Grouped Together

So some bastard was on Fox News talking about how women don't get paid as much as men because women lack ambition and would rather stay home with their children. He then told the women around him that they were miserable because they longed to be home with their kids. Yes, really. This happened.

First of all, I think maybe this goes without saying, or should, but no one ever seems to get this. The issue here isn't that I work 20 hours and you work 40 and I expect to get the same amount of  money as you. The issue is that if I work 40 hours and you work 40 hours and we both have the same qualifications and work just as hard, and are equal in every other way where the job is concerned, the fact that one of us has a penis shouldn't mean that one gets more money. Factors not being equal is a different matter. I don't see why that is do hard for people to understand.

Second of all, I wish the people opposed to equal pay would get their stories straight. Is it that we DO make as much as men and the reports are skewed or is it that we don't make as much as men because of stuff we clearly do to ourselves? Pick one. It can't really be both.

Third, and this is the most important issue for me because it goes beyond the equal pay thing. Stop equating motherhood with all women. There was a time, a few generations back, when almost every woman had children, perhaps this made more sense. That isn't the case these days. Many women remain childfree. The argument 'they want to spend time with their children' has no meaning in their situation.

Women don't all want the same things. Some want to stay at home with their kids. Some feel the best way to be good parents is to provide for their children. Some women hate their children and are better off not being near them. And some of them do not have nor ever will want children. We're not all the same person of the same mind. We can't just be grouped together like that and as long as people continue to do so, they're going to keep making these jackass arguments.