Surprise, surprise: A Republican state representative doesnāt believe the pay gap exists.
In a recent interview with advocacy organization Better Wyoming, Wyoming Rep. Gerald Gay explained that the wage gap is āa fact of lifeā because of āthe dependability issueā of whether women will show up to work.
Wait... what?
The 60-year-old Wyoming native basically blamed women for the gender wage gap because women take more time off from work than men.
āThatās a fact of life, you know, and itās the nature of Wyomingās business and also the nature of gender politics,ā Gay told the organization. āMen and women have different ways of going about taking time off ā moms for maternity leave and that sort of thing. Women are always going to take their full maternity leave, and thereās the dependability issue about whether theyāre going to show up for things.ā
Gay continued to hold women accountable for the pay gap, explaining that itās āa gender thing.ā He told Better Wyoming:
Historically [women] tend to take every sick day thatās available with them, and thatās a gender thing. They look at how many sick days you get in a year. Say you get 12 sick days a year. If they go for two years and theyāve only taken three sick days, theyāre going to cash in the remaining 21 sick days. Thatās a gender thing and it hurts getting [the gender wage gap] rectified. Some of the misuses and abuses that go on there, and itās predictable, itās statistics that are written in stone. As long as you have people who behave differently on it between the two genders, it hurts the chances of getting that gender wage gap shrunk all the way down. Weāll make small progress on it, but they wonāt make it [go away].
Letās break this down for Rep. Gay shall we?
A) One-quarter of mothers return to work less than two weeks after giving birth. So, no, not all women take their full maternity leave, for various reasons including pressure to get back to work quickly and the glaring fact that many women donāt get paid maternity leave and simply canāt afford to take time off. (They especially canāt afford it when you take into consideration that they get paid less because, well, the wage gap.)
B) If women do take all of their sick days itās often because they donāt receive paid maternity leave, forcing them to pool their sick days and vacation time.
C) Gay ā similar to Trumpās recently announced maternity leave plan ā completely ignores the fact that fathers play a large role in raising their children and ā more and more ā are taking paternity leave.
D) Letās not question womenās ādependabilityā simply because our culture has created a system that goes against them in every single way.
Gay responded to criticisms that his response was sexist, telling Mic that he felt he was āunfairly representedā in the Better Wyoming interview.
Micās Marie Solis wrote that Gay āsaid he was pointing out what he admitted was a sexist āperceptionā that women are undependable, rather than expressing his personal feelings.ā
Gay disregarded the interview, saying that āreports are coming from a liberal point of view and theyāre trying to paint me in as bad of a light as possible.ā
āIn the free market system itās the employerās responsibility,ā Gay told Mic. āNo one forces anyone to go to work anywhere. If you donāt like the wage employers are offering you, go somewhere else and get a job somewhere else.ā
So... youāre blaming women again?