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"Yesterday was a major slap in the face towards equal rights for women. The Paycheck Fairness Act, which would have helped to close the pay gap between men and women, failed to advance in the Senate, with only 52 votes in favor--it needed 60 to pass. The Washington Post&amp;#x27;s 2chambers blog reported, &amp;quot;Senate Republicans voted en masse against the measure, believing that it could adversely affect businesses if employees attempt to file pay-related lawsuits.&amp;quot; Excuse my French but, uh, WHAT THE&amp;amp;#8253;Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) hits the podium on May 23 about the Paycheck Fairness Act during a news conference with (L-R) Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Sen. Dianne Feinsten (D-CA), Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) in Washington, DC. To loop you in on why yesterday&amp;#x27;s haps were such a big deal, the Paycheck Fairness Act would have &amp;quot;put the burden on employers to show that any pay gaps between men and women were caused by reasons other than their gender. It would forbid retaliation against employees who share salary information. It would also boost the Labor Department&amp;amp;#8217;s outreach and training initiatives, while launching a new grant program to help women negotiate for better pay,&amp;quot; according to Politico. Yes, that would&amp;#x27;ve been a big step forward for transparency in wages, and set a major precedent for the generations entering the workforce in years to come. But the progress fell flat when the votes were counted. Even President Obama spoke up above the bill&amp;#x27;s failure, and he wasn&amp;#x27;t afraid to criticize on party lines: Every GOP senator just voted against helping women get #EqualPay for equal work.&amp;amp;mdash; Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 5, 2012 Linda Kramer Jenning, Glamour&amp;#x27;s Washington DC correspondent, has been ensconced in every important debate happening in our country that involves you--including this biggie on the wage gap. The news of yesterday&amp;#x27;s headline-making vote was everywhere, so I asked Linda to give us her special perspective, straight from DC, on what she saw happening first-hand: &amp;quot;Guys may like to boast about whose is bigger, but unfortunately, they rarely are referring to their paychecks. So you don&amp;#x27;t know if a guy doing the same job in your company is getting paid more. And if you did find out, would you speak up or be afraid that you&amp;#x27;d face retaliation? &amp;quot;The Paycheck Fairness Act would have helped you find out whether you are getting shafted based on gender and would have protected you if you took action. But yesterday, the bill flopped in the Senate on a party-line vote. Some people will blame this on gridlock. That&amp;amp;#8217;s our favorite answer to everything in D.C. (Didn&amp;amp;#8217;t pick up the dry cleaning? Oh, it was due to gridlock. Couldn&amp;amp;#8217;t decide which dress to wear? Oh, gridlock). Or like President Obama and the Democrats you could blame it on a Republican &amp;amp;#8220;war on women.&amp;amp;#8221; And the Republicans could turn around and say the whole debacle was engineered to create the &amp;amp;#8220;myth&amp;amp;#8221; that Republicans are out to get women and they would insist that existing laws provide adequate pay equality protection. What I don&amp;amp;#8217;t hear in the debate are enough voices of young women sharing their stories of pay discrimination. Would more real-life stories have made a difference to all four Republican women senators who opposed the Paycheck Fairness Act? But here&amp;amp;#8217;s the Catch-22: how can you speak out if you fear retaliation? I know that diehard supporters of Paycheck Fairness like Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-MD, aren&amp;amp;#8217;t about to give up, and they&amp;amp;#8217;ll have the full support of the White House. And I also know that you&amp;amp;#8217;ll be hearing more about this vote as the presidential race heats up. But what I&amp;amp;#8217;d really like to know is how you feel about the vote and what would happen if tomorrow we all walked up to the guys in\uFFFD?neighboring\uFFFD?cubicles and asked to see exactly how big &amp;#x27;it&amp;#x27; really is.&amp;quot; Did you pay attention to the Paycheck Fairness Act voting? What&amp;#x27;s your reaction to the voting? Conservative women, how do you feel about the vote going along party lines? Photo: Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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