Equality! Buttigieg Pays Women More Than Men to Prove Wokeness

In a tweet a month ago that flew under the radar at the time, Pete Buttigieg’s press secretary, Nina Smith, explained that the campaign favors women to make up for systemic oppression (or some such nonsense):

    ✅ Women make up 53% of our campaign staff.

    ✅ Majority women in senior roles.

    ✅ Women are paid 1.11 for every dollar men are paid. https://t.co/WRaCusbIdX

    — Nina Smith (@ninasophia81) October 24, 2019

At a Politico event, Smith elaborated on the campaign’s philosophy.

“The pay, yes, is very intentional. We watch those prices and, you know, we’re constantly keeping track to make sure that we are ending the equal pay gap in our campaign and showing how an administration would be run,” Smith said.

This would be rather idiotic even if there were such a thing as a male/female pay gap, which there isn’t. This is one of the left’s most enduring myths, however, so it comes as no surprise to see a major presidential candidate perpetuating the deceit. Many studies have found that, where such gaps do exist, they are in place because of choices women are making: leaving jobs to raise children, seeking employment in lower-paying fields, etc. We suppose you can dig and find inequality lurking behind these choices, but that’s a different kind of argument. What isn’t true is that employers are deliberately paying men and women based on two different wage scales.

“A lot of our plans are oriented that way. And the way our campaign is run is also an example of how that would show up in a Buttigieg administration,” Smith said.

Well, that’s terrific. Pete Buttigieg (through his spokeswoman) is saying it outright: If he is president, he will organize his administration according to gender quotas that don’t have a thing to do with finding the most capable, qualified personnel. That should be comforting to all Americans to have a president more concerned with correcting historical inequalities than, you know, actually getting the job done to the best of his ability.

We can’t help but think that most American women find this sort of pandering insulting and condescending. Is that really what the feminist movement is supposed to be about? Haranguing men until they surrender and say, “Okay, we’ll just give you whatever you want if you stop bitching”? Maybe it is, actually.

Explains a lot, to be honest.