Obama: Closing Gender Pay Gap “Is About More Than Simple Fairness” [VIDEO]

Yesterday, President Obama spoke out against Augusta National Golf Club’s anti-woman membership policies. Today, he held a forum in which he denounced the gender pay gap. Is it our imagination or are we sensing the beginnings of a trend here?

In the wake of a somewhat disappointing jobs report for March, Obama spoke on a forum for women and the economy at the White House today. And, in between weaving a poignant narrative of his wife’s struggle to balance
career and family, he drove home a crucial point: Pay inequity between men and women is the pits.

And while he certainly points out the fundamental unfairness of it, he also notes that paying women less than men is downright bad for the economy:

When women make less than men for the same work, that hurts families who have to get by with less and businesses who have fewer customers with less to spend… When any of our citizens can’t fulfill the potential that they have because of factors that have nothing to do with talent, or character, or work ethic, that diminishes us all.  It holds all of us back.

So closing this pay gap — ending pay discrimination — is about far more than simple fairness.  When more women are bringing home the bacon, but bringing home less of it than men who are doing the same work, that weakens families, it weakens communities, it’s tough on our kids, it weakens our entire economy. 

Awesome. And, when you think about it, it’s an awfully shrewd political move to make right now.

Not that that’s escaped his attention:

There’s been a lot of talk about women and women’s issues lately, as there should be.  But I do think that the conversation has been oversimplified.  Women are not some monolithic bloc.  Women are not an interest group.  You shouldn’t be treated that way.

“Been a lot of talk,” eh? Whatever would he be talking about?

You can watch the whole address (including his thoughts on women and the engineering field) below:

TAGS: obama women and economy | obama women and economy video

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