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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 16, 1983)
Wednesday, November 16, 1933 Dally Nebraskan p-. Wage discrimination must end In 1 063, thl U.S. Congress passed the Equal Pay Act In an attempt to bridge the gap between salaries of men and women. At that time, 38 per cent of all adult women were part of the paid labor force, and they earned 69 cents to every dollar earned by men, according to statistics compiled by the Nebraska Commission on the Status of Women. & & Janet Ward Today, 20 years later, more than half of all adult women are part of the paid labor force, but the earnings gap remains exactly the same 69 percent, the statistics show. To look at the pay gap another way, consider the fact that working women with college degrees earn less than men who have an eighth-grade education. What society is telling us, and what current laws reinforce, is that jobs performed by women are worth less than jobs performed by men. Obviously, the laws which intended to protect women from wagegender discrimination are, at best, ineffective, and our attempts to make new federal laws that better protect women have not been ratified. Because of the dim outlook for fed eral laws to protect women, we need to shift our focus to our state lawmakers. In Nebraska, statistics show that there are thousands of women in the work force who are earning wages that put them barely above pov erty leveL In 1980, 62 percent of the women in Nebraska had paid employment, however, 71 percent of those women were concentrated in the lowest paying jobs: blue collar, clerical and sales. Men in those same fields earned 65 percent more than women, just by virture of the fact that they were born male. The tremendous need for fair wages is even more evident when you consider that of the work ing women in Nebraska, 45 percent are single heads of households, and unfortunately only 19 percent of divorced fathers continue to pay alim ony and child support three years after being divorced, the statistics show. Those women are doing their best to feed and clothe their growing children, and to pay ever-rising bills. You can do something to help an immeasurable amount. LB531, currently in the Appropriations Committee of the Nebraska Legislature, if passed, will have a huge affect on discriminatory wage settings. Its passing would mean that the doors for a philosophy of fairness and equal opportun ity could be opened. In order for LB5S1 to be ; heard and voted on by our Legislature, it must be ; approved by five members of the Appropriations Committee. At this time, only one more vote is needed to get LB581 on the floor of the .Legislature.'-,,-..,.;,..'... You can help by writing in support of LB581 to the five members of the Appropriations Commit tee who have not cast their "yes" vote, and tell them that you want to end the wage discrimina tion American women have endured for decades. The five senators who have not voted "yes" to LB 581 are: Glen Goodrich, District 20, Omaha; Don Wagner, District 41, Ord; Lowell Johnson, District 15, North Bend; Howard Peterson, Dis trict 35, Grand Island and Martin Kahle, District 37, Kearney. You can write these senators at the state CapitoL - ' V2. -. - 7 Heinekin (liquor dad) Mooschcad U Dos Equis 6-9 p.nt Listen to the music of Chris Sayre Nov. 17 & 18 Lower Level Atrium ISCONSt. 475-1407 : f JUJ.M.JT I J.g,g., g.?ri urn If Ed M Come See Bogle in : . . . . ; CASABLANCA Thursday and Friday November 16 & 17 7:00 & 9:00 pm Union Rostrum American Films r. ir it. it. Gity comparisons indicate bigger is not always better Lg..g. g. g. gJJ. g, g nr. S. g. E m. f. 9.WWW m 'w w m m w m m In a relatively short period of time I had to shuttle back and forth repeat edly between two cities: New York and Kansas City. Something struck me about the two. In New York most people I met were cocky, even arrogant, about thejoys of living in their city. They behaved as if anyone who lived anywhere other than Manhattan was one of life's unfor tunates; that the wonders of New York City were so obvious and so thrilling that a grateful New York resident should feel . obliged to proclaim his good luck to anyone who would listen. They all seemed like Frank Sinatra singing "New York, New York." reens In Kansas City, on the other hand, the people I met were almost apolo getic about their town. They all said they personally liked it, but in the next breath they were confessing that "it's not New York," or It's not Chicago." The unspoken sentiment was that they were somehow lacking because they had wound up living in Kansas City. And yet . . . anyone with any sense could see within an hour of arrival in either city that, as far as the pure plea sure of living was concerned, Kansas City was a far more logical choke for a home. Where New York was filthy, Kansas City was clean; where in New York the mixture of people on the streets included a startling hih per centage of unsavory sorts, in Kansas City the people on the streets were clearly people a stranger could trust In short, if an alien from another planet were to land on Earth and to touch down in New York and Kansas City in succession, he would not have to spend five minutes thinking about which place any sane person would choose for a home. He would probably marvel at the fact that New York and Kansas City were even part of the same country, so obvious were the advantages of Kansas City life. But of course that's not how the two cities are perceived. New York is seen as desirable, as No. 1; Kansas City is seen as the sticks, as not even qualify ing as a hih runner-up in the nation's chic sweepstakes. The "great" cities are supposed to be New York and Chi cago fcd Lcs Angeles; the ethers are supposed to recognize implicitly that - they are lacking. ' The city where I was born Colum bus, Ohio has always had an infe riority complex that traces back to this way of thinking. I subscribe to the . city's excellent magazine, .Columbus Monthly; the latest issue features a cover story titled: "Can Columbus Ever BeGreatr . In the story, writer Herb Cook Jr. asks if Columbus is content to remain a "Grade B city"; he writes: "It's no secret that Columbus has an image problem. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, we see a stable, solid, rela tively prosperous community, the pro verbial 'good place to raise a family ' But when people from New York or California look toward Columbus, too often they see . . . nothing." Well . . . maybe that is the general perception about Columbus. I'm not sure what's wrong with being a "stable, solid, relatively prosperous commun ity, the proverbial 'good place to raise a family "; people who live in Columbus may think that's an easy: thing to accomplish, but people who live in New York certainly can't say those words about their city. It's good, of course, for people not to be satisfied with the status quo in the towns where they live, and to strive for improvements., But the way society has been evolving for the last 20 years, it seems foolish to ding to the old '"bigger b better" thinking when rank ing the quality of cities. . But I Sew into Columbus recently, and as I was walking through the air port something happened that mads me think anew about all cf this. ; ' ; ; "Will, the person who dropped the dollar bill in front cf the United Air ' lines ticket counter please come back toci&imit?" ''; ',;"'"'; v ;,T;:t" ;A-smsll thing, but 'it stopped 'mel Somehow I could not envision that announcement being made at New York's LaGuardia airport or Chicago's Ollare. ' : --v In Columbus, though, the announce ment made sense. In a lot of ways something like that is more important than all the grand operas and network headquarters and Broadway theaters . in the world. After you've been to the theater at night, or after you Ve been to the Metropolitan Opera, you still have to go home; in the grand scheme of things, the going home should plsy at least some part in whether a city b considered . "great" ' , ' ; ; , "' .' i::-3, Ttilea Cczzrj CzZz-ts, ten Would You Grdo I' IS S 1 n u ft f 1 C6or. A t- ... ... . Cutting. ClaVitij Carat Weight .... i . .... .... -w . , rToCompafe Yout Grading Or If You Feel You , Need Stop In and Visit Our Diamond Specialists. JEWELERS CONNER OF 13thfiP. er-. M H HPS