President Obama and Lilly Ledbetter
How far should we as believers go in bringing equality? How strongly do we believe in equal rights and equal protection under the law? Should a woman make the same salary as a man?
That last question is a hard one for Christians to answer, especially Christian men, because we believe in traditional male/female roles. In a world where farming is done by a tremendous minority and factory/manufacturing jobs are dwindling (at least in this nation) finding a balance between the salary of men and women is incredibly difficult.
President Obama signed into legislation something known as the Lilly Ledbetter Act, which allows women to claim past income they were denied simply because they were women. It’s bad for business to be sure (unless you’re a plaintiff’s attorney), but it’s good for equality. Question is, how much to believers actually believe in equality?
I like the idea, but it’ll probably be abused by plaintiff’s attorneys who are only looking to get their 33% of any settlement. If the bill created arbitration boards and paid attorneys a flat fee to perform their duties, I might like that better, but allowing blanket claims seems to aid the plaintiff’s bar more than it aids women who were shut out of their income.
I wonder though, do we really and truly believe women should make as much as men? Or, does our traditional view cause use to say we believe in it on the surface, but when we get down to it we actually believe that men need to make more money so they can provide for their families and women in the workplace is a real luxury? Women, in all honesty, do tend to have the option (even in lower income families) to stay at home with their children rather than work. Okay, option might not be the right word, maybe obligation. If they have that luxury, shouldn’t men have the luxury to make a higher wage? Isn’t it ridiculous for the law to ignore biology? If we are clearly created differently, why can’t the laws reflect that?
Men and women, I think, aren’t equal. Women are superior in some cases, and men are superior in others. Equal is a blanket term, rarely applying to real world circumstances. When a law lays down blanket interpretations of real life situations, it creates animosity. However, how long are we going to progress as a nation before we confront the fact that men and women are of equal intelligence, and when it comes to sales, marketing, legal services, accounting (i.e. non-physical labor) a difference in pay is insane?
I think if we’re striving for fairness it’s a good thing. Your idea about arbitration and flat fees is good. I think the word “equality” as is used in the great traditions in this country is defined more as the intrinsic worth of a human life. Unfortunately many modern people think of it in mathematical terms, of identicalness. That’s a problem.