In the second presidential debate held this week, for the first time, we were offered a direct contrast between the two candidates’ position on two issues important to women. Pay Equity in the Workplace Responding to the question “In what new ways to you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace, specifically regarding females making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn?”, President Obama spoke of his very first legislative accomplishment:

“… the first bill I signed was something called the Lily Ledbetter bill. And it’s named after this amazing woman who had been doing the same job as a man for years, found out that she was getting paid less, and the Supreme Court said that she couldn’t bring suit because she should have found about it earlier, whereas she had no way of finding out about it. So we fixed that. And that’s an example of the kind of advocacy that we need, because women are increasingly the breadwinners in the family. This is not just a women’s issue, this is a family issue, this is a middle-class issue, and that’s why we’ve got to fight for it.”

Governor Romney did not address the question of whether he would have supported the Lily Ledbetter Act, but his campaign has — after some misdirection yesterday — finally stated that he would not have signed it. [Read more…]