: : : Everyone in America knows that, whatever the job, on the average, women earn 25% less than men.: : : Women have had the vote since 1920.
: : : Why can't women 'vote' themselves wage equity?
: : : 'Legislation, whether political or civil, never does more than proclaim, express in word, the will of economic relations' (Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, International n.d., p. 70).
: Piper: So your Utopia's goig to cure all social ills is it stoller? It's going to be what? The end of history?
: : BTW economic relations are not the only cause of legislation. To hold to that is naive in the extreme.
: Uh... was that an answer to the question?
Piper: No, but it was i think an answer to the point you were driving at.
: Again: Why---after 80 years of having the vote---haven't women voted themselves wage equity with men?
Piper:
The Equal pay Act 1963 makes it mandatory for equal or substantially equal work performed by men and women to receive identical pay. This has had some effect- the Wage gap has narrowed about 12% during last 14 years. But this figure is inflated because much of the increase is due to a fall in real wages.
So what we have is a failure of the equal pay act 1963 to perform its stated objective. There is no failure of parliamentry democracy here in the sense that a piece of legislation that should have the effect of reducing iniquity HAS been placed on the statute books. ( I suppose one could say there IS a failure in the length of time the bill took to get to law, but even that is understandable given the nature of social relations till the 60s).
The major problem lies with effective enforcement of the law. Ie overcoming entrenched power groups and long standing prejudices.
Now the solution to this may well require statutory amendments to the legislation (i note some have been mooted by various parties). But this just goes to emphasise the trial and error nature of legislation (as it must necessarily be). A parliament can't predict how effective a law is going to be before it is passed.
Equal pay for women will come...eventually.
