Equal pay for equal work?  Although the issue transcends gender, race, religion, etc., in my state, it is merely un-PC to pay a woman less for the same work performed by a male counterpart - it is not illegal.  This post was inspired by Jon Henner's Open Call regarding Equal Pay Day - April 28th.  Check it out for other OSer's stories.

Story 1:  Grandma S. 

Grandma S. was born in 1910, raised on a farm in northern Kentucky, somewhere in the middle of five or six kids.  She married Grandpa S., knowing that his music came first, and loving him anyway.  He was a Vaudeville musican, and a good man, and mostly let her have her way.  Even though he could play almost any instrument you can name, a musician's income is honest, but rarely steady.

When WWII came along, she worked in a factory making springs for the war effort.  Within a week, she was setting production records, humming to herself as she precisely adjusted the tension on each coil, monitoring the little gauges on the machine. When the managers stood behind her one sweltering afternoon, she assumed she needed to speed up, and was suprised to learn from angry co-workers that her performance had convinced management to raise the quotas. 

I don't know if she was thinking about equal pay, because it was assumed that women in the workplace were single, and higher pay belonged to family breadwinners.  When the war ended, most of the women were let go to make room for the homecoming veterans.  They wanted Grandma S. to stay.  Instead, she went on the road with the Grandpa S. and the band (think "I Love Lucy," without the "Baba Lou").

They settled down in Cincinnati, and Grandma got work at a fabric and upholstery store.  Her enthusiasm for the products was contagious, and she soon became one of the top sales people on the floor.  In fact, to keep her working after Dad was born, the owner installed a mini-daycare in the back room.  This was revolutionary for its time (and would still be considered revolutionary, unfortunately).

When sales began to level off in the late 50's, Grandma S. asked the owner to let her make appointments with some of their upscale clients, and take fabric samples to their homes.  It was easier for the client to visualize color and pattern combinations in the rooms where they would be placed - and Grandma S. could take the measurements and orders all in the same visit.  She was the quintessential interior decorator, with or without the title.

She ended up with a company car, and a reputation for a lead foot.  (My earliest memories of her regard a sweet little Volkswagon and the smell of her leather driving gloves, cigarette smoke, fabric samples, hairspray, and rich perfume somehow lightly combined.)  That's where she worked until she retired, and still looks back on it (she's 98) with great fondness.

Grandma S. got lucky - the owner of the fabric store valued those who did good business.  Did she receive equal pay?  I don't know - and I'm not sure that she knew either.  I do know that she counts that job among the major blessings in her life, because it allowed her to provide a steady income for the family while doing something she loved.

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Story 2:  Grandma M. 

Grandma M. was born in northern Ohio, the precocious one of her three sisters and two brothers.  When the "bob" came into style for the girls, but was forbidden by their parents, Grandma went out to the barn with a pair of scissors and gave herself a bob.  She made such a mess of it, her parents had to take her (and her sisters, to make it fair) to get it cut properly.

Grandma M. was the first person in her family to receive a college education - a teaching degree.  Although she was intrigued with Grandpa M. (when the dorm where Grandpa lived burned down, they joked that it was their love letters that set it aflame), she had no intention of marrying until she had her degree and a job.  This, in turn, impressed Grandpa M.

In order to get her first job, Grandma M. agreed teach remedial English, and to coach girls basketball (old-school half-court style), even though she'd never seen it played.  A book became her coach, although Grandad said he helped a little.  She lived in a women's only boarding house, and because she would lose her job if she married, they eloped over Christmas break.  Grandad snuck in through the window to visit her at night.

They announced their marriage at the end of the school year, and because she was doing exceptionally well with the classes no one else wanted (or dared) to teach, the school board did her a favor - she got to keep teaching.  She was 5'2" tall, but she kept order among the least bright and most disruptive students using her famous elbow grip; her small hands were no match for the nerve endings near the elbows of even her largest pupils.

Grandad went on to become a Principal, a Superintendent, an Athletic Director.  Grandma M. taught high school English anywhere he went. It is said that one day, arriving home from school to the bedlam and chaos of 5 overactive teenage sons, Grandma M. was heard to mutter at the doorstep, "This is not of me.  For if it were of me, I would have a little dog, and he would know me." (The reference is to Odysseus, upon his return home.  I once heard her in the laundry room:  "Out, out, dam-ned spot.")  Her two daughters (one of them my mother) also carried Grandma M.'s strength, grace, and bearing.

Was she thinking of equal pay?  Most likely.  Fairness and justice were in her very bones.  Given equal footing, she might have made an amazing administrator or college professor.  But she did her job extremely well.  At her funeral, a suprising number of former students contributed anecdotes about her toughness; they admired that she made them learn to read and write better than they originally wanted to.

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To me, it is self-evidential that we deserve equal pay for equal work - across the lines of gender, race, perceived ability, age, religion - whatever.  If I produce 10 widgets and you produce 10 widgets, we should receive the same compensation. 

This is merely my meditation on equal pay - that without these women, I might not have the opportunity to ask the question about equal pay.  They are my Grandmothers.  They helped prove to the world that we can do the job.

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Story 3 - Historical Perspective

I'm not related to Ms. Truth, but if it were up to me, I would speak of her as Dr. Truth.  As I was writing this post, her words would not leave me alone, so I thought I would add them as a post-script.  In reality, they deserve a post all their own:

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883): Ain't I A Woman?
Delivered 1851
Women's Convention, Akron, Ohio

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?

Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman?

I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman?

I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?  . . .

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.