Christina Hoff Sommers: The Equal Pay Day Reality Check

Article here. Excerpt:

'There is more at stake here than having to endure another feminist victim-fest on April 20. Groups like NOW, the AAUW, CAP, and the National Women’s Law Center have produced volumes of tendentious research that is taken seriously by journalists and by Congress. The Senate is now holding hearings on the misleadingly named Paycheck Fairness Act. The bill, which has already sailed through the House with bipartisan support, reads as if it were written by AAUW and NOW members during a particularly bitter “Un-happiness Hour.”

Under this convoluted and impenetrably murky law, feminist lawyers will file multi-million dollar class-action lawsuits and innocent employers will settle. Liability will be based on not only intentional discrimination (we already have laws against that) but on the “lingering effects of past discrimination.” What does that mean? Employers have no idea. Universities, for example, typically pay professors in the business school more than those in the school of social work. They cite market forces as the justification. But according to feminist theory, market forces are tainted by past discrimination. Women’s Studies departments will eagerly provide expert witnesses to testify that sexist attitudes led society to place a higher value on male-centered fields like business than female-centered fields like social work. If the Paycheck Fairness Act passes, it will wreak havoc in the American workplace. Employers today are already nervous about making new hires. This legislation will give them added pause.'