GOP Strategy: Deny facts, insults women, insults smart woman spouting facts.
12:46 pm - 04/29/2012Top Republican Strategist Denies Women Are Paid Less Than Men
Source Think Progress
By Igor Volsky on Apr 29, 2012 at 11:54 am
This morning, during a heated discussion with Rachel Maddow on Meet The Press, GOP consultant Alex Castellanos denied that women make 77 cents for a man’s dollar in the workplace and noted, “there are lots of reasons for that.” Maddow expressed shock at the assertion, but concluded that it explained why Republicans and Mitt Romney are so hesitant to embrace the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, a law that helps women hold accountable employers who discriminate in the pay practices based on gender.
“Now we know, at least from both of your perspectives,” Maddow said, pointing to Castellanos and Romney surrogate Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), “women are not fairing worse than men in the economy that women aren’t getting paid less for equal work.” “It’s about policy and whether or not you want to fix some of the structural discrimination that women really do face that Republicans don’t believe is happening,” she added. Castellanos responded to Maddow’s policy argument by remarking on her passion, to which the MSNBC host took offense:
CASTELLANOS: It is about policy and I love how passionate you are. I wish you were as right about what you’re saying as you are passionate about it. I really do.
MADDOW: That’s really condescending. This is a stylistic issue. My passion on this issue is actually me making a factual argument on it.
In an interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer earlier this month, Romney refused to say whether he would sign the Lilly Ledbetter Act, but claimed that he would not change it. Romney’s women surrogates — including McMorris Rodgers — all voted against the legislation. Castellanos himself consulted Romney during the 2008 presidential election.
ETA: MSNBC has full video http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/#47
CASTELLANOS: It is about policy and I love how passionate you are. I wish you were as right about what you’re saying as you are passionate about it. I really do.
And oh my fucking god. Hit this person with a fish.
I hate when people make remarks that basically imply that being passionate about something negates the fact that, more often than not, these passionate people are using fucking FACTS as their foundation.
Fuck this condescending asshat, and bravo for Rachel handling this a hell of a lot more professionally than I would have.
Edited at 2012-04-29 07:09 pm (UTC)
This. There's no inherent contradiction between being passionate and HAVING A FUCKING POINT, and I can't with these willfully clueless, overprivileged asshats always pulling some bogus tone argument on that. It's like, hello, some people cannot afford comfortable apathy - though I'm sure that's exactly what these Republicans want.
One of the problems isn't just, or isn't always that men are getting paid more for the same job. It is that different jobs of the same value that attract more of one gender than the other are valued differently. We give the jobs men tend to do a higher monetary value. Some pay equity initiatives do try to fix that, by going through jobs, and rating them, and then making sure jobs of equal rating receive similar rates of pay.
I don't feel like I need to get into the part where men dominate more job types not due to natural aptitude but societal values that effect us as we are growing up (that maths and sciences thing). Or that the higher up the ladder you go the whiter and maler it gets. Or that in other cases, men just are literally paid more than women (one of my friends has this happen, due to people holding her to a higher standard than her male counterparts and giving them more raises than she would get).
There are too many reasons for why this is happening D:
And my wife worked for years at a job where her exact peers--all men, software--got paid more. Explains why they're not supposed to talk about their salaries. When she left, her boss said he'd have to replace her with 2 people...and yet he didn't manage to pay her what the guys got.
*HUGS SO HARD*
The part where the old dude shuts down Rachel Maddow fills me with so much rage. I'm SO SO SO impressed that she immediately told him where to stick it in the most composed, polite way possible, while still remaining assertive. She is my HERO.
Also, I agree with the above comment describing the pay gap. Just look at Secretary of State! That was a highly distinguished place in the administration (it still is), the HIGHEST cabinet position, but now that it's seen by my generation as a women's position, Rush Limbaugh just made fun of Hillary Clinton for "only" achieving being a secretary.
Once something is seen as women's work, it's immediately devalued. Conversely, once jobs seen as women's work become dominated by men, EVERY FUCKING TIME the pay goes up.
ALSO women are stuck in low paying low position work. Sure they make the same as their male counterparts doing the same work-- minimum wage, until the man who was hired after her gets a promotion and she doesn't. Then he makes more.
would you look at that -- the tone argument in its natural habitat!
I mean, how else are you going to know if you're getting paid less than your peers?
Translation: "Oh isn't it cute how angry you are! Women are so ~emotional~, pity they don't know what they're talking about, the poor dears."
Hello, out of touch.
Because I get flustered and have trouble speaking when aggressively confronted over something - and he knows this - I'm wrong. I'm always wrong.
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