Saturday, April 14, 2012

Lowlights & Highlights: April 14, 2012

Awesome, we all survived Friday the 13th.

You have probably never heard of Glenn Grothman. Before this week, neither had I. He a Republican state Senator in the Wisconsin legislature. To this elected official, it makes perfect sense that there be a pay gap between men and women because money means more to men. Seriously, he is on record as having said this. And people on the political right have been making the claim this week that the "War on Women" is a farce invented by the left. The Daily Beast reported this:

Whatever gaps exist, he insists, stem from women’s decision to prioritize child-rearing over their careers. “Take a hypothetical husband and wife who are both lawyers,” he says. “But the husband is working 50 or 60 hours a week, going all out, making 200 grand a year. The woman takes time off, raises kids, is not go go go. Now they’re 50 years old. The husband is making 200 grand a year, the woman is making 40 grand a year. It wasn’t discrimination. There was a different sense of urgency in each person.” [...]
Grothman doesn’t accept these studies. When I ran the numbers by him, he replied, “The American Association of University Women is a pretty liberal group.” Nor, he argued, does its conclusion take into account other factors, like “goals in life. You could argue that money is more important for men. I think a guy in their first job, maybe because they expect to be a breadwinner someday, may be a little more money-conscious. To attribute everything to a so-called bias in the workplace is just not true.”
I think that Grothman should be made aware of what decade/century this is, because it sounds like he is mentally stuck in the 1950's. This isn't Pleasantville (although that's a great film). This is America. Income is equally important to men and women. Because of skyrocketing healthcare costs, education costs, and other necessary things, both partners need to make money. These is ZERO reason that there should not be equal pay for equal work.

I have no idea why anyone would vote for someone with such antiquated views. Seriously, who voted for this clown?

***

I actually had a little trouble deciding what my favourite thing of the week was, but it was definitely Rick Santorum's exit from the presidential race. I commented on this on the day, but let me elaborate a little. Santorum is a vile human being. He believes that not everyone is equal under the law. Granted there were other GOP candidates who are on record as agreeing with him on this, but Santorum does so in a way that is particularly vile. I think that part of why I point him out is that he got farther in the nomination process than did other homophobes like Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann, so we heard plenty more of his homophobia. There is also the fact that while he was on the campaign trail, he would talk about these social issues unprompted and unsolicited. Then, when an interviewer asked him about these issues on-air, he often tried to dodge the question or claim that he didn't talk about those issues that much. I really don't have anything good to say about Rick Santorum. 

Honestly, I wish he had stayed in the race long enough to get trounced in his home state primary later this month. Maybe then his political career would have been over forever. However, not hearing this man who is against women, against LGBT Americans, against public education, against higher education, and so on is definitely welcome. Regular readers of this blog are well aquainted with the stupid, insensitive, and factually incorrect statements Santorum has made. I have featured many of them (and there are many of them to feature). He would be a bigger embarrassment to the office of the President of the United States than George W. Bush (who would look like Abraham Lincoln by comparison). He would do nothing good for this country. Luckily he won't get the chance...at least for another four years. Good riddance.

Let the REAL election begin!!!

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