Like a teenage instagrammer celebrating the return of the Pumpkin Spice Latte, Democrats gleefully mark Equal Pay Day every year by taking to social media, where they proceed to perpetuate myths about the so-called wage gap.
Of course, as even many non-conservatives acknowledge, when analyses control for outside factors, that gap mostly closes, dispelling those myths.
Nevertheless, they persist. (Unlike the wage gap itself.)
Why?
After his inaugural address, President Trump was criticized for advancing the narrative of “American carnage,” depicting the country as a dark, deeply flawed place. Yet it’s feminists who have insisted for decades upon persuading girls that the country is a patriarchal hellscape, even after earning monumental accomplishments for women.
Just last month, Hillary Clinton spoke of the “chorus of naysayers” that allegedly targets young girls early in their lives, telling a crowd of women that the work of feminists is “far from over.” In fact, it’s the opposite. The soundtrack of young girls lives, if anything, is a chorus of encouragement, telling them they can do anything they want to do, and be anything they want to be.
Like winning the right to vote, winning equality under the law is, of course, not good enough. There is still room today for women to advocate for their interests. But their efforts over the past century have lead to the freest, fairest society for women that has ever existed. In a matter of decades, feminists earned equality under the law and virtually eliminated the wage gap.
A Pew Research Center analysis published Monday noted that “The estimated 17-cent gender pay gap for all workers in 2015 has narrowed, from 36 cents in 1980. For young women, the gap has narrowed even more over time. Back in 1980, they earned 67% of their male counterparts, compared with 90% in 2015.” And that’s before controlling for relevant variables.
High-profile conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell, who was active in the women’s movement of the 1970s, wrote in the New York Times last week, “Are there still obstacles facing women in society? Yes, there are. But American women’s equality under the law is what I worked for and is, today, a reality. And I, for one, am not ashamed to declare victory.”
Next Equal Pay Day, let’s celebrate the hard earned success of closing the wage gap instead of perpetuating the myth of its existence.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
