Tuesday night.
The hall is really full now. Its 7:40 and I've been here since 5:00 or so. I love Lilly Ledbetter, the working Grandmother from Alabama who just spoke. After working for Goodyear for 19 years she found out that she had been paid less then men doing the same work for all those years. She sued and won, but the Supreme Court reversed the lower court and she didn't get compensated. The Supreme Court said she had to sue within 6 months of the beginning of the discrimination. How ridiculous! She didn't know!

I've read about this case before and find it appalling. Of course its appalling that women are only earning 78 cents on the dollar for men. These are new figures just out, and while we can celebrate a small decrease in the disparity it is galling that there is a disparity. Equal pay for equal work shouldn't be moving ahead this slowly. Women are taking so much of the financial responsibility for raising the children of this country. Single moms and divorced moms are often raising their kids alone. Married moms are contributing more and more of the household income. Executive moms are driving businesses and raising their families' standard of living. Why should there be any disparity? Certainly not because of unequal work. Working mothers are the hardest working people. We want to focus on our work because we actually want to get home to be with our children as quickly as possible. And we want to earn our flexible work schedules in exchange for being trustworthy.
Okay. The working grandmother said it very well. Let's make work fair for women.