Friday’s FemFacts: Exactly how much more do men make compared to women? I just read an interesting article on why women don’t identify themselves as feminists even if they do support certain feminist ideals published by the American Observer. In ‘Feminism: It’s What Women Don’t Want,” Michelle Seyler states the following:
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, women earned 80.4 percent as much as men in 2004. This gap is even higher for African American women, who earned 70.8 percent as much as men in the same year. The report also found that Asian women earned up to 86 percent as much as men while Hispanic women earned just 58.8 percent.
Today, women continue to make .77 cents less than men on every dollar earned, and I wonder why when we comprise more than half the population.
Perhaps if we get more women in political power, these numbers will change — but if we continue to put only men in powerful positions, they will continue to argue about who governs our bodies and our reproductive rights as opposed to paying us equally to men.
What about you? What’s your position on this issue? Do you have any resources you can share with us as to how we can change these statistics?
I certainly agree with you here. We need more women and moms in powerful political offices.
I pose one other consideration. I believe we need our own market, our own economy — one that at very least cannot be used for wars or be labeled “scary-socialist”. It seems like establishing our own feminine systems using current mechanisms is the fastest way to go. I have ideas about how to do that. I’m tired just watching these battles take place. I prefer to use my energy to find a way to outsmart the system.
I continue brainstorming….
It’s an interesting concept that you have there, Heather. The machines already in place are so male dominated, I wonder if it is at all possible for women to be welcome to them and even change them — But if they do create their own political and social and economic spaces in which to function, I can already hear the arguments of reverse discrimination — we’re doing what we we accuse them of doing…It’s definitely revolutionary though, what you’re proposing. Keep brainstorming. Let’s do something radical.
You bring up a good point about the reverse descrimination concerns but I’m ironing out my concepts about this. I have something I’m writing that builds on the differences and complementary aspects of men and women that should be part of the way we do business.