Zaid at Think Progress (emphasis original):
[Yesterday was] the anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted the right to vote to women. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has decided to use this day of equal rights for women to argue that women are now to blame for unequal pay in the workplace. On the organization’s official blog, ChamberPost, Senior Director of Communications Brad Peck today makes the argument that the pay gap between men and women in the American workforce — women currently earn roughly 77 cents to every dollar a man earns — is "the result of individual choice rather than discrimination." He argues that, instead of bold legislative action being taken to help correct this pay gap, women should pick the "obvious, immediate, power-of-the-individual solution: choosing the right place to work and choosing the right partner at home":I'm just going to go ahead and direct you over to the lovely Echidne for a response to this mess, and add a note that Peck's solution, despite his careful use of "partner," is profoundly heterocentrist. Even affording him the most generous interpretation of "choosing the right partner at home"—that he intended to mean a woman needs to choose a good partner to help with work-life balance, rather than subsidize her lower income—that admonishment fundamentally ignores that being an out lesbian in large swaths of this country can affect one's employment options, so scolding those women for not "choosing" their employment more carefully is pretty damn ignorant.
Most of the current "pay gap" is the result of individual choice rather than discrimination. [...]Peck's argument that women could close the pay gap by simply choosing jobs in better paying fields and marrying wealthier men is based on a faulty premise — that the pay gap in the United States between genders exists because women choose to work for less and men choose to work for more.
It is true that culturally speaking women are more likely to have to make the tough choices about work-life balance. But as we all seek to fit our values into a dynamic 24/7 economy, let's not overlook the obvious, immediate, power-of-the-individual solution: choosing the right place to work and choosing the right partner at home.
While it's true that women sometimes migrate into fields that have lower pay, what Peck ignores is that even within the same occupation, women are paid less.
As, of course, is suggesting that other women with intersectional identities potentially facing multiple biases from possible employers—women of color, trans women, disabled women, fat women, women with dwarfism, etc.—all have the same employment opportunities, and thus the same choices, as the most privileged women.
Or that even the most privileged women have the same opportunities and choices as the most privileged men.
If you are so inclined, you can contact the US Chamber of Commerce here.
