Many years ago, I can remember being in a round table discussion regarding the discrepancy between men and women salaries. At that time, studies showed that women were making gains in being paid the same rate that men earned for the same job. If I remember correctly, at that time women were earning about seventy cents to the dollar in comparison to what men earned based on equal factors, title, education, location and so forth.
One of the men in attendance, who I might add, was the male version of Pollyanna, clapped and stated how great it was that women were catching up. May be it was the big toothy, Cheshire grin he had on his face, but I took some offense to his glee. I told him I didn't think the celebration should begin until women were paid equally. I mean seriously how many years have we been fighting for this when we work just as hard as men do in positions of the same responsibility. His response was that I should be grateful that "we" were close! "You're almost there, stop complaining", he said. What a chump! Despite laws, such as the Lilly Ledbetter Act, we are still not on an equal footing with men in this regard.
This whole gender inequality thing is again front and center but this time it is in the debate over contraceptives. Who would have thought that we could have slipped any further backwards on the attack on women?
I am well aware that the Catholic Church has a really strong stance on reproduction. I am a Catholic and I understand the rules. A huge majority of Catholic women, I think it is around 90%, have ignored the teaching on birth control and in fact use it. Some to prevent birth, others for various medical reasons. I am not even going to get into this whole religious thing about taking the pill, the Church and the politicians can work that out. It already seems that there has been a compromise laid out that seems doable to me.
What has me irked is that this whole thing has now spiraled out of control and has gone beyond the religious realm. It seems that Republican men think that it should be banned all together or turned over to the states. Rick Santorum's money backer, Foster Friess took the breath away of a female interviewer the other day with this statement.
"This contraceptive thing, my gosh it's such [sic] inexpensive. Back in my days, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn't that costly."
As usual this is being passed off as a joke, perhaps off color, or just a bad joke, but nevertheless, it is being described as "a joke". Aw shucks, Foster was just trying to be funny, you know lighten things up a bit.
Then a congressional panel of all men, again ALL MEN, heard testimony on the subject of requiring religious organizations to provide birth control coverage. The one woman who wanted to testify was deemed "unqualified" by Congressman Issa, yet no woman stood up to testify on the behalf of religious liberty. I wonder why?
When was the last time that birth control was a political issue? 1955? 1960? It's hard to remember and I am sure that the majority of young people in this country today don't even realize women once had to do battle to make the decision on how many children, if any, they wanted. According to the Republicans, birth control has now escalated into a war on religion! The irony is that Newt Gingrich, Republican Presidential Candidate, who declared this war on religion is a fairly recent convert to Catholicism, converting so he could marry his third wife!! What a scam. My interpretation is that it is a war being waged on women for political gain, not religion.
Another irony is that after spending hours trying to find out if Catholic insurance policies covered vasectomies, I learned that they do not. However, and there is a however...it is often overlooked for either medical or other unexplained reasons, and the procedure can be covered! Viagra is also covered because it helps a man in the procreation process. Shades of Mary Magdalene! Let's keep the male penis happy.
I am not attacking the Church here. I am a Catholic and will remain a Catholic despite the things that I disagree on or the scandals that have plagued the Church. I am not religious. I think of my faith as spiritual and there are things I do like about my Church. Somehow I can't picture Jesus standing on the Mount declaring a religious war because of reproduction issues. The Church can work things out with the government on the birth control issue and then I can decide whether I want to work for one of these organization or not. If folks decide they don't want to work there, the Church can fill those jobs with nuns again. There are many businesses that provide no health insurance at all to their employees, and again, I have the choice whether to work there or not. I would prefer that all employers provide equal benefits but I know that's not how things work.
What I am attacking is that this has been blown into a political issue to once again jump on the President Obama is a muslim-socialist-white people hater band wagon who wants to destroy America and we are going to push women back to the Dark Ages to prove it. If you want me to enter 1955 then please bring back 1955 gas prices, all the jobs that were shipped overseas and the tax rate of 1955. Yeah, that's what I thought -- it's cherry picking time again. Please pass the aspirin!
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