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From: cat@tommif.UUCP (Catherine Mikkelsen)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: opportunits, women
Message-ID: <117@tommif.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 14-Jul-85 22:35:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: tommif.117
Posted: Sun Jul 14 22:35:44 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Jul-85 12:53:40 EDT
References: <2159@watcgl.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Lines: 87
Summary: men support women(?!!) Since when? (statistics enclosed)

In article <2159@watcgl.UUCP>, jchapman@watcgl.UUCP (john chapman) writes:
> 
> 
>  Women are paid less (in part anyway) because it is
>  expected that they will have a man to support them.
>  Men in turn are paid more because they have to support
>  a family.  So to those who complain that equal pay for
>  work of equal value will cost too much: if you think
>  that the average standard of living is adequate then
>  EPFWOEV doesn't have to cost anything extra - we just
>  redistribute it.  Personally I think that everyone 
>  should be paid enough to live a decent life themselves
>  but to set salaries so that one half of the population
>  can "keep" the other half is ridiculous and then to pay
>  minimal (or nothing) to the other half so that they
>  are economically dependent is ridiculous in the extreme.
>  (not to mention insulting, unfair etc etc).
> 
>  John Chapman


Uh oh.  I was just scrolling through net.women, minding my own
business, when SOMEONE BROUGHT UP A TOUCHY SUBJECT.

So I am enclosing excerpts from a very interesting report.  This report
is titled _The Feminization of Poverty_ and is the result of a study
commissioned by Lt. Gov. McCarthy in jolly Sacratomato -- bastion of
zen rights for all Californians (oh sh**.  Is Brown out of office???)

The report notes the following:

If the current trend [increasing numbers of women are becoming poor] 
continues, *95% of Americans living under the poverty line by the year
2000 will be women and children.*

Pertaining to California, the report says:
*By 1982, 30.9 percent of households headed by white
women were below the poverty level nationally, as were 58.8 percent of the 
households headed by black women and 60.1 percent of the households headed
by hispanic women.*

*Women in California are even worse off than the national norm [in wage
discrimination issues]...Women bring home earnings that average only 54 cents
to every dollar earned by men.*

The report notes six major factors that are pushing more women into poverty:

1)	Quality child care is expensive and difficult to find.
(Perhaps you've read about our lovely California nursery horror stories?)

2)	A majority of absent fathers don't pay child support.

3)	Aid to Families with Dependent Children (some welfare branch, I
	believe) does not provide adequate money to single mom parents.

4)	It is extremely difficult for women to get the type of higher-
	paying jobs that men hold

5)	Wage discrimination leaves women with [national average here] 59%
	of men's earnings.

6)	Older women and displaced homemakers suffer particular economic 
	disadvantages after divorce or spouse death and are often ineligible
	for welfare, medical insurance, unemployment insurance, and disability.


Frankly, I haven't the patience to wade through most of the long-winded
pseudo-philosophical didacticisms I've seen in this section. (Okay, kill
me for this one.)  But I think that the above facts and statistics will
perhaps steer the current conversation in a more useful -- and less
ivory tower -- direction.  Why don't you guys go out and get your corporations
to provide good child care instead of participating in useless socio-sexual
pedantry?

Exsuse any transmission errors here; we're new on the net.

Catherine Mikkelsen @Teknisk
decwrl!greips!tommif!cat

*I've always felt positive about my father even though he was a junkie
and a slimy person.*

MacKenzie Phillips in PEOPLE Magazine
(honest)					*We were somewhere near
						Barstow on the edge of the
						desert when the drugs began
						to take effect* H.Thompson