There is no greater example of how phony and disingenuous the “war on women” rhetoric President Barack Obama and Democrats are using against Republicans this election cycle than the Obama Administration’s war on its female staffers in the White House.
Today is “National Equal Pay Day,” and Obama wrote a political proclamation in whichhe used the oft-cited figure that women make 77 percent of what males do andAfrican-American and Hispanic women make 64 percent and 56 percent, respectively,of what men make.
The irony is, Obama says this to turn out working class and minority women voters to secure himself four more years in the White House, wherein he can continue todeny his female staffers “equal pay for equal work.”According to a study the Washington Free Beacon did of the salaries of White Housestaffers, women made 18 percent less than men did in Obama’s White House.
With that in mind, all of Obama’s words today ring extremely hollow.
In his presidential proclamation, Obama cited the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, whichextended the time period in which women could sue their employers for wages lost dueto discrimination and mentioned that he created the “National Equal Pay Task Force” toidentify equal pay violations.
One can only wonder if this task force examined his White House.
“On National Equal Pay Day, let us resolve to become a Nation that values thecontributions of our daughters as much as those of our sons, denies them noopportunity, and sets no limits on their dreams,” Obama wrote. “I call upon allAmericans to recognize the full value of women’s skills and their significant contributionsto the labor force, acknowledge the injustice of wage discrimination, and join efforts toachieve equal pay.”
Based on the Obama administration’s unequal pay for femaleemployees, one can wonder how much Obama values the “contributions ofour daughters as much as those of our sons.”
Before he calls upon “all Americans to recognize” the “full value of women’s skills”and “acknowledge the injustice of wage discrimination,” he should first call upon hisadministration to do so and “join efforts to achieve equal pay” that he is calling others to join.
There has been a pattern of hostility toward women in Obama’s White House.
As the Los Angeles Times wrote in a story on Ron Suskind’s book about the Obama White House, “ConfidenceMen,” “One of the major disclosures in [the book] was that women working in the Obama White House often felt marginalized, that a frat-boy atmosphere that prevailed in the 2008 campaigncarried over into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.”
In Suskind’s book, Anita Dunn is quoted as saying, “looking back, this place would be in courtfor a hostile workplace. … Because it actually fit all of the classic legal requirements fora genuinely hostile workplace to women.”
So when Obama writes on Equal Pay Day that “his Administration is committed tosecuring equal pay for equal work” and “working women are at the heart of an Americabuilt to last,” one can only wonder why the mainstream media does not point to his administration as an example of “equal pay forequal work” and his White House as representative of an America “built to last.”
Obama and Democrats will continue to use Sandra Flukes and contraception non-controversies to fuel their “war onwomen” talking point, even as their major surrogates like Hilary Rosen denigrate stay-at-home moms, in order to distract the electorate. They rely on these distractions because they are rightfully worriedthat women may not support him as strongly if his administration’s hypocritical actionstoward the women who work for him received more sunlight.