Gender discrimination at work: A-OK!

I'm a little tardy in writing about the Supreme Court ruling in Ledbetter v. Goodyear.

The court ruled that employees must make their discrimination complaints within 180 days “after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.” In other words, the discrimination occurs at the time a woman is given a salary that is significantly lower than her male counterparts. If she doesn't catch on to the pay disparity within 180 days, she's screwed. Which is why Ledbetter's attorneys had argued that she was discriminated against every time she was handed a paycheck for less money than her male equivalent on the job -- not simply when her salary was determined. According to the Times:

Ms. Ledbetter’s salary was initially the same as that of her male colleagues. But over time, as she received smaller raises, a substantial disparity grew. By the time she brought suit in 1998, her salary fell short by as much as 40 percent; she was making $3,727 a month, while the lowest-paid man was making $4,286.

So 180 days isn't much time to figure out a pay disparity exists. How many people -- especially, for example, women in nontraditional professions -- talk openly with their coworkers about how much they're earning?

This is likely to have a chilling effect on employment discrimination suits. As Scott says,

• Republicans don't have to modify or repeal civil rights legislation, and the Court's needn't strike it down; the courts and/or the executive branch can just gut the legislation by making it difficult to enforce in ways that don't attract public attention.

This decision is an even greater incentive to get behind the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would require employers to make employee salaries public so women will know sooner if they're getting paid less for equal (or more) work.


UPDATE: In comments, Jill Zimon points out that Congressional Dems have responded to the ruling by pledging to pass a law that eliminates the time restriction.

(P.S. For your reading pleasure, Ginsburg's dissent.)

Trouble for Mexico City?

Here's some potentially bad news. Mexico's Supreme Court is going to hear a challenge to the the landmark law that legalized abortion in Mexico City.

Supreme Court Justice Sergio Salvador Aguirre said arguments that abortions violate the constitutional right to life were strong enough to warrant a full review that could lead to the law being thrown out. The court did not announce a date for opening deliberations.

The heated debate over abortion pits Mexico City's leftist government against conservative President Felipe Calderón and the influential Roman Catholic Church. The legal challenges were filed by two federal agencies, the Attorney General's Office and National Human Rights Commission.

The good news? The case won't stop doctors from providing care to women in the meantime.Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, of the Democratic Revolution Party, said, "Our position is fixed. The health department will go on working."

Bad-ass woman of the week: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Check out this NY Times piece on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and how she's using her current Supreme Court term to speak up. Literally.

In both the recent federal abortion ban case and this week's discrimination ruling, Justice Ginsburg read dissents from the bench:

But the words were clearly her own, and they were both passionate and pointed. In the abortion case, in which the court upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act seven years after having struck down a similar state law, she noted that the court was now “differently composed than it was when we last considered a restrictive abortion regulation.” In the latest case, she summoned Congress to overturn what she called the majority’s “parsimonious reading” of the federal law against discrimination in the workplace.

...The oral dissent has not been, until now, Justice Ginsburg’s style. She has gone years without delivering one, and never before in her 15 years on the court has she delivered two in one term. In her past dissents, both oral and written, she has been reluctant to breach the court’s collegial norms. “What she is saying is that this is not law, it’s politics,” Pamela S. Karlan, a Stanford law professor, said of Justice Ginsburg’s comment linking the outcome in the abortion case to the fact of the court’s changed membership. “She is accusing the other side of making political claims, not legal claims.”

Gee, I wonder why.

A friend of Ginsburg's, Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, says "shehas always been regarded as sort of a white-glove person, and she’s achieved a lot that way...Now she is seeing that basic issues she’s fought so hard for are in jeopardy, and she is less bound by what have been the conventions of the court.” Thank goodness. Now let's just hope people will listen.

O'Reilly defends "White, Christian, male power structure"

And McFlipper just smiles and nods. Lovely.

Democratic Party has the transcript.

United Nations Human Rights chief speaks out against sexual violence

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour says that she is appalled by the level of sexual and gender-based violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Burundi.

Read the full post at UN Dispatch.

Women protest DA's decision in California gang rape case

The wonderful women at California NOW protested yesterday in front D.A.'s office in San Jose, speaking out against the office's recent decision not to bring charges in a case where three women witnessed a young woman being gang raped.

Click this link to go to the video:
http://video.nbc11.com/player/?id=115107

Link-A-Dink

Milwaukee: a guy there robbed a bank, then hung around to harass one of the female tellers. Shockingly, she said no.

Women are leading the fight for indigenous people's rights.

Celebrating the Pill's 40th birthday.

How dudes with websites turn a high-school athlete into an unwilling internet sex object. I feel absolutely terrible for this girl: "She felt violated. It was like becoming the victim of a crime, Stokke said. Her body had been stolen and turned into a public commodity, critiqued in fan forums devoted to everything from hip-hop to Hollywood."

A fight is brewing over how much HIV/AIDS funding will be dedicated to pushing abstinence at the expense of real preventive measures.

How Monica Goodling tried to get off the hook by referring to herself as a "a fairly quiet girl, who tries to do the right thing," and other thoughts on the chick-factor.

California now allows conjugal visits for gay inmates.

UN Dispatch talks to a unit commander in Liberia's all-woman peacekeeping force.

How religion affects teen sexual behavior.

A chat with Seattle's queer feminist electro duo, Team Gina.

Further evidence of the huge toll the war has taken on Iraqi women.

The L.A. County Department of Health reports that women of color have higher rates of chronic disease than white women in the area.

Gay-rights activists are detained by police in Russia, after the cops refused to protect them from a rioting crowd.

A new report on the "celluloid ceiling" found U.S. female directors made only 7% of the 250 highest-grossing films in 2005.

Illegal abortions are putting poor women in Brazil at risk.

"Life within the woman" now trumps life of the actual woman.

The first Carnival for Radical Action.


Exposing the millionaires who helped push Bush to fund abstinence-only education at such exorbitant levels.

Stern College, the women's college at Yeshiva University, won't provide birth control, condoms, or emergency contraception.

How to "use your breast power responsibly." Gross, right? Even worse, it's ABC News, not Cosmo.

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius rejected a bill that would have opened abortion-related medical records to the public.

Sexual assault of female foreign corrspondents is all too common.

Louisiana House passes a bill banning D&X (or so-called "partial-birth") abortions.

In another blow to the abstinence-only-until-marriage crowd, the American Journal of Sociology publishes a new study showing sex is NOT harmful to older teens' mental health.

Erica Jong urges female fiction writers to not let their work be branded as "chick lit."

On the politics of "ghetto" and mainstreaming stereotypes.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announces plans to subsidize contraception.

Frances Kissling dares the church to excomminucate her.

Michelle Obama discusses mommy-tracking.

The New England Journal of Medicine weighs in on Gonzales v. Carhart. And the antis are getting ready to start harassing doctors who they suspect are continuing to perform D&X abortions.

Britain offers men up to six months of paid paternity leave, but new figures show that very, very few men have taken advantage of the policy.

Sexist hotel "sex kits"?

Horrors! Feminism has masculinized women, and now poor guys don't know how to assert their manliness.

Tennessee rejected a bill that would have required ultrasounds for any woman requesting the abortion pill, RU-486. The legislation was redundant -- all doctors already must perform an ultrasound to confirm pregnancy before administering RU-486.

Teen girls' reported satisfaction with their own bodies decreased after only 10 minutes of watching music videos.

Why diversity training isn't enough.

Future abortion providers face a long road.

A New York City Council report says there are few barriers to EC access in the city.

Montana pharmacy refuses to dispense birth control

Well this is just typical. A pharmacy in Montana, Snyder Drug, has come under new ownership and now has a new policy of denying women birth control. Allyson Hagen, the director of NARAL Pro-Choice Montana, reports...

The new owners have ties to the anti-choice community and now own two pharmacies in Great Falls. My organization is in the process of working with local activists in Great Falls to do more research into their policy and what they are telling consumers about birth control, what other drugs they dispense (Viagra anyone?), see what other pharmacies in Great Falls are refusing to fill birth control or EC prescriptions, and come up with an action plan.

NARAL Pro-Choice Montana believes pharmacies have an ethical obligation to honor valid, legal prescriptions and avoid jeopardizing their patients' health. In Montana's rural communities, there may only be one pharmacy in town. What if that one pharmacy was refusing to fill birth control prescriptions? Since when does a pharmacist have the right to decide whether or not to fill your prescription and interfere in the doctor-patient relationship?

Read Hagen's full post at Left in the West.