Page 4 Daily Nebraskan Tuesday, October 19, 1982
iditorial
Women deserve equal pay for valuable work
About 40 percent of UNL's graduates will earn 33
percent less in average salaries that other UNL graduates.
The inequity isn't fair, and yet it exists. The reason
is that 40 percent of UNL students are women, and when
they graduate, on the average they will be paid 33 percent
less than their fellow male graduates.
This and other equally alarming statistics came out
during testimony before the Nebraska Legislature's
Business and Labor Committee Thursday night.
According to an article in The Lincoln Star, profes
sional women earn about 62 percent of the average wages
of male professionals. The reasons for this seem to be
based on the traditional ideas about female workers.
Women's jobs consistently have been perceived as an
extra salary for her family, as some extra money to invest
in a new house, to pay for that new car or to splurge on
a vacation. Rarely have women been regarded as "bread
winners." The stereotypes of women workers have not caught up
with the reality: More and more women are the sole
wage earner for their families. More women are fast. be
coming the single parent, responsible for paying the rent,
feeding and clothing the children, and generally trying
to keep body and soul together on significantly less wages
that a male head of household.
According to the Star article, they often receive little
or no child support; the default rate in Nebraska on child
support payments ranges between 50 percent to 60
percent. ..
Although, legally, women often are entitled to equal
pay for equal work, there is little recourse to encourage
that pay because men and women seldom hold the same
types of jobs. At the committee hearing, Helen Moore,
UNL assistant professor of sociology, pointed out that
655 job classifications are male dominated and 207
classifications are female dominated. Many of these 207
jobs pay wages at the bottom of the pay scale. These
typical "women's jobs" may pay low salaries because the
jobs are categorized into the kinds of services often seen
as an extension of traditional housewives' duties: nursing,
school teaching, food services and secretarial work.
Because housewives' work is seen as subordinate and
of lesser value, wages become subordinate, too. Salaries
are seen as some sort of compensation for the woman's
time.
There are no fast and easy solutions to end wage
inequality in the job market. According to The Star, many
witnesses at the hearing suggested the Legislature enact
a state policy of comparable worth - that is, pay a
woman what her labor is worth to society compared to
an equally , valuable male job. If a secretary and a construc
tion worker are perceived as having equal value to society,
for example, then they would earn the same salary.
While the idea of comparative worth has a lot of
appeal, for all practical purposes it would be impossible
to carry out. A labor value policy would require drastic
economic reforms and would fix certain jobs at a specific
value to society, eliminating the demand and supply of
the labor market.
But there are some things the state could consider
doing to help eliminate some of the discrimination against
women. First, the state can begin by looking at and re
forming the state's own policy of pay inequity, and by
opening up more opportunities for women to move up to
higher-ranked jobs. In addition, the state might consider
offering tax incentives to businesses that offer training
for workers in dead-end jobs.
The state also should offer tax incentives to businesses
which offer child care centers at work. An increase in
child care tax credits for single parents also might help
to ease the burden.
And finally, the state should encourage stricter
enforcement in collecting delinquent child support pay
ments. Pay inequity and the relative poverty of women in
Nebraska is not just a women's issue; it should be a
concern of everyone. We cannot claim this is a society of
equal opportunity for all when some 40 percent of us may
earn 33 percent less than our male classmates when we
graduate.
Leslie Kendrick
'WE'RE HOPING FOR A STRONG FINISH FROM
OUR ANCHORMAN...'
Holiday Inns' 'Great Sign'
to make its final beckoning
I bring you sad, disheartening news
today.
You know those big old Holiday Inn
signs? The huge, towering neon mon
sters with the flashing arrow pointing
flvi Bob
m Greene
toward the motel and the blazing star
on top?
They're dead.
That's right. Holiday Inns Inc. has
announced that it has made the corporate
decision to phase out the signs. But the
end of 1985, the signs will have disa
ppeared from the majority of the world's
1,750 Holiday Inns. The signs will be
replaced by a smaller, sleeker, rectangular
model designed to promote an efficient,
Herpes viewed as penalty for sex
I never expected to see Phyllis Sch
lafly get into the sex-education racket.
I thought she disapproved of that sort
of thing. Didn't the hawk of the Eagle
Forum always have her eye on other
creatures preying on school children?
But here she is beginning to distri
bute 100,000 pamphlets to junior and
qpt iiillinnlliiliir...Mr'inliinii-mrT-1-M- 'i lirr n-.-l.-irn,. i
fj Ellen
x5 Goodman
senior high school students about, gulp,
sex.
Well, not to worry. Phyllis hasn't lost
her balance. The scourge of the Equal
Rights Amendment has taken on a new
target - herpes - and she is still trying
to scare people straight.
The brochure that she has published
features a cover picture of the Herpes
simplex virus and goes on, in a fit of
misinformation, to blame the epidemic
of genital herpes on the four Ps: Play
boy, Penthouse and Planned Parenthood.
Schlafly's pamphlet then lectures the
young about the dangers of this disease
in a style reminiscent of Army sergeants
In World War II: "There is only one way
to be sure you never get herpes: Avoid
sexual relations. Remain a virgin unto
you marry, marry a virgin and remain
faithful to each other."
Frankly, I don't know a soul who is
in favor of herpes, a disease which has
been on more magazine covers lately than
Jacqueline Onassis. But I have an uneasy
feeling that the Schlaflys of the world
regard this virus as a godsend. At last,
a modern punishment for sex, a warning
from the heavens above that human beings
must mend their ways or suffer the sores
of sex.
The lady from Alton, 111., isn't alone
in portraying herpes in the bright light
of sin. Time magazine recently called it
"Today's Scarlet Letter" and wrote the
word Herpes across its cover in bright
red. Mother Jones, in a fine cover for
its November issue, calls this media cover
age the "sex-as-smdisease-as-punishment
thinking . . ." The author also suggests
that sexual guilt is "perhaps the most
pervasive of all herpes symptoms."
There are others, outside the Eagle
Forum, who regard this as good news.
As the Time magazine piece concluded:
"But perhaps not so unhappily, it (herpes)
may be a prime mover in helping to bring
to a close an era of mindless promixcuity."
This week a Washington Post-ABC
News poll suggests that fear of herpes
is indeed changing sexual behavior. A
full 22 percent of the unmarried people
ages 18 to 37 agreed with the statement,
"I have changed my behavior to avoid
the risk of contracting herpes."
The people interviewed offered co
ments like, "People are thinking twice"
and "I don't just hop into bed with any
body."
The whole herpes social syndrome is
fascinating. Not long ago, extramarital
sex in any form was weighted down
with fears of brimstone, not to mention
pregnancy. Many people continue to need
some sort of deterrent, some external
reason to abstain, some fear of punish
ment, to deal sanely with their sexuality.
We have gone from hell to herpes in three
generations.
Imagine, needing a fear of herpes to
make you "think twice" about a one
night stand, about a stranger in your
bed, about having sex with someone
whose toothbrush you wouldn't share?
We went through a period when sex
was portrayed as a need to be fulfilled
rather than a relationship to be explored.
There was a time gap between the sexual
revolution and the emotional revolu
tion. Many people still find it difficult
to sort out their own standards of caring
and exploitation. Surely some of the
singles who cite "herpes" as their reason
for "thinking twice" were looking for
a reason.
Still, I refuse to applaud the epidemic
of herpes as the heavenly harbinger of a
renewed right and sexual wrong. I'd
rather have a cure than a deterrent. I'd
rather people made decisions about their
sexual lives carefully than fearfully.
The pamphlet that blisters on my desk
this morning makes me realize how disap
pointed some will be if the new Finnish
remedy, something called gossypol, ac
tually works against herpes. What would
the Schlaflys do with a cure? Ban it?
(c) 1S32, Tt Washington Pott Writwt
Group
businesslike image.
James L. Schorr, president of the
Holiday Inns division responsible for
the decision, said: "We are changing our
sign in order to project a more contem
porary image that better reflects our
hotel chain's current range of property
types, customer base and product quality."
A word about the old signs: They
were each 43 feet tall. They were green,
yellow, orange and white during the
daytime; at night they added pink, blue
and red lights. They each were composed
of 836 feet of neon tubing and 426 in
candescent bulbs. They each cost $35,000
to erect, and approximately $6,100 a
year in electricity and replacement parts
to run. Inside the Holiday Inn corpora
tion, the sign was officially referred to
as the "Great Sijm."
The new sign, in addition to being
simpler in design, will cost less to con
struct ($23,000 each) and less to main
tain (approximately $2,500 a year).
The main reason for the change, how
ever, has nothing to do with economics.
Alas, Holiday Inns has commissioned
research that shows its customers now
consider the old signs - the "Great
Signs" - to be tacky.- Tacky and cheap
looking and old-fashioned.
It seems that when the first Holiday
Inn was built in 1952, almost all of the
company's customers were families tra
veling by automobile. The purpose of
the huge blinking-and-flashing Holiday
Inn sign was to attract them. The Holiday
Inn people hoped that travelers would
follow that giant arrow right in to the
registration desk.
Almost all of the Holiday . Inn custo
mers back then were "walk-ins" - folks
who would see the signs and drive into
the parking lot without a reservation.
Today, all that has changed. Eighty
five percent of the Holiday Inn rooms
sold today are sold to business travelers
or to couples traveling without child
ren. Fewer than 3 percent of the Holiday
Inn customers show up without reserva
tions. Thus, the old sign was no longer needed.
Michael Purvis, vice president of SAO
Consultants Inc., the firm hired to design
the new sign, said the consensus of trave
lers surveyed was that the old sign was
outmoded.
The identity of Holiday Inn needed
to be modified," Purvis said. "They are
not a roadside hotel company anymore.
Now they're competing with the best
hotels."
Purvis said that, back when the huge,
"ashing Holiday Inn sign wa the main
tool to persuade people to stay for the
night, it served its purpose well.
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