Hansel and Gretel

Senate Republicans, in what has become traditional procedure, have used the threat of filibuster to prevent equal pay for equal work from becoming law. As if the Republican Party didn’t have enough trouble with its alleged “war on women.” I guess there’s a point of diminishing returns to the amount of damage this sort of thing can cause.   It’s logical to consider the Senate’s vote in the context of a war on women. But there is another perhaps larger consideration based on simple arithmetic. Women are paid a reported seventy seven cents for the same work for which men receive a dollar.  To whatever extent the law would be effective, twenty three cents on every dollar would be coming out of somebody’s pocket, either management’s or labor’s. My bet is on management, barring the unlikely prospect of male employees agreeing to a cut in pay.   But let’s try to think of this positively. Rather than as a war on women let’s try viewing it as a gift to business. Big business! OK, very big business! But at least they favor something, except of course organized labor. They are certainly in favor of God’s will. After all, it was He who set it up for women to do all the hard work in child bearing.   I don’t know how to name the cause that most warms the cockles of Republican hearts.  Avarice or one of several synonyms would be close enough. But let’s be polite and call it Laissez Faire. While they believe strongly in it, they have no animus against those who are left behind and acknowledge that that they deserve minimal living standards, but only to a point. That point is reached when times get tough and I can’t remember a time that wasn’t being called “tough.” It seems to me that some of the folks who challenge the evidence for evolution, unknowingly make a more vigorous case for pure Darwinism when money is involved.         Today’s Republican Party brings to mind the tale of Hansel and Gretel who were taken into the woods and abandoned* because there was enough food in the house for two, but not for four. On one hand that sounds reasonable ……. really?     *They were abandoned by their father and wicked stepmother. Has anyone noticed the lack of wicked stepfathers in our folklore? Cinderella had wicked stepsisters. Could this be part of a centuries old war on women?