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It might be better to call today Equal Pay Day 2008 instead of Equal Pay Day 2009. Why? Because the average American woman would have to add the wages she has earned thus far this year to her wages from 2008 in order to catch up with the average American man’s 2008 earnings. 

Progress has been made: when the Equal Pay Act passed in 1963, women earned 59 cents for every dollar made by men; today it’s 78 cents. The Lilly Ledbetter Act, which Obama signed in January, made it easier for women to be able to sue for past discrimination by giving them more time to file. The Paycheck Fairness Act, which would close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act while protecting employees who discuss wage information and increasing the remedies available; this bill has passed the house, but you still need to remind your Senators about its importance.

Such legislation will not be enough to truly achieve equal pay, however. It is also necessary to make sure that women have equal access to high-paying professions (which means making sure that women continue their educational gains and generally working to fight the gender biases that undermine women when it comes to interviews and promotions) while, at the same time, working to make sure that female-dominated professions are appropriately compensated. An easy example is that, even when the economy is booming, teachers should earn more than Wall Street bankers; pushing around numbers to create wealth for some people should not be valued more than helping youth become critically engaged citizens—though those teachers who do have that goal in mind often find themselves struggling against the current educational.

But I digress. A more challenging area is domestic work. A more equitable division of unpaid labor in heterosexual couples would offer women engaged in those relationships more opportunities to pursue careers that require long hours, but that’s not the whole story. There’s also the issue of upper-to-middle class (mostly white) women carving out careers alongside (mostly white) men while less wealthy women, usually women of color, watch their children for a relatively low wage. Efforts like the New York Domestic Workers Bill of Rights can help make some immediate improvements in the lives of these workers, though they cannot alleviate the problematic irony.

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Many aspects of this Time article on Michelle Obama finding “her role on the world stage” at the G20 summit (h/t @BitchMagazine) trouble me. The biggest issue is encapsulated in the second paragraph:

In the President’s world, everything is collapsing — markets, housing prices, confidence. In the First Lady’s world, everything is soaring — spirits, ballet dancers, ambitions. In Barack’s world, expressions of optimism are carefully qualified. In Michelle’s world, expressions of pessimism are almost unthinkable. For Barack, the big question is how he is going to save the world from economic and nuclear Armageddon. For Michelle, the big question is who made her darling cardigan with the sequins and the argyle print.

Now, I don’t have anything against sequins and argyle print (though the combination may well be something only Michelle Obama could pull off), but I do have to ask if such a question, especially in a time of turmoil, is really what ought to be the main focus for a woman as educated, intelligent, and accomplished as she is. Of course, the reporter cannot be bothered with such questions (or even the question of whether that really is her primary preoccupation, as he appears not to have asked her about the accuracy of his impressions).

Instead, he goes straight into describing her visit to The Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School where she is “treated . . . as if she were an American Queen” and is held up as an example, a distant dream for what girls can achieve. Indeed, she has had an impressive educational and professional career, but the drift of the article is that she should be admired for the position she has gained through her husband, not for what she has done on her own. The article also ignores strong statements about the importance of women’s rights and achievements such as

Getting a good education is so important. That’s why all of this that you’re going through, the ups and the downs, the teachers that you love and the teachers that you don’t, why it’s so important—because communities and countries and ultimately the world are only as strong as the health of their women. And that’s important to keep in mind. Part of that health includes an outstanding education.

Time apparently would rather focus on her statement that her husband would be jealous of how much she was enjoying her day.

You would never see this sort of portrayal if the genders were reversed. Note that the husbands of G-20 leaders are absent, for example, from the official photograph of G-20 spouses.

ETA: Katha Pollitt takes a broader look at media portrayals of Michelle Obama.

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