Sarah Palin's fake feminism, equal pay for equal work department

[Joanne98]

By Kathy G.

Here's La Palin on the Ledbetter Act -- the proposed legislation that McCain, Palin and virtually every other Republican in Congress vigorously opposes, which would restore to women a right that the Supreme Court took away last year: the right to sue for equal pay even if the employer discrimination the suit is based on began 180 days or more after the suit was filed. Lily Ledbetter didn't sue her employer until almost 20 years after the pay discrimination began, simply because it took her that long to discover that men doing the same work she did were being paid significantly more.

I don't have the patience to deconstruct Palin's nonsense here, so I will leave it to my Gentle Readers to ponder Palin's dizzying leaps of logic, as well as her ongoing assault on the English language.

Couric: Where do you stand on the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act?

Palin: I’m absolutely for equal pay for equal work. The Ledbetter pay act - it was gonna turn into a boon for trial lawyers who, I believe, could have taken advantage of women who were many, many years ago who would allege some kind of discrimination. Thankfully, there are laws on the books, there have been since 1963, that no woman could be discriminated against in the workplace in terms of anything, but especially in terms of pay. So, thankfully we have the laws on the books and they better be enforced.

Couric: The Ledbetter act sort of lengthens the time a woman can sue her company if she's not getting equal pay for equal work. Why should a fear of lawsuits trump a woman's ability to do something about the fact that women make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. And that's today.

Palin: There should be no fear of a lawsuit prohibiting a woman from making sure that the laws that are on the books today are enforced. I know in a McCain-Palin administration we will not stand for any measure that would result in a woman being paid less than a man for equal work.

Couric: Why shouldn’t the Ledbetter act be in place? You think it would result in lawsuits brought by women years and years ago. Is that your main problem with it?

Palin: It would have turned into a boon for trial lawyers. Again, thankfully with the existing laws we have on the books, they better be enforced. We won't stand for anything but that. We won't stand for any discrimination in the workplace - that there isn't any discrimination in America.

Okay, I will make one small observation: it's extraordinary how strongly the wingnut mind characterizes women exercising their moral agency as poor, deluded victims whose pathetically weak, girly intellects are being manipulated, and who are somehow being oppressed, exploited, or led astray by the evil menz. You see it here with Palin's claim that women who sue for equal pay are merely being "taken advantage of" by trial lawyers.

And, of course, you see it all the time in the wingnut rhetoric about abortion. To the anti-choice freaks abortion occurs only because women have been exploited by their sexual partners or brainwashed by "the abortion industry" -- never because women, as rational creatures with full human agency, have carefully weighed their needs, desires, and life situation, and concluded that abortion was the best choice for them, given their circumstances.

In addition to all her other charming qualities, Palin is a patronizing, misogynist ass.

http://thegspot.typepad.com/blog/2008/10/sarah-palins-fa.html

[louis-t]

1. You know, as hard as it is to listen to her

it's even harder to read her pig latin, run-on sentences.