ManicDDaily

Lilly Ledbetter – “It’s About Equality” (From The Washington Post)

Why I Cannot Vote For the GOP (For Lilly Ledbetter)

When I was three-months, my mother started teaching in a county where women with children under one year automatically received reduced pay.  Meaning that new mothers got even less pay than regular women (much less men).

In her/my first year, my mother mentioned me to no one, pretended I didn’t exist.

I exist.

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The above (without title) happens to be 55 words (and a lot of suffering) so tell it to Galen, the terrific G-Man.  Lilly Ledbetter is a woman from Alabama who discovered after two decades of employment as a manager with a tire company that she was being paid less than male employees holding the same job.  She brought legal action to recover her lost pay.  After a ten year battle, the Supreme Court told her that her claims were time-barred because she should have sued her employee within six months of the initial pay discrimination (although she did not know of it for two decades.)  The first bill signed into law by President Obama was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which allowed a new statute of limitations to begin with each discriminatory pay check.

I am posting Lilly Ledbetter’s speech at the DNC below.  I found it very moving, as a woman, and also knowing my mother’s (and my) story.