1
00:00:06,200 --> 00:00:09,120
Speaker 1: The first equal paid debate in the US started way

2
00:00:09,160 --> 00:00:12,360
Speaker 1: back in the eighteen sixties, and it ended in the

3
00:00:12,400 --> 00:00:17,079
Speaker 1: most American of ways, with a sex scandal. It was

4
00:00:17,120 --> 00:00:21,040
Speaker 1: a huge It was a huge scandal. That's Jessica Zappero.

5
00:00:21,440 --> 00:00:24,520
Speaker 1: She wrote This Grand Experiment, a book about when women

6
00:00:24,600 --> 00:00:28,640
Speaker 1: first went to work in the federal government in eighteen

7
00:00:28,720 --> 00:00:31,080
Speaker 1: sixty one, at the start of the Civil War. The

8
00:00:31,120 --> 00:00:34,360
Speaker 1: government is running out of money to pay federal workers.

9
00:00:35,040 --> 00:00:38,559
Speaker 1: It needs cheap labor. The Treasure of the US at

10
00:00:38,600 --> 00:00:42,240
Speaker 1: the time is Francis Spinner, and he has this great

11
00:00:42,280 --> 00:00:46,320
Speaker 1: idea higher women. When he went and inspected the treasury,

12
00:00:46,320 --> 00:00:48,640
Speaker 1: he found men performing tasks that he thought were better

13
00:00:48,640 --> 00:00:52,800
Speaker 1: suited to and more cheaply performed by women. Spinner is

14
00:00:52,840 --> 00:00:55,520
Speaker 1: trying to keep costs down, so he goes out and

15
00:00:55,560 --> 00:00:58,600
Speaker 1: offers women six hundred dollars a year for these jobs,

16
00:00:59,040 --> 00:01:02,480
Speaker 1: half of what the met are making. It's the first

17
00:01:02,520 --> 00:01:05,760
Speaker 1: time the government hires women, and it's a big opportunity.

18
00:01:06,280 --> 00:01:11,080
Speaker 1: He gets tons of applicants. At first, women are happy

19
00:01:11,160 --> 00:01:14,560
Speaker 1: to have the jobs, but even then d C was

20
00:01:14,640 --> 00:01:17,880
Speaker 1: an expensive place to live, and they soon start agitating

21
00:01:17,920 --> 00:01:22,600
Speaker 1: for more money. They petitioned Congress. They write letters to

22
00:01:22,680 --> 00:01:25,320
Speaker 1: newspapers like this one, which ran in the New York

23
00:01:25,319 --> 00:01:30,240
Speaker 1: Times in early eighteen sixty nine. Very few persons denied

24
00:01:30,240 --> 00:01:33,200
Speaker 1: a justice of the principle that equal work should command

25
00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:35,919
Speaker 1: equal pay without regard to the sex of the labor.

26
00:01:36,520 --> 00:01:38,600
Speaker 1: But it is one thing to acknowledge the right of

27
00:01:38,600 --> 00:01:42,160
Speaker 1: a principle, and quite another to practice it. Women are

28
00:01:42,200 --> 00:01:45,520
Speaker 1: known to be as good printers, teachers, telegraph clerks, etcetera.

29
00:01:45,600 --> 00:01:49,680
Speaker 1: As men, but fewer occupations are open to them. Their

30
00:01:49,720 --> 00:01:53,640
Speaker 1: necessity for employment is greater. Therefore their services can be

31
00:01:53,680 --> 00:01:56,480
Speaker 1: obtained for less. They say, we're doing the same job.

32
00:01:56,640 --> 00:01:59,800
Speaker 1: It's galling to watch men continue to get raises when

33
00:01:59,800 --> 00:02:02,000
Speaker 1: they're already earning so much and we're doing the exact

34
00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:04,680
Speaker 1: same job. Why are we different? What makes us to

35
00:02:04,760 --> 00:02:09,240
Speaker 1: differ from them? It's a reasonable question, and Congress doesn't

36
00:02:09,240 --> 00:02:14,080
Speaker 1: dismiss them. By eight seventy a handful of bills have

37
00:02:14,160 --> 00:02:17,040
Speaker 1: been introduced that would give women equal pay for equal work.

38
00:02:17,880 --> 00:02:21,280
Speaker 1: The US government had officially taken up the equal pay debate.

39
00:02:26,040 --> 00:02:29,480
Speaker 1: This is where that sex scandal comes in. It's the

40
00:02:29,520 --> 00:02:32,360
Speaker 1: first time men and women are working together, and while

41
00:02:32,480 --> 00:02:36,519
Speaker 1: there's some romance. A few relationships become public and it's

42
00:02:36,560 --> 00:02:41,720
Speaker 1: a huge deal. Newspapers cover it, politicians talk about it.

43
00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:44,480
Speaker 1: It's so notable that guide books to DC make sure

44
00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:48,440
Speaker 1: visitors know about it. It's impossible to tell how many

45
00:02:48,520 --> 00:02:52,440
Speaker 1: of these female clerks are pure women or how many impure.

46
00:02:52,639 --> 00:02:55,400
Speaker 1: The black sheep are greatly in the minority, but are

47
00:02:55,440 --> 00:03:03,280
Speaker 1: still believed to be numerous. It's delicious gossip, and it

48
00:03:03,360 --> 00:03:06,280
Speaker 1: creates this idea that women working at the Treasury get

49
00:03:06,320 --> 00:03:09,639
Speaker 1: paid not to do clerical work, but to be sexually

50
00:03:09,680 --> 00:03:14,000
Speaker 1: available to men. Essentially, as far as some people are concerned,

51
00:03:14,600 --> 00:03:19,839
Speaker 1: this is government sanctioned prostitution. As Congress is debating equal pay,

52
00:03:20,080 --> 00:03:22,800
Speaker 1: one faction brings those up. You have been saying, we

53
00:03:22,840 --> 00:03:26,000
Speaker 1: shouldn't be employing women at all. They're all prostitutes. Why

54
00:03:26,040 --> 00:03:27,960
Speaker 1: are we even talking about this. We should just fire

55
00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:31,040
Speaker 1: all of them. None of the equal pay bills pass,

56
00:03:31,200 --> 00:03:35,520
Speaker 1: and it's partly because of this thinking. This is really significant.

57
00:03:36,120 --> 00:03:39,040
Speaker 1: It sets the standard for the next hundred fifty years.

58
00:03:40,120 --> 00:03:43,680
Speaker 1: This is how women enter the professional workforce from their

59
00:03:43,760 --> 00:03:46,800
Speaker 1: private companies also start to hire women to do clerical work,

60
00:03:47,360 --> 00:03:50,320
Speaker 1: and taking a queue from the government, they pay them less,

61
00:03:50,760 --> 00:03:53,680
Speaker 1: and perhaps had the federal government equally rewarded male and

62
00:03:53,720 --> 00:03:56,600
Speaker 1: female labor at this point, maybe private labor would have

63
00:03:56,600 --> 00:03:59,440
Speaker 1: paid them better as well. But instead Congress sent this

64
00:03:59,480 --> 00:04:01,960
Speaker 1: clear mess age that it was acceptable to treat women

65
00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:05,360
Speaker 1: as exploitable and marginal employees and to women themselves that

66
00:04:05,360 --> 00:04:13,440
Speaker 1: they were fundamentally inferior to men. When you look at

67
00:04:13,480 --> 00:04:17,240
Speaker 1: the world, you know what the population like. Where is

68
00:04:17,240 --> 00:04:20,279
Speaker 1: our place like? Where is our value? Wodn deserve people

69
00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:24,599
Speaker 1: for equal work? The gender lie helps to keep women

70
00:04:24,839 --> 00:04:27,760
Speaker 1: not on a pedestal but in a cage. First, have

71
00:04:27,880 --> 00:04:30,680
Speaker 1: you've done for the women according to the promises of

72
00:04:30,800 --> 00:04:33,480
Speaker 1: the platform. I'm sure we haven't done enough. And then

73
00:04:33,480 --> 00:04:36,040
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you reminded the other thing. Get a

74
00:04:36,160 --> 00:04:40,960
Speaker 1: power equalization between the sexes women? What do they want?

75
00:04:41,680 --> 00:04:44,920
Speaker 1: We want to end gender inequality, and to do this

76
00:04:45,520 --> 00:04:50,000
Speaker 1: we need everyone involved. The government's policy is that women

77
00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:53,640
Speaker 1: should get the same pay that men get or similar work.

78
00:04:54,279 --> 00:04:59,560
Speaker 1: And here are the all male nominees. Welcome back to

79
00:04:59,640 --> 00:05:05,000
Speaker 1: the pay Check. I'm Rebecca Greenfield. In this episode, we're

80
00:05:05,040 --> 00:05:09,160
Speaker 1: going to explain why that nineteenth century sex scandal still matters.

81
00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:13,000
Speaker 1: It established women in the workforce as cheap labor from

82
00:05:13,120 --> 00:05:16,920
Speaker 1: day one. A big part of the pay gap has

83
00:05:16,960 --> 00:05:20,440
Speaker 1: to do with what's called occupational sorting. This is the

84
00:05:20,520 --> 00:05:27,279
Speaker 1: idea that even today, women still do women's work their teachers, nurses, secretaries,

85
00:05:27,960 --> 00:05:31,280
Speaker 1: and those jobs pay less. This is what happens when

86
00:05:31,279 --> 00:05:33,640
Speaker 1: you have a hundred years of rules and laws that

87
00:05:33,720 --> 00:05:36,800
Speaker 1: dictate what women can and can't do, laws based on

88
00:05:36,839 --> 00:05:40,120
Speaker 1: the idea that women, because we can have babies, are

89
00:05:40,160 --> 00:05:44,599
Speaker 1: fundamentally different from men. Take those treasury secretaries. They just

90
00:05:44,640 --> 00:05:48,440
Speaker 1: wanted equal pay for equal work, but that question quickly

91
00:05:48,480 --> 00:05:51,320
Speaker 1: turned into a debate about whether women should really just

92
00:05:51,400 --> 00:05:55,600
Speaker 1: stay home and what would happen if we didn't. This

93
00:05:55,680 --> 00:05:59,440
Speaker 1: idea that women's biology and sexuality dictate what we should

94
00:05:59,440 --> 00:06:02,760
Speaker 1: and shouldn't do for work comes up again and again.

95
00:06:03,520 --> 00:06:06,160
Speaker 1: I asked my colleague Claire Sebteth to talk with me

96
00:06:06,240 --> 00:06:09,159
Speaker 1: about how this idea has played out over time and

97
00:06:09,400 --> 00:06:17,640
Speaker 1: what it has to do with the pay gap. Hi Clarik,

98
00:06:18,040 --> 00:06:21,040
Speaker 1: Hi Becca. Okay, so take me back to the sixties.

99
00:06:21,240 --> 00:06:23,400
Speaker 1: Why was it such a big deal for these women

100
00:06:23,480 --> 00:06:26,800
Speaker 1: to be working well? Up until this point, for the

101
00:06:26,880 --> 00:06:30,160
Speaker 1: most part, women weren't really working at least not for pay.

102
00:06:30,279 --> 00:06:33,280
Speaker 1: I mean, the sixties is the decade where slavery is abolished,

103
00:06:33,400 --> 00:06:37,400
Speaker 1: so many black women aren't even free. So when we

104
00:06:37,440 --> 00:06:40,680
Speaker 1: talk about women working for pay, we're largely talking about

105
00:06:40,720 --> 00:06:43,960
Speaker 1: white women. And maybe if they're single, they might be

106
00:06:44,040 --> 00:06:46,520
Speaker 1: a teacher or a governess. But for the most part,

107
00:06:46,720 --> 00:06:49,440
Speaker 1: they got married and stayed home and had kids. They

108
00:06:49,440 --> 00:06:51,600
Speaker 1: had a lot of kids. I think the average around

109
00:06:51,600 --> 00:06:54,359
Speaker 1: that time was about seven per mother. This was also

110
00:06:54,440 --> 00:06:57,520
Speaker 1: a time period, by the way, when women were quite

111
00:06:57,560 --> 00:07:00,960
Speaker 1: literally thought of as the weaker sex, the weaker sex.

112
00:07:01,120 --> 00:07:04,000
Speaker 1: What does that mean. It means essentially that people thought

113
00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:08,320
Speaker 1: women were not as intelligent or hard working or able

114
00:07:08,400 --> 00:07:10,800
Speaker 1: to do things as well as men. There's this really

115
00:07:10,800 --> 00:07:13,320
Speaker 1: famous quote from a brief by Lewis Brandeis and I

116
00:07:13,600 --> 00:07:15,880
Speaker 1: know it before he became a Supreme Court justice, and

117
00:07:15,920 --> 00:07:18,840
Speaker 1: he talks about this and these are his thoughts, but

118
00:07:18,960 --> 00:07:22,240
Speaker 1: they are representative of pretty much everyone's thought. Women are

119
00:07:22,360 --> 00:07:25,680
Speaker 1: fundamentally weaker than men in all that makes for endurance,

120
00:07:25,960 --> 00:07:29,320
Speaker 1: in muscular strength, in nervous energy, and he powers of

121
00:07:29,400 --> 00:07:33,800
Speaker 1: persistent attention and application. He also goes on to talk

122
00:07:33,960 --> 00:07:36,080
Speaker 1: later in this brief about how women shouldn't even hold

123
00:07:36,120 --> 00:07:38,760
Speaker 1: jobs that require them to stand for long hours because

124
00:07:38,800 --> 00:07:42,520
Speaker 1: their feet were delicate and their legs weren't quote good

125
00:07:42,600 --> 00:07:48,320
Speaker 1: sustaining columns. Okay, so women are just not fit to work.

126
00:07:48,840 --> 00:07:52,000
Speaker 1: They're either pregnant having children, or just like their bodies

127
00:07:52,000 --> 00:07:53,760
Speaker 1: aren't made for it. Yeah, or their feet are small.

128
00:07:54,480 --> 00:07:58,000
Speaker 1: But what if women need to make money? Obviously, even

129
00:07:58,040 --> 00:08:00,320
Speaker 1: at this time, even among the people who who hold

130
00:08:00,360 --> 00:08:03,160
Speaker 1: these beliefs, they do know that women do sometimes have

131
00:08:03,280 --> 00:08:06,000
Speaker 1: to make money themselves. They could be widowed, their husbands

132
00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:08,200
Speaker 1: could be too sick, or you know, God forbid, they

133
00:08:08,240 --> 00:08:12,640
Speaker 1: could be single. So they started to pass these laws saying, Okay,

134
00:08:12,720 --> 00:08:16,960
Speaker 1: how do we fit these weaker beings into the workforce.

135
00:08:17,760 --> 00:08:20,400
Speaker 1: The laws that they passed are called protective laws. And

136
00:08:20,440 --> 00:08:22,280
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I had never heard

137
00:08:22,280 --> 00:08:25,040
Speaker 1: of this when I first started reading about it. So

138
00:08:25,160 --> 00:08:28,480
Speaker 1: I found a historian to explain it to me. I'm

139
00:08:28,600 --> 00:08:33,240
Speaker 1: Nancy Wallack. I'm research scholar and Arner History Department, and

140
00:08:33,360 --> 00:08:39,080
Speaker 1: I specialized in American history and especially in American women's history.

141
00:08:40,480 --> 00:08:45,200
Speaker 1: What were they protecting women from? It's always changing in

142
00:08:45,280 --> 00:08:50,160
Speaker 1: the progressive ye or of women. Reformers did advocate the

143
00:08:50,240 --> 00:08:53,680
Speaker 1: laws on the basis of of of women's work in

144
00:08:53,720 --> 00:08:57,080
Speaker 1: the in the home. They valued women's work as home maker, said,

145
00:08:57,360 --> 00:09:02,000
Speaker 1: as mothers and wife more than they of roles as workers.

146
00:09:02,720 --> 00:09:05,240
Speaker 1: You want to preserve women's health so that they can

147
00:09:05,280 --> 00:09:08,640
Speaker 1: have healthy children, which is good for society. That wasn't

148
00:09:08,880 --> 00:09:14,840
Speaker 1: essentially the legal the legal documents. There were a ton

149
00:09:14,880 --> 00:09:20,000
Speaker 1: of these laws, and they got really specific. Ohio, for instance,

150
00:09:20,080 --> 00:09:23,199
Speaker 1: had twenty two laws to keep women out of specific

151
00:09:23,280 --> 00:09:29,520
Speaker 1: forms of work, not just minds, but also elevator operators,

152
00:09:29,679 --> 00:09:34,959
Speaker 1: crossing guards. Why couldn't women be elevator operators? The idea

153
00:09:35,120 --> 00:09:37,480
Speaker 1: was that if a woman worked as an elevator operator

154
00:09:37,559 --> 00:09:39,719
Speaker 1: and she ran a man up to his apartment late

155
00:09:39,760 --> 00:09:44,440
Speaker 1: at night, something untoward might happen. So some places said

156
00:09:44,520 --> 00:09:48,000
Speaker 1: no elevator operators. In New York City actually said okay,

157
00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:50,640
Speaker 1: you can be an elevator operator, um, but women just

158
00:09:50,640 --> 00:09:53,240
Speaker 1: can't work past ten pm. So that also took care

159
00:09:53,280 --> 00:09:55,720
Speaker 1: of women in bars or restaurants or anything like that.

160
00:09:55,840 --> 00:09:59,000
Speaker 1: They were essentially protecting women from getting in situations where

161
00:09:59,200 --> 00:10:00,840
Speaker 1: something bad might have up into them. But at the

162
00:10:00,840 --> 00:10:04,000
Speaker 1: same time they were also kind of protecting men from

163
00:10:04,080 --> 00:10:07,800
Speaker 1: these wanton women who would be a late night elevator operators.

164
00:10:08,040 --> 00:10:11,520
Speaker 1: We just can't conceive of women outside of their sexuality. Basically,

165
00:10:11,720 --> 00:10:14,360
Speaker 1: they're either at home having babies or outside having sex.

166
00:10:14,440 --> 00:10:17,720
Speaker 1: They can't just be an elevator operator doing their job. No,

167
00:10:18,040 --> 00:10:22,400
Speaker 1: absolutely not. How do these laws play into what women earn?

168
00:10:22,920 --> 00:10:25,400
Speaker 1: You have all these women who do need money, they

169
00:10:25,440 --> 00:10:28,400
Speaker 1: need to work, but you have this limited list of

170
00:10:28,480 --> 00:10:31,040
Speaker 1: jobs that they can hold. So you essentially get this

171
00:10:31,120 --> 00:10:34,280
Speaker 1: supply and demand problem. You have way more women wanting

172
00:10:34,280 --> 00:10:38,240
Speaker 1: to work than they can. If you're an employer, that's

173
00:10:38,280 --> 00:10:40,280
Speaker 1: great for you because you don't have to pay them

174
00:10:40,280 --> 00:10:41,920
Speaker 1: that much because there's always going to be some other

175
00:10:41,960 --> 00:10:45,600
Speaker 1: woman willing to accept the lower pay. She goes through

176
00:10:45,640 --> 00:10:49,679
Speaker 1: the mill of New York eight hundred employment funerals. She

177
00:10:49,760 --> 00:10:52,360
Speaker 1: learns that although lots of jobs are listed, there are

178
00:10:52,440 --> 00:10:55,560
Speaker 1: ten applicants for each one, girls with city references and

179
00:10:55,600 --> 00:10:59,400
Speaker 1: city experience. But are you sure you're han't got something

180
00:10:59,440 --> 00:11:06,679
Speaker 1: for me? We don't take any series. Good? What about race?

181
00:11:06,960 --> 00:11:09,360
Speaker 1: This is all happening just a few decades after slavery

182
00:11:09,440 --> 00:11:13,040
Speaker 1: is abolished, right, Yeah, so black people were limited in

183
00:11:13,080 --> 00:11:15,400
Speaker 1: the jobs they can and cannot do by law. It

184
00:11:15,520 --> 00:11:18,079
Speaker 1: was even more explicit and more segregated than law is

185
00:11:18,120 --> 00:11:21,280
Speaker 1: created for women. And you essentially have the economy divided

186
00:11:21,360 --> 00:11:23,640
Speaker 1: up into these, you know, jobs that are appropriate for

187
00:11:23,679 --> 00:11:26,680
Speaker 1: white men, jobs that are appropriate for black men, white women,

188
00:11:27,000 --> 00:11:31,160
Speaker 1: black women. And this occupational sorting that we have now

189
00:11:32,080 --> 00:11:34,240
Speaker 1: you can trace it back to this time period where

190
00:11:34,440 --> 00:11:37,120
Speaker 1: even today, black women are twice as likely as white

191
00:11:37,120 --> 00:11:40,520
Speaker 1: women to hold service industry jobs, right because back then

192
00:11:40,600 --> 00:11:43,480
Speaker 1: they weren't even allowed to hold the better paying jobs.

193
00:11:43,520 --> 00:11:46,679
Speaker 1: And that was true for anybody who wasn't white. So

194
00:11:46,720 --> 00:11:50,160
Speaker 1: that's kind of where we are. And things only really

195
00:11:50,160 --> 00:11:53,760
Speaker 1: start to change because they have to our Gundry and Berrol.

196
00:11:55,160 --> 00:11:57,480
Speaker 1: The women of America rallied to the support of the

197
00:11:58,120 --> 00:12:00,520
Speaker 1: So I know about World War Two, men enter the

198
00:12:00,559 --> 00:12:03,559
Speaker 1: workforce in large numbers, and we have Rosie the Riveter

199
00:12:03,679 --> 00:12:06,520
Speaker 1: and women going into factories. Yeah, and it's not that

200
00:12:06,520 --> 00:12:08,319
Speaker 1: we have Rosie the Riveter. We have two and a

201
00:12:08,360 --> 00:12:12,839
Speaker 1: half million Rosie the Riveters. And here in this almost

202
00:12:12,880 --> 00:12:16,440
Speaker 1: the last rate industry we thought could be handled only

203
00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:21,520
Speaker 1: by men, these mothers, wives and sweethearts came to stand

204
00:12:21,600 --> 00:12:25,480
Speaker 1: shoulder to shoulder with them in almost every capacity. Women

205
00:12:25,720 --> 00:12:29,160
Speaker 1: entered the labor force in huge numbers in a way

206
00:12:29,240 --> 00:12:32,400
Speaker 1: that they never had before, and they were holding jobs

207
00:12:32,480 --> 00:12:37,160
Speaker 1: that had previously, because of these laws, been thought inappropriate

208
00:12:37,240 --> 00:12:40,640
Speaker 1: for them. Were they getting paid equally at that time?

209
00:12:40,920 --> 00:12:44,840
Speaker 1: It's interesting because if you're a factory owner and all

210
00:12:44,840 --> 00:12:47,400
Speaker 1: your workers go off to war and you start hiring

211
00:12:47,400 --> 00:12:51,040
Speaker 1: women and paying them less. When your workers come back

212
00:12:51,040 --> 00:12:53,440
Speaker 1: from more, are you going to pay them their old

213
00:12:53,440 --> 00:12:55,400
Speaker 1: wages that are higher or are you going to stick

214
00:12:55,440 --> 00:12:58,199
Speaker 1: with the lower wages you've been paying women. So labor

215
00:12:58,320 --> 00:13:02,880
Speaker 1: unions actually started lobbying for equal pay less because they

216
00:13:02,920 --> 00:13:06,040
Speaker 1: were concerned about women. Then they were concerned about the

217
00:13:06,040 --> 00:13:09,360
Speaker 1: men returning from war getting their old wages. Is this

218
00:13:09,840 --> 00:13:13,040
Speaker 1: all women? No, it's not all women. This was largely

219
00:13:13,120 --> 00:13:17,880
Speaker 1: just for white women. Technically, President Roosevelt outlawed racial discrimination

220
00:13:17,880 --> 00:13:23,439
Speaker 1: in the war industry, but it was pretty inconsistent, and

221
00:13:23,520 --> 00:13:26,120
Speaker 1: things really only opened up for black people towards the

222
00:13:26,200 --> 00:13:28,400
Speaker 1: end of the war when they're just really weren't enough

223
00:13:28,480 --> 00:13:32,000
Speaker 1: white people to fill all the jobs. What happens when

224
00:13:32,040 --> 00:13:34,800
Speaker 1: the men come back. Women have shown what they could

225
00:13:34,800 --> 00:13:37,840
Speaker 1: do in war, and now that the fighting is over,

226
00:13:38,600 --> 00:13:42,120
Speaker 1: women intend to show the world what they can do

227
00:13:42,320 --> 00:13:47,439
Speaker 1: in peace. When the men come back, the protective laws

228
00:13:47,480 --> 00:13:51,360
Speaker 1: come back. Wait, the protective laws came back. Yeah, they

229
00:13:51,400 --> 00:13:54,080
Speaker 1: actually had been in place the whole time. They just

230
00:13:54,200 --> 00:13:56,880
Speaker 1: were usually written with this little clause saying, you know,

231
00:13:57,000 --> 00:13:58,960
Speaker 1: in case of emergency, we don't have to do this.

232
00:13:59,200 --> 00:14:02,040
Speaker 1: And the world ward who was definitely an emergency. So

233
00:14:02,240 --> 00:14:06,000
Speaker 1: men come back. The women get pushed out of the workforce. Also,

234
00:14:06,240 --> 00:14:09,600
Speaker 1: very quickly you end up going from you know, of

235
00:14:09,640 --> 00:14:13,880
Speaker 1: auto industry workers in were women and two years later

236
00:14:13,920 --> 00:14:17,760
Speaker 1: it's eight percent. It's like boom, So you get from

237
00:14:17,880 --> 00:14:20,840
Speaker 1: Rosie the riveter to leave it to Beaver. Essentially, when

238
00:14:21,040 --> 00:14:24,560
Speaker 1: do the protective laws go away? They go away when

239
00:14:24,600 --> 00:14:27,520
Speaker 1: two things happen. The first is a smaller step, it

240
00:14:27,560 --> 00:14:31,600
Speaker 1: seems really big at the time. The Democratic track Boom

241
00:14:31,680 --> 00:14:35,000
Speaker 1: in which you ran, promises to work for if they

242
00:14:35,120 --> 00:14:38,480
Speaker 1: right for women and footing equal pay. I must say

243
00:14:38,520 --> 00:14:41,080
Speaker 1: I am a strong believer in equal pay, here for

244
00:14:41,920 --> 00:14:45,120
Speaker 1: equal work, and I think that we are to work

245
00:14:46,520 --> 00:14:50,800
Speaker 1: do better than we're doing in President Kennedy signs the

246
00:14:50,960 --> 00:14:54,240
Speaker 1: Equal Pay Act, which means that a woman holding any

247
00:14:54,320 --> 00:14:56,160
Speaker 1: job has to be paid the same as a man.

248
00:14:56,640 --> 00:14:59,600
Speaker 1: But that just means of a job that she's already holding.

249
00:15:00,080 --> 00:15:02,160
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that you have to allow her to

250
00:15:02,240 --> 00:15:06,880
Speaker 1: hold any job whatsoever. That happens because of the Civil

251
00:15:06,960 --> 00:15:10,320
Speaker 1: Rights Act. And actually it sort of happens by accident,

252
00:15:10,480 --> 00:15:13,280
Speaker 1: which is something that has sort of been lost to history,

253
00:15:13,320 --> 00:15:16,840
Speaker 1: but I talked to Nancy about it. The accident was

254
00:15:16,920 --> 00:15:20,320
Speaker 1: the addition of sex to Title seven of the nine

255
00:15:21,880 --> 00:15:25,960
Speaker 1: Civil Rights Act. The Civil Rights Act was protecting people

256
00:15:25,960 --> 00:15:29,160
Speaker 1: against racial discrimination, and Title seven of the Civil Rights

257
00:15:29,200 --> 00:15:34,000
Speaker 1: Act as racial discrimination at work. First, at least a decade,

258
00:15:34,800 --> 00:15:39,920
Speaker 1: UH southern congressman had been trying to add a provision

259
00:15:39,960 --> 00:15:46,080
Speaker 1: about sex too civil Rights Acts in order to UH

260
00:15:46,160 --> 00:15:49,240
Speaker 1: topple the Acts. They would say, okay, well, if you

261
00:15:49,280 --> 00:15:52,680
Speaker 1: want us to treat everyone, you know, equally according to race,

262
00:15:53,280 --> 00:15:55,920
Speaker 1: what if we treat women equally too, And people would say, well,

263
00:15:55,920 --> 00:15:58,320
Speaker 1: that's ridiculous, and so then all the bills would just die.

264
00:15:58,800 --> 00:16:02,760
Speaker 1: So for this comes up again, a Virginia congressman does

265
00:16:02,760 --> 00:16:05,320
Speaker 1: the same thing that had worked in the past, but

266
00:16:05,440 --> 00:16:08,600
Speaker 1: this time lawmakers on the other side called this bluff.

267
00:16:08,640 --> 00:16:11,400
Speaker 1: They were like, fine, we'll treat women equally. So the

268
00:16:11,400 --> 00:16:13,480
Speaker 1: word sex gets added to the Civil Rights Act, the

269
00:16:13,520 --> 00:16:17,480
Speaker 1: law passes, and then boom, Women can, in theory anyway,

270
00:16:17,720 --> 00:16:20,240
Speaker 1: hold any job that they want to. So we end

271
00:16:20,280 --> 00:16:24,200
Speaker 1: a discrimination basically on a dare Yeah, And when you

272
00:16:24,240 --> 00:16:27,000
Speaker 1: think about it, essentially that means we passed this law,

273
00:16:27,280 --> 00:16:31,640
Speaker 1: this very big law, changing something quite fundamental in our economy,

274
00:16:32,160 --> 00:16:35,520
Speaker 1: without really believing all the stuff behind it. So for

275
00:16:35,520 --> 00:16:38,880
Speaker 1: the next fifty years we've essentially been fighting about what

276
00:16:38,960 --> 00:16:50,320
Speaker 1: that means. The Equal Pay Act and the Civil Rights

277
00:16:50,360 --> 00:16:54,040
Speaker 1: Act were really important. Women are no longer barred from

278
00:16:54,040 --> 00:16:57,400
Speaker 1: working in the most lucrative fields, and once we get

279
00:16:57,440 --> 00:16:59,800
Speaker 1: to those fields, we're supposed to get equal pay for

280
00:16:59,840 --> 00:17:03,280
Speaker 1: that work. Those two pieces of legislation did a lot

281
00:17:03,360 --> 00:17:05,680
Speaker 1: to bring women's pay more in line with what men

282
00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:14,000
Speaker 1: were earning. But it doesn't end there because now businesses

283
00:17:14,040 --> 00:17:16,560
Speaker 1: have to comply with the laws, and in a lot

284
00:17:16,600 --> 00:17:18,960
Speaker 1: of cases that means they have to change the way

285
00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:22,600
Speaker 1: they operate, and they don't like that. They don't want

286
00:17:22,600 --> 00:17:24,760
Speaker 1: to be told who they can or can't hire and

287
00:17:24,800 --> 00:17:28,080
Speaker 1: how much they have to pay them or not pay them.

288
00:17:28,160 --> 00:17:30,480
Speaker 1: They want the flexibility to do whatever they think will

289
00:17:30,520 --> 00:17:34,360
Speaker 1: make them the most money. And companies argue, literally, are

290
00:17:34,440 --> 00:17:37,000
Speaker 1: you because they get sued and defend themselves in court

291
00:17:37,359 --> 00:17:41,520
Speaker 1: that they have business reasons for discriminating. For example, in

292
00:17:41,560 --> 00:17:43,720
Speaker 1: the late nineteen sixties, it was pretty common for the

293
00:17:43,760 --> 00:17:47,399
Speaker 1: airlines to require flight attendants to be female and single.

294
00:17:48,280 --> 00:17:51,800
Speaker 1: When they got married, they got fired. When United Airlines

295
00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:55,200
Speaker 1: got sued, the airline defended its practice in court by

296
00:17:55,240 --> 00:17:59,679
Speaker 1: saying the irregularity inherent and stewardess as work schedules, was

297
00:17:59,800 --> 00:18:03,760
Speaker 1: in compatible with the women's role in married life. Businesses

298
00:18:03,800 --> 00:18:06,600
Speaker 1: push and push against the constraints of the Civil Rights Act,

299
00:18:07,320 --> 00:18:13,159
Speaker 1: and they haven't stopped, but sometimes women push back. My

300
00:18:13,280 --> 00:18:17,120
Speaker 1: name is Lily led Better and a lis in Jacksonville, Alabama.

301
00:18:19,040 --> 00:18:21,800
Speaker 1: In two thousand nine, right after Barack Obama took office,

302
00:18:22,080 --> 00:18:25,359
Speaker 1: he signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. It was

303
00:18:25,400 --> 00:18:28,199
Speaker 1: the first piece of legislation he signed, and it closed

304
00:18:28,200 --> 00:18:31,359
Speaker 1: a legal technicality that companies you to work around with

305
00:18:31,440 --> 00:18:34,840
Speaker 1: the Civil Rights Act. Claire talked to Lily about what

306
00:18:34,880 --> 00:18:37,280
Speaker 1: it was like to win on the facts and lose

307
00:18:37,440 --> 00:18:46,919
Speaker 1: on a technicality. Today, Lily is eighty years old, but

308
00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:48,960
Speaker 1: in her younger years she worked at a good Year

309
00:18:49,080 --> 00:18:52,600
Speaker 1: tire plan in gads In, Alabama for twenty years. She

310
00:18:52,680 --> 00:18:56,000
Speaker 1: made tires mainly the first job I had. I had

311
00:18:56,040 --> 00:19:02,080
Speaker 1: three tubers, one produced trader or powers. That meant having

312
00:19:02,119 --> 00:19:06,680
Speaker 1: the right former, having the right rubber, the rock chemicals.

313
00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:09,680
Speaker 1: She liked good year. She had a four oh one K.

314
00:19:10,200 --> 00:19:12,600
Speaker 1: She had benefits, She got time and a half when

315
00:19:12,600 --> 00:19:16,000
Speaker 1: she worked over time. She'd worked her way up to

316
00:19:16,040 --> 00:19:19,200
Speaker 1: manager and was closing out on a retirement which would

317
00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:22,679
Speaker 1: come with a pension. Then one day at work, someone's

318
00:19:22,760 --> 00:19:26,080
Speaker 1: up to paper into her employee mailbox. To this day,

319
00:19:26,359 --> 00:19:28,520
Speaker 1: she has no idea who wrote it. And it had

320
00:19:28,720 --> 00:19:32,919
Speaker 1: four names, it had had three man In mind, somebody

321
00:19:32,920 --> 00:19:37,239
Speaker 1: has told me what all of our base pay is.

322
00:19:38,119 --> 00:19:41,720
Speaker 1: Those names on the paper were all managers, just like Lily,

323
00:19:42,320 --> 00:19:45,280
Speaker 1: but she was making up to forty less than them.

324
00:19:45,480 --> 00:19:50,240
Speaker 1: Lily thought about those numbers, social Security, her pension. They

325
00:19:50,240 --> 00:19:53,399
Speaker 1: were all tied to her salary. I got home, I

326
00:19:53,480 --> 00:19:56,480
Speaker 1: told my husband, I said I have to go to Birmingham,

327
00:19:56,520 --> 00:19:59,800
Speaker 1: Alabama and follow a charge with an equal employma combition

328
00:20:00,760 --> 00:20:03,840
Speaker 1: because this is not right. And he said, well, what

329
00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:06,960
Speaker 1: time you want to leave. Lily found a lawyer and

330
00:20:07,000 --> 00:20:09,800
Speaker 1: in two thousand three they went to trial. She had

331
00:20:09,840 --> 00:20:13,560
Speaker 1: a strong case and she won They had a four

332
00:20:13,720 --> 00:20:17,040
Speaker 1: by eight wild board drawed off with all of the

333
00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:20,480
Speaker 1: male's names and my name in the tower room where

334
00:20:20,480 --> 00:20:25,160
Speaker 1: I worked, in our starting pay and our ending pay,

335
00:20:25,280 --> 00:20:27,600
Speaker 1: all the three the years. And I mean, you could

336
00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:30,800
Speaker 1: just sit there and study those numbers, and you knew,

337
00:20:31,680 --> 00:20:36,000
Speaker 1: you knew even the lowest rated man. There was one

338
00:20:36,040 --> 00:20:38,760
Speaker 1: guy rated a little lower than me, but man, his

339
00:20:38,920 --> 00:20:43,240
Speaker 1: salary was twice mine. The jury awarded Lily three point

340
00:20:43,320 --> 00:20:46,720
Speaker 1: eight million dollars. The judge reduced it to three hundred

341
00:20:46,760 --> 00:20:49,960
Speaker 1: sixty thousand, but it was obvious to everyone that Lily

342
00:20:50,000 --> 00:20:52,040
Speaker 1: hadn't been paid as much as the men who held

343
00:20:52,040 --> 00:20:55,200
Speaker 1: the same job for accompanying the size of goodyear. Three

344
00:20:55,600 --> 00:20:58,680
Speaker 1: sixty thousand wasn't a lot of money, but they didn't

345
00:20:58,680 --> 00:21:01,320
Speaker 1: want to pay, and they didn't think they should have to,

346
00:21:02,960 --> 00:21:05,600
Speaker 1: the way the Civil Rights Act worked, an employee had

347
00:21:05,640 --> 00:21:08,040
Speaker 1: a hundred eighty days to file a lawsuit if they'd

348
00:21:08,080 --> 00:21:12,360
Speaker 1: been discriminated against. Lily's team argued that the hundred eighty

349
00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:15,040
Speaker 1: days started when she learned she was being paid unfairly,

350
00:21:15,160 --> 00:21:18,600
Speaker 1: when she got that slip of paper. The company argued, no,

351
00:21:19,280 --> 00:21:22,720
Speaker 1: the act of discrimination began with her first unequal paycheck,

352
00:21:23,160 --> 00:21:26,160
Speaker 1: and those a hundred and eighty days had long since expired.

353
00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:31,200
Speaker 1: Goodyear appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. Other

354
00:21:31,240 --> 00:21:34,800
Speaker 1: businesses wanted them to win, and a supporting brief the

355
00:21:34,920 --> 00:21:37,520
Speaker 1: US Chamber of Commerce said it wasn't fair to businesses

356
00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:40,760
Speaker 1: if that one eighty day period could last until someone

357
00:21:40,840 --> 00:21:44,119
Speaker 1: like Lily found out. They called it an unwarranted and

358
00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:50,000
Speaker 1: excessive burden unemployers. The judges ruled five to four in

359
00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:54,760
Speaker 1: favor of Goodyear. Lily lost. In a rare move. Justice

360
00:21:54,840 --> 00:21:57,920
Speaker 1: Ruth Wader Ginsburg read her dissenting opinion allowed in court

361
00:21:58,720 --> 00:22:03,560
Speaker 1: in our of you does not comprehend or is indifferent

362
00:22:03,600 --> 00:22:08,720
Speaker 1: to the insidious way in which women can be victims

363
00:22:08,760 --> 00:22:13,159
Speaker 1: of pay discrimination. This was not the intent of the

364
00:22:13,200 --> 00:22:16,680
Speaker 1: Civil Rights Actinsburg pointed out, But the fact remained that

365
00:22:16,720 --> 00:22:20,600
Speaker 1: Lily had lost. She never got a dime. Two years later,

366
00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:23,720
Speaker 1: Congress passed the Lily led Better Fair Pay Act. That

367
00:22:24,560 --> 00:22:28,120
Speaker 1: day period during which people can sue now it resets

368
00:22:28,160 --> 00:22:32,560
Speaker 1: with every unequal paycheck. Since then, countless women have filed

369
00:22:32,560 --> 00:22:36,080
Speaker 1: suit under the law. A lot of people have found

370
00:22:36,080 --> 00:22:37,919
Speaker 1: on that a lot of people have gotten money, and

371
00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:45,240
Speaker 1: I'll lock it Ultimately, equal pay isn't just an economic

372
00:22:45,320 --> 00:22:48,440
Speaker 1: issue for millions of Americans and their families. It's a

373
00:22:48,520 --> 00:22:51,080
Speaker 1: question of who we are and whether we're truly living

374
00:22:51,119 --> 00:22:54,000
Speaker 1: up to our fundamental ideals. That is what Lily led

375
00:22:54,080 --> 00:22:57,000
Speaker 1: Better challenged us to do, and today I signed this

376
00:22:57,040 --> 00:23:00,000
Speaker 1: bill not just in her honor, but in the honor

377
00:23:00,119 --> 00:23:06,720
Speaker 1: of those who came before. All these laws try to

378
00:23:06,800 --> 00:23:10,239
Speaker 1: fix the same problem. Men and women have never been

379
00:23:10,320 --> 00:23:13,240
Speaker 1: valued the same way in the labor market, Not since

380
00:23:13,280 --> 00:23:16,880
Speaker 1: Francis Spinner hired those secretaries because he could pay them less.

381
00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:22,479
Speaker 1: Women's work has always been worthless. We also haven't really

382
00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:25,960
Speaker 1: gotten over that sex scandal. The idea that women are

383
00:23:26,040 --> 00:23:28,679
Speaker 1: sirens in a mixed workplace is always in danger of

384
00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:33,639
Speaker 1: becoming a whorehouse. That sounds ridiculous today, or does it?

385
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:39,840
Speaker 1: The Vice President of the United States, Mike Pence, he

386
00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:42,720
Speaker 1: won't eat lunch alone with a woman that isn't his wife.

387
00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 1: He says, it's part of a religious practice that asks

388
00:23:46,040 --> 00:23:50,159
Speaker 1: men to avoid even the possible appearance of impropriety. This

389
00:23:50,320 --> 00:23:55,240
Speaker 1: attitude is surprisingly common. Female staffers in Congress say plenty

390
00:23:55,240 --> 00:24:00,000
Speaker 1: of male representatives have similar policies or practices on college campus,

391
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:03,680
Speaker 1: as some male professors avoid closed door meetings with female students.

392
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:07,960
Speaker 1: Practices like these have real consequences for women's careers and

393
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:11,680
Speaker 1: their earning power. They also suggest that women just by

394
00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:17,720
Speaker 1: being women create problems for everyone. Next week on The Paycheck,

395
00:24:17,800 --> 00:24:20,000
Speaker 1: we're going to hear from people who don't believe in

396
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:23,000
Speaker 1: the pay gap at all, and if there is a

397
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:27,040
Speaker 1: pay gap, they know who's to blame. Um. Women don't

398
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:30,360
Speaker 1: negotiate as much as men do, and that could explain it.

399
00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:33,119
Speaker 1: I think we're a little bit more reserved when it

400
00:24:33,119 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 1: comes to fighting for what we want. I think we're

401
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:37,879
Speaker 1: a little bit more scared. I think overall, women are

402
00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:43,199
Speaker 1: willing to accept less than men. Thanks for listening to

403
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:45,800
Speaker 1: The Paycheck. If you like the show, please head on

404
00:24:45,840 --> 00:24:49,680
Speaker 1: over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to rate, review,

405
00:24:49,840 --> 00:24:53,880
Speaker 1: and subscribe. This episode of The Paycheck was reported by

406
00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:58,119
Speaker 1: Claire Setteth and hosted by me Rebecca Greenfield. It was

407
00:24:58,280 --> 00:25:02,760
Speaker 1: edited by Janet Paskin and deduced by Magnus Henrickson. We

408
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:06,400
Speaker 1: also had production help from Liz Smuth, Gillian Goodman, Francesca Levi,

409
00:25:06,600 --> 00:25:11,960
Speaker 1: and me. Our original music is by Leo Sidron, Carrie

410
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:14,600
Speaker 1: vander Riott to the illustrations on our show page, which

411
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:18,960
Speaker 1: you can find at bloomberg dot com slash paycheck. Francesca

412
00:25:19,040 --> 00:25:21,000
Speaker 1: Levy is Bloomberg's head of podcasts