It's something that, as a woman, I feel strongly about. And, as a person, I was absolutely sickened by the way Alito spun the facts to make it sound like Ledbetter was at fault for not figuring out earlier that she had been ripped off.
The president is taking steps, with the very first bill he's signed, to correct the discrimination that has not only been allowed, but encouraged by the last administration. We're not just talking about women, here, either: who do you think is affected more by restrictions on abortions? The white, educated, upper middle class? I'm not going to begin my diatribe on LGBT rights--I had enough of that at MUN this weekend.
Obama summed up the meaning of the moment far better than I ever could:
“It is fitting that with the very first bill I sign — the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act — we are upholding one of this nation’s first principles: that we are all created equal and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness.”
We are all created equal. If you think about it, every single one of us has been victimized at one point or another for something beyond our control. Even if it was just a joke on the playground in third grade. Everyone has been hurt.
This bill is the kind of step that our country needs to take. We need to lower our tolerance for discrimination at every level: representation in Congress and the White House, executives in business, rights to marriage, privacy, and choice, and all the way down to the playground comments that we still remember, years later.
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