Equal Pay For Women Quotes & Sayings

We've learned that women can and should do 'men's jobs,' for instance, and we've won the principle (if not the fact) of getting equal pay. But we haven't yet established the principle (much less the fact) that men can and should do 'women's jobs': that homemaking and child-rearing are as much a man's responsibility, too, and that those jobs in which women are concentrated outside the home would probably be better paid if more men became secretaries, file clerks, and nurses, too. — Gloria Steinem

Men and women must receive equal pay for equal work in production. — Mao Zedong

What man could afford to pay for all the things a wife does, when she's a cook, a mistress, a chauffeur, a nurse, a baby-sitter? But because of this, I feel women ought to have equal rights, equal Social Security, equal opportunities for education, an equal chance to establish credit. — Betty Ford

Employers must make far-reaching changes to employment terms and conditions for women: Equal pay for equal, decent work. — Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka

You're not safe to go back there," he said.
"I'm going," I returned.
"We'll see."
Jeez, there was just no shaking this guy.
"You do know that there's this little thing called the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote?" I asked.
"I heard of that," he said and there was a smile in his voice.
"And there's this whole movement called fem ... in ... is ... im." I said it slowly, like he was a dim child. "Where women started working, demanding equal pay for equal work, raising their voices on issues of the day, taking back the night, stuff like that."
He rolled into me, which made me roll onto my back.
"Sounds familiar."
"Do you have an encyclopedia? Maybe we can look it up. If the words are too big for you to read, I'l read it out loud and explain as I go along."
He got up on his elbow. "Only if you do it naked." I slapped his shoulder. — Kristen Ashley

We need to make equal pay and equal opportunity for women and girls a reality so women's rights are human rights once and for all. — Hillary Clinton

It's amazing to me that, in the 42 years since President Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act into law, women today still receive fewer wages than men for the same work. — Mike Honda

Women really must have equal pay for equal work, equality in work at home, and reproductive choices. Men must press for these things also. They must cease to see them as "women's issues" and learn that they are everyone's issues - essential to survival on planet Earth. — Erica Jong

Any insistence on equal pay is crucial and any redefinition of work to include caregiving work so that it also has an economic value, at least at replacement level, that's crucial. So change does come from the bottom up, and it will come from girls and women and men who understand that for us all to be human beings instead of being grouped by gender is good for them, too. — Gloria Steinem

...and in Wellington women in the bakery trade were able "to perform certain skilled operations for which they are particularly suited, at rate equivalent to two thirds the journeyman's rate". — Barbara Brookes

In a patriarchal society like ours, says Horley, domestic violence will always be with us. "Women don't even have equal pay. Girls are still growing up with the message that the handsome prince on the white horse is the happy ending. For as long as there's an imbalance of power between the sexes, it's inevitable that that power will be abused by some men. — The Guardian

We're going to foment our own revolution. So I say to the women out there in America, let's keep this fight going! Put on your lipstick, square your shoulders, suit up, and let's fight for a new American revolution where women are paid equal pay for equal work, and let's end wage discrimination in this century once and for all! — Barbara Mikulski

Women want to be free to choose from the same range of options that men take for granted. In our quest for equal pay, equal access to education and opportunities, we have made great strides. But until women can move freely and think freely in their homes, on the streets, in the workplace without the fear of violence, there can be no real freedom. — Anita Roddick

Some people are surprised that the Republicans are waging a war on women, or that they voted against equal pay for women. I'm not surprised at all. In some ways, it may be a good thing. They're defending the patriarchy, which is a wounded beast! And wounded beasts are always dangerous. — Jane Fonda

Here at home, President Obama early on made the connection between growth and economic opportunity for women. In the depths of our crisis in 2009, one of the first laws the president signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. He established an Equal Pay Task Force led by Valerie Jarrett to help women get paid what they earn. — Lael Brainard

I believe men and women should get equal pay for equal work. — Satya Nadella

We've told men for so long that we're equal, we can open our own doors, carry our own bags, pay our own way, that now they're afraid to offer in case we accuse them of sex discrimination. If you were a man would you buy a woman underwear? I wouldn't dare. What if she throws it back in your face and calls you a sexist pig? So they've tried to turn into new men, but that's no good either, because now we're telling them to be masculine. We don't just want them in a pair of Marigolds cleaning the oven, that's not good enough. We want them to take control, to whisk us off hotels, buy us dinner, and make mad passionate love to us all night. We want it all ways. We want them heroes and handy with the vacuum. No wonder the poor guys are confused — Alexandra Potter

And I spoke out on women's rights, like equal pay for equal work. — Karen Morley

In 1970, American women were paid 59 cents for every dollar their male counterparts made. By 2010, women had protested, fought, and worked their butts off to raise that compensation to 77 cents for every dollar men made.10 As activist Marlo Thomas wryly joked on Equal Pay Day 2011, "Forty years and eighteen cents. A dozen eggs have gone up ten times that amount."11 — Sheryl Sandberg

In sum, the truth is that we luxuriate in the comfortable assertion that women enjoy equality. We have salved our consciences by eliminating the more obvious discriminations like unequal rates of pay for work of equal value. But, in fact, we have not eliminated the inheritance of the millennia that women are lesser beings, an inheritance which still manifests itself in a whole range of prejudice and other forms of discrimination. — Bob Hawke

The reality is that if we do nothing it will take 75 years, or for me to be nearly a hundred before women can expect to be paid the same as men for the same work. — Emma Watson

We need to reclaim the word 'feminism'. We need the word 'feminism' back real bad. When statistics come in saying that only 29% of American women would describe themselves as feminist - and only 42% of British women - I used to think, What do you think feminism IS, ladies? What part of 'liberation for women' is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? The campaign for equal pay? 'Vogue' by Madonna? Jeans? Did all that good shit GET ON YOUR NERVES? Or were you just DRUNK AT THE TIME OF THE SURVEY? — Caitlin Moran

What we need to do is raise the minimum wage. We also need to hold onto equal pay. Women work for 76 cents on the dollar for the same work that men do. That's not right in America. — John F. Kerry

President Kennedy understood the importance of equal pay for equal work and signed historic legislation that gave women around the country hope that one day their wages would be on par with that of their male counterparts. — Rosa DeLauro

I do not demand equal pay for any women save those who do equal work in value. Scorn to be coddled by your employers; make them understand that you are in their service as workers, not as women. — Susan B. Anthony

When statistics come in saying that only 29 percent of American women would describe themselves as feminist - and only 42 percent of British women - I used to think, What do you think feminism IS, ladies? What part of 'liberation for women' is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? The campaign for equal pay? 'Vogue' by Madonna? Jeans? Did all that good shit GET ON YOUR NERVES? Or were you just DRUNK AT THE TIME OF SURVEY? — Caitlin Moran

Today, women make up about half our workforce. But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it's an embarrassment. Women deserve equal pay for equal work. — Barack Obama

The legacy of women's war work is our present post-industrial employment structure. It was the war that created the demand for a technologically advanced, de-skilled, low-paid, non-unionized female workforce and paved the way for making part-time work the norm for married women now. A generation later, it was the daughters of wartime women workers who completed their mothers' campaign for equal pay. — Linda Grant

Women want a family life that glitters and is stable. They don't want some lump spouse watching ice hockey in the late hours of his eighteenth beer. They want a family that is so much fun and is so smart that they look forward to Thanksgiving rather than regarding it with a shudder. That's the glitter part. The stable part is, obviously, they don't want to be one bead on a long necklace of wives. They want, just like men, fun, love, fame, money and power. And equal pay for equal work. — Carolyn See

I don't know what happened through the '80s, '90s, and '00s that took feminism off the table, that made it something that women weren't supposed to identify with and were supposed to be ashamed of. Feminism is about the fight for equality between the sexes, with equal respect, equal pay, and equal opportunity. At the moment we are still a long way off that. — Keira Knightley

I think that in a country as successful as ours, we still have a long way to go in terms of parity for women, whether it's equal pay in the workforce or a whole host of other issues. — Valerie Jarrett

I just want to help other women achieve as much as they can in society without restraints being imposed on us. It's the most natural and normal thing to want to defend your rights to equal opportunities, equal pay for equal work, and everything that comes with that. — Amy Poehler

Women should have equal pay for equal work and they should be considered equally eligible to the offices of principal and superintendent, professor and president. So you must insist that qualifications, not sex, shall govern appointments and salaries. — Susan B. Anthony

Women can't wait for equal pay. And I won't stop fighting to address this inequality. — Barack Obama

Hierarchies must rise and conglomerate as they extend over fewer and larger corporations. A seat in a high-rise job is the most coveted and contested product of expanding industry. The lack of schooling, compounded with sex, color, and peculiar persuasions, now keeps most people down. Minorities organized by women, or blacks, or the unorthodox succeed at best in getting some of their members through school and into an expensive job. They claim victory when they get equal pay for equal rank. Paradoxically, these movements strengthen the idea that unequal graded work is necessary and that high-rise hierarchies are necessary to produce what an egalitarian society needs. If properly schooled, the black porter will blame himself for not being a black lawyer. At the same time, schooling generates a new intensity of frustration which ultimately can act as social dynamite. 6 — Ivan Illich

[During] the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter [Fair Pay Act], equal pay for equal work, the women led that fight. — Barbara Mikulski

We face a choice this election. President Obama is fighting for changes that grow the economy from the middle out and help all Americans succeed - jobs, education, health reform, the DREAM Act, equal pay for women. He is moving us forward with opportunity today for prosperity tomorrow. Mitt Romney wants to take us back to yesterday. — Eva Longoria

Twenty years later, twenty years after I joined the women's movement, we're still talking about the same issues. We're still talking about reproductive rights for women, and we're still talking about getting equal pay for women. And that's just frustrating. — Corin Tucker

Equal pay is not yet equal. A woman makes 77 cents on a dollar and women of color make 67 cents ... We feel so passionately about this because we are not only running for office, but we each, in our own way, have lived it. We have seen it. We have understood the pain and the injustice that has come because of race, because of gender. And it's imperative that ... we make it very clear that each of us will address these issues. — Hillary Clinton

During her Oscar acceptance speech, Patricia Arquette called for equal pay for women. Then Oprah stood up and said, 'She's right, I can't live like this. I can't take another second of this living hell.' — Conan O'Brien

Far too many women are hesitant, and remain trapped in jobs for which they are over-qualified or paid beneath their worth. — Janet Street-Porter

We, the women of the Senate, with President Obama by our side, will keep fighting - our shoulders square, our lipstick on - because you deserve equal pay for your hard work. — Barbara Mikulski

Money, power, love, sex (until they get married), adulation, children, and control. Of these, children cause the most trouble. Women also want equal rights and equal pay for equal work, and I agree with them 100%. Though on some days it is hard to figure out how a species that controls 97% of the money and all the pussy can be downtrodden. — Larry L. King

I once took on the role of the Batman for a commercial about equal pay for women. — Richard Gautier

President Obama is also standing up for women in North Carolina and across our country. He has helped women fight for equal pay for equal work; he has fought to guarantee that women have access to quality, affordable health care, including making sure that insurance plans cover birth control with no out-of-pocket cost. — Bev Perdue

I am an adamant feminist. It never occurred to me to take my husband's name when we married. I am a supporter of abortion rights, of equal pay for equal work, of the rights of women prisoners, of all the time-honored feminist causes, and then some. — Ayelet Waldman

What other movement has ensured that young women have the rights that they have today? Feminism is responsable not only for the decline in violence against women over the last decade, but also for equal pay and rights legislation, reproductive justice, and the list goes on. So I'm more than a little suspicious of those who see women's advancement as a bad thing. — Jessica Valenti

Equal pay for equal work continues to be seen as applying to equal pay for men and women in the same occupation, while the larger point of continuing relevance in our day is that some occupations have depressed wages because women are the chief employee. The former is a pattern of sex discrimination, the latter of institutionalized sexism. — Alice S. Rossi

In addition to being an economic security issue, the failure to pay women a salary that's equal to men for equal work is also a women's health issue. The fact is that the salary women are paid directly impacts the type of health care services they are able to access for both themselves and their families. — Kirsten Gillibrand