According to feminist icon Gloria Steinem, America’s best bet for stimulating the economy isn’t tax cuts or trillions of dollars in spending, but equal pay for women.
In a Dec. 15 interview with Fusion, Steinem claimed that “Equal pay for women of all races would be the biggest economic stimulus the economy could possibly have.” She specifically said it would be “way better” than the last stimulus.
She was responding to a question about how employees can overcome the “cultural taboo” of discussing how much they get paid. Steinem claimed women at all educational levels are getting paid less than men and blamed societal issues on the genders being divided.
“Well, gender issues are societal issues. Society is wrongly divided into two, which makes no sense. We’re all human beings, after all,” the 81-year-old author and political activist said.
The idea that raising women’s salaries would boost the economy isn’t new. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton made the argument in October when she said, “It's very clear that the more women we can get to participate fully and get paid equal pay for equal work, the faster our economy will recover and economies across the world likewise.”
In November, Hillary’s campaign website declared, “Equal pay for women isn’t just fair—it’s a game changer for the economy.”
Of course in Steinem’s interview with Fusion, she praised the former secretary of state and said if Clinton was president it would have an “actual impact” on gender equality.
“Because Hillary is by far the most experienced—both internationally and nationally—and has the most innovative ideas, her election would clearly make a difference,” Steinem said.
The “equal pay” narrative is a popular claim of feminists and the liberal media, in spite of the fact that it often relies on misleading statistics. President Barack Obama, comedienne Sarah Silverman and other often claim women make only 77 cents or 78 cents to the dollar that men make. But that statistic is so flawed that The Washington Post gave the president two “Pinocchios” for saying it.
The 77-cent or 78-cent figure is calculated by comparing what all full-time females make with what all full-time males make. It doesn’t take into consideration differences like the fact that men and women don’t all choose the same fields of employment, get the same levels of education, have the same amount of work experience or even work the same number of hours in a full-time work week.
There are also already laws (The Equal Pay Act) requiring “men and women in the same workplace be given equal pay for equal work.”
Fusion did not challenge the feminist’s claims about gender or wage equality.
Fusion Network features content targeted toward millennials, and is a joint venture between ABC and Univision. It has a history of liberal bias. In February 2015, the website made a “choose-your-own-adventure” style game out of abortion. The game, inappropriately titled “Fertile Ground,” walked players through living in a conservative state where keeping your unborn baby was portrayed as the absolute worst decision a player could make. At one point, players are told they bought and took an abortifacient.
