77cents - What recipe is that!

Lilly Ledbetter is angry – and so am I. You probably remember that she’s the woman of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first law that President Obama signed as President. After working as a night supervisor at the Goodyear Rubber factory in Gadsden, Alabama for more than 20 years and earning a paycheck that was far less than her male co-workers doing the same job, Lilly Ledbetter decided to fight back. She sued Goodyear and the case eventually went to the Supreme Court. 

                                                                         
Decades ago, I bought the campaign button seen here.  Thirty years ago, that was what women earned in comparison to men doing the same job. Now all these years later, the same button would say 77cents. That’s better, but it isn’t good enough. The days are long gone when women worked to earn “pin money”. In fact, even in days of yore, working merely for “pin money” was a privilege of middle and upper class women. For poor women, those days never existed. Women have always worked as domestic and factory workers, waitresses, and in many other jobs to make ends meet.

Today, women of many socioeconomic levels are either single wage earners supporting their children alone or members of couples that need two incomes. Working as a hobby is a privilege of very few. For those women who need to work (i.e. most of us), their work isn’t any less valuable than their male co-workers and neither are their economic needs.

In an attempt to rectify the problem of unequal pay, the Paycheck Fairness Act was proposed in Congress. Tuesday, June 5^th, it failed to get enough votes in the Senate to open debate. A majority of 52 to 43 voted yes to begin debate on the bill, but that is the subject of a whole other discussion. The bill would have protected workers from getting fired for sharing information about their rates of pay with their co-workers and enabled them to sue for some infringements of the Fair Pay Law. Unfortunately, all the Republicans voted against this bill preventing women from getting a tool sometimes needed to gain equal wages. Lilly Ledbetter sent an e-mail to me and millions of other women asking us to co-sign a letter to Mitt Romney asking him to take a stand on this issue. We need to send the letter to our Senators, also. If you don’t know how to contact your Senators, you can go to http://www.senate.gov/contactinformation. Equal pay for equal work still needs our advocacy.

Another thing that hasn’t changed through the decades is the need to cook a meal when we get home from work. This recipe for an eggplant and chickpea stew has a prep time of 20 minutes and feeds four. That leaves plenty of time to contact your Senators while it’s cooking.

                                                   Chick-­ Pea and Eggplant Stew

2 large eggplants cut in small pieces

1 14 oz can of chick peas
3 tbsp of olive oil
l large onion chopped
1 tbsp of minced garlic
1 14 oz can of stewed tomatoes
cumin, cinamon, coriander, salt, and pepper to taste
a dash of curry powder

Place the eggplant in a colander and sprinkle with salt. Let sit for about 30 minutes.

Heat the oil in a large frying pan. Add the onion and garlic until they soften. Add the spices and cook for a few seconds. Add the eggplant and stir to coat with the other ingredients. Add the tomatoes and chick-peas. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes.

It’s good served with rice. Bon appetit!