I KNEW I was right!

I love it when studies show I'm right cause then I can argue with my "constantly reads the news media" husband who says "prove it"....

This article reports on a study that shows that women still make less money than men in the same job in MOST fields. That there are very few positions where a man & woman with the same qualifications make the same amount or the woman makes more.

To do the responsible blogger thing and quote:

Nationally, the median income for a woman working full-time, year-round was about $28,000, compared with $38,000 for a man. That means a woman earned less than 74 cents for every dollar earned by a man.

STILL!! And my wonderful hubby has been debating this with me forever, so now I get to argue with him! Yay!

And, in the meantime, another interesting article caught my eye while I was browsing for the stats on the "jobs & women" blurb I had heard on CNN this AM. (I never actually found it-- it said something about only five jobs where women make the same amounts-- but even on their website, I didn't find that particular info. Feel free to post if you see it.

OOps-- sorry about the tangent. The "eye catcher" mentioned before my aside was this article, tongue in cheek though it may be, on marriage and women today. One of the quotes that sprung out at me:

I'd rather turn tricks than marry for money. At least you get variety. And no pretense of happiness. I think pretense is the most exhausting thing in the world. Don't wear me out by making me pretend to be happy.

Somehow, this reminds me very much of an argument that I (from the wrong side of the tracks and with a mom who was a working-poor single-mom) got into once with a very wealthy college roommate on whether it's more degrading to clean toilets for a living or to be a stripper/hooker/etc. I argue that if you're a good stripper/hooker who's makin' the big bucks that some of those high priced ladies can get, you may actually be happier and less degraded than a maid that makes no freakin' money at all to do things that aren't exactly my favorite activities. Money can certainly smooth a lot of frustrations on the job. And as the article above points out, at least it's honest about the exchange. And I remember that roommate being really sweet, but really condescending like I just didn't understand that hookers are all miserably unhappy cause who would like sex anyway? (which was generally the feeling I got from our discussion, and I got sorta mad).

So is it better, then, darlings, to be the "Pretty Woman" and turn tricks than to marry for money? Oh, but didn't America's Sweetheart with the horsey smile do both in that movie? Tell me. Hooker? Trophy Wife? Neither? Both? Or would you rather be desperately poor but strong in your moral convictions? For me, I'll take..... (cliffhanger, to be answered only if you are all good and make many many comments on this blog entry over the weekend.)

Okay. Two fairly unrelated posts, and I'm dangerously close to breaking my own rule on no more than one political post a week (which is unwritten, till now). But still. It'll give you something to think on while I'm in Louisiana. (AKA, for me at least, the Internet-less hinterlands).