It seems like 100 years after women’s suffrage we’d have this thing figured out.
It’s well known that women make less than men - depending on who you ask, it’s around 80-cents to the dollar that a man makes.
Just this week an analysis found this gap for black women in D-C is horrendous: They are underpaid to the tune of 52-cents on the dollar - which totals $2 million of underpayment over the course of a lifetime.
Now you would think that I don’t have a problem with this - because I’m a white guy - I stand to benefit from these inequalities: for every penny a woman doesn’t earn, a man probably does.
But I do have a problem with this - and so do you - because we say we try to keep the Golden Rule - to love our neighbors as ourselves, especially the weak and vulnerable - the unjustly treated and the unjustly paid.
And when Jesus asks us to love our neighbors it means to stick up for justice and to respect the dignity of every human being - men and women.
So if we’re asking why we pay women less than men - we have to ask why we don’t respect women as much as men?
It’s not about money - it’s about respect.
Every time we let the Ted Yoho’s of the world get away with callously disrespecting the Alexandria Ocasio Cortez’s of the world - we’re disrespecting women - and we’re part of the problem - not the solution. Failing to say something is to say something that fails.
In Sunday’s Gospel Jesus has a problem - thousands of people to feed - so he tells his followers ‘You do something about it!’
And that’s the same for you and me.
If the problem is gender inequality - let’s do something about it.
White guys: stop disrespecting women - demeaning them, talking behind their backs, repeating those locker room jokes, not standing up to an unjust status quo - that’s what Real Men do.
This is not an issue that legislatures fix, it’s one we guys fix - when we wake up - and really try to listen to women - hear what they’re about, genuinely value their skills, understand that they can do the job as well or better than a guy.
As different as men are from women, we both have equal gifts - that should command equal pay.
Women don’t have to be paid less than men, if we don’t want them to be.
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