:

A bill aimed at stamping out wage discrimination was blocked Wednesday as too few senators voted to move forward with the legislation. The Paycheck Fairness Act needed 60 votes to move forward, and only captured 58.
It was the Republicans who did this:

Senate Republicans have succeeded in blocking a measure designed to reduce wage disparities between men and women.

The 58-41 vote to take up the Paycheck Fairness Act fell short of the 60 needed to overcome GOP opposition.
Yawn. Who cares? Or as one opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal puts it:

Let's not embark upon a journey that leads us to gender warfare.
Hilarious. Just fucking hilarious*.
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*I realized that some might need an explanation of this. Note that the writer of that article already assumes an ongoing gender warfare.

Otherwise he/she wouldn't start from the assumption that an act that would have helped women to sue for discrimination longer than is currently the case fight discrimination in the labor force would not also help men. Women, after all, do belong to families and have male relatives, including spouses, boyfriends and sons. It is the writer who views this as gender warfare and it is the writer who doesn't want women to "win," even if that requires unfairness of a major kind.
(My apologies for that error. As Emma points out in the comments I was talking about the earlier Lily Ledbetter act which did pass. No excuse except I've been writing through a red haze of anger today.)