Paycheck Fairness Act

The paycheck fairness act was introduced to the senate on January 23^rd of 2013. On September 15^th the republican senate blocked the bill. What made them do this? Upon further investigations into the actual bill in question the description from https://www.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-bill/84 which provides us with the actual bill explains it to be almost like an amendment of the  Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. From what I can read it does a lot of reinforcing for sex discrimination and shows progressive elements of closing the gender wage gap.

                 What the GOP’s concerns are in their statement from https://www.gop.com/misleading-paycheck-fairness-act/ that even starts off to be pretty inflammatory with a title like Misleading Paycheck Fairness Act. You almost don’t even have to read it to know what their opinion is on the Bill, almost. The first complaint can be found in the first paragraph that accuses the bill of not having “real solutions that focus on job creation and opportunity for women” they worry that this bill will cut flexibility and bonuses. Now lets go back to the actual bill a big thing I found that disproves their first statement about it not focusing on opportunities for women “Authorizes the Secretary to make grants to eligible entities for negotiation skills training programs for girls and women.” Programs for women? That help them? To have more oppurtunities? They must’ve just looked that whole part over. Or – in my opinion did they look over the whole entire bill and pay more attention to rumors? Which is what it sounds a lot like when you start comparing and contrasting the GOP statement and actual summary of the bill.

                “It’s been against the law to pay a woman less than a man with comparable experience in the same job since the Equal Pay Act of 1963.” yes, but there is still a wage gap between men and women. The very definition of amend is to “make minor changes in (a text) in order to make it fairer, more accurate, or more up-to-date.” Which is what this bill is all about. Its making solutions and regulating issues within the work force that holds employers more accountable for sex discrimination.

                They also make a very brash statement suggesting that a wage gap doesn’t even exist “The difference isn’t because of their genders; it’s because of their jobs. The “Paycheck Fairness Act” wouldn’t change that.” Firstly there is absolutely no evidence to back up their claim. Luckily I have some evidence to debunk it. 

Here is a graph from http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/engineering-pay-gap-glassdoor-reveals-many-women-engineers-earn-less-than-men/ showing the average pay for female and male engineers. Where women are only earning 97.6% of what men earn in the engineering field. This is only from the 4,700 salary reports on glassdoor.com. you can also see as the experience years increase so does the gap.

                Furthermore what this bill would prevent is cases like Melissa Nelson a dental assistant from Iowa who was fired by her boss for being too attractive and a threat to his marriage. The court ruled it completely constitutional for him to do this despite his grotesque remarks about his lack of control and policing of her body. 

Touchstones: Speaking My Truth

“You are invited to say what is in your heart, trusting that your voice will be heard and our contribution respected. Your truth may be different from, even the opposite of, what another person here has said. Yet speaking your truth is simply that—it is not debating with, or correcting, or interpreting what another has said. Own your truth by remembering to speak only for yourself. Using the first person “I” rather than “you” or “everyone” clearly communicates the personal nature of your expression”

This particular touchstone spoke to me the most because to me speaking my truth is one of the hardest things to do, because it’s usually met with a backlash of criticisms and people policing my feelings. My truth isn’t a statistic nor is it factual. I can’t base it on hard evidence but only claims to my personal experiences of how I view the world. Feeling opposite is a really difficult thing to push through. Even though I enjoy having discussions and being critical of what I see, read, and witness every day. I still get a huge gut wrenching feeling when I’m about to share any opinion I have. 

The first thing I read out loud in my English 102 class was a section of one of the ancillaries we had to write, in this moment I have forgotten the context of my writing but I do know that I was so nervous and effected by this overwhelming feeling of self-doubt.  I was shaking and finding it hard to recite my own words. The line “own your truth” is something that really struck me with this one although it’s a very short statement it’s a very powerful one that suggests confidence in your words.

Often I find that I want to shut myself in because of the way I feel. Being alone is a much safer environment to have your truths and be unmet with judgment. A line in Sylvia Plaths’ Apprehensions reminds me of my struggle with my truth and harboring it alone “is there no way out of my mind?”  But often I feel like I would be living the same year over and over again if I stuck to that mindset.  To me this touchstone is everything I need to work on.  I am always apprehensive about what I say or do even though I consider myself to be a very open kind of person. Or at least I always work toward being open with different subjects although I can be very passionate by nature.

I guess the most I got out of this touchstone is that finding your confidence is a key factor towards finding a space to work together with people comfortably and productively. Without confidence the focus can be lost any point or context in our words comes across less rich if we lack the backbone to stand for it. The fact is everyone sees the world through a different lens. People have different truths because they are different people. But it isn’t impossible to sit in a room with people and appreciate their words, and more importantly their truth.