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Having a sense of humor has served me more than it has hurt me – just in the sense that it has allowed me to keep my sanity.
Barack Obama is the most famous living person in the history of the world.
This is a generation weaned on Watergate, and there is no presumption of innocence and no presumption of good intentions. Instead, there is a presumption that, without relentless scrutiny, the government will misbehave.
I look forward to a time, in the not so distant future, when we no longer look forward to ‘firsts’ as milestones women have yet to achieve, but we look back on them as historic events that continue to teach and inspire.
It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t go to college and have a career – as well as a family – of my own. Both my parents, but especially my mother, encouraged me and led me to believe that it was possible.
The dirty little secret is that the pool man, who’s making $30,000 a year, is subsidizing the million-dollar mortgage for the family whose pool he cleans. No wonder people want to get rid of tax breaks for corporate jets.
No doubt, the White House thinks the American people know Obama’s story. But since the Inauguration, we’ve seen only the president’s present: his perfect family, his Ivy League elegance, his effortless mastery of complex issues. We never see him sweat. And we forget that he ever had to struggle.
As long as the G.O.P., led by its increasingly visible women, continues to insist that the problem is not their policies but women’s failure to understand their own lives and interests, the gender gap won’t go away.
I think how pay gets determined is pretty broad – experience, how people look, what they bring to the job. But there’s no question women are paid less. Women don’t ask.
Study after study confirms that even when you control for variables like profession, education, hours worked, age, marital status, and children, men still are compensated substantially more – even in professions, like nursing, dominated by women. No wonder there’s a gender gap.