MS Dem Chairman Rickey Cole calls for equal pay act in response to Bryant's misogyny

Here is the text of a press release from Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Rickey Cole sent today in response to Phil Bryant's remarks about working mothers being the downfall of the American educational system.  The most interesting part to me is the call for a Lilly Ledbetter Act for Mississippians:

IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                      CONTACT:  RICKEY COLE

JUNE 4, 2013                                                                         (601) 316-1356 or (601) 969-2913

 

 

BRYANT INSULTS THE WORKING MOTHERS OF MISSISSIPPI

AND EMBARRASSES MISSISSIPPI AGAIN

 

JACKSON-Yet again the goofiest governor in America has embarrassed Mississippians before a national audience, and this time he has insulted generations of working Mississippi mothers as well.

 

Speaking earlier today, Phil Bryant told a national audience that the reason for American educational mediocrity is "I think both parents started working. The mom got in the workplace."

 

Just exactly how out of touch with reality does a candidate have to be in order to become the Republican governor of Mississippi?  Throughout the two hundred year history of our state, most mothers have been forced by necessity to work as breadwinners for their families.  Whether that work took place in the fields, in the logwoods, as domestic workers, as teachers, as nurses, as factory workers, in food service, in retail or in many other fields of arduous work, the mothers of Mississippi have been bringing home the bacon since Mississippi began.  The 1950’s “Father Knows Best” picket fence middle-class family myth has never been an option for most Mississippians.  A lot more Mississippi mothers have had callouses of hard work than have ever had manicures.  The “happy housewife” has always been the exception in hard-times Mississippi, and if Mr. Bryant had been paying attention to most of the lives of most of the people of this state, he would know that.

 

On behalf of Mississippi Democrats, I salute and express profound appreciation to the generations of working mothers who have done so much to build the economy, society and culture of our state. It has been the working mothers who have seen to the education of their children and the children of many others, as well.  It is the working mothers of today who are providing the labor and leadership essential to making Mississippi a better place, when even now working women are making only seventy-seven cents on the dollar when compared to men.  The working mothers of our state deserve a state leadership that will fight for equal pay for equal work, instead of allowing this insulting income gap to continue while blaming hard-working mothers for the failures of our educational system. 

 

Phil Bryant owes the working mothers of our state an apology.  A good first step in that apology would be for him to support a Lilly Ledbetter Act for Mississippi.