GOPer: Pay Gap Should Be Even Bigger

Ever since earlier this year, when the gender pay gap reemerged as a high-profile political issue, most Republicans have been content to oppose any attempts to close the gap. But for conservative activist Phylis Schlafly, that’s not enough. She thinks the pay gap should be even bigger.

“Since husband and wife generally pool their incomes into a single economic unit, what really matters is the combined family income, not the pay gap between them,” the longtime anti-feminsit activist wrote in an op-ed Tuesday. “The best way to improve economic prospects for women is to improve job prospects for the men in their lives, even if that means increasing the so-called pay gap.”

Got that, ladies? Don’t bother fighting for equal pay; just nab yourself a rich husband and let the situation sort itself out. Women who don’t want to get married, and women in same-sex marriages, are apparently out of luck, and should just be content with lower wages.

“The pay gap between men and women is not all bad because it helps to promote and sustain marriages,” Schlafly added, clarifying that heterosexual marriage, not equality, ought to be the ultimate goal for working women.

For Schlafly, this sort of thinking is par for the course. In the 1970s, she emerged as a national figure for her fervent opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, and played a significant role in the amendment’s defeat. She later became an anti-gay marriage activist, and recently published a book about “Obama’s War On Religious Freedom.” She has a kindred spirit in Suzanne Venker, who recently argued on Fox News that women should forego careers entirely in pursuit of (straight) marriage.