Check One Two: Women’s Equality Day is on Sunday

Pity the Republican party. It can’t be easy fighting an election campaign when every week you seem to further alienate half the population. Never mind pledging to end abortion and contraception and trying to shove government probes into the electorate's vaginas despite doctor’s orders – now it seems that forcing women to carry their rapist’s baby doesn’t focus group very well among women. Who knew?

But fair pay is one issue you’d think would cross party lines. It’s about individuality, business, and it’s measured in dollars and cents which Republicans use to measure everything. It may also be the most clear-cut case of gender inequality in America today. 

For every dollar a man earns, a woman gets paid significantly less for doing exactly the same job. “77 cents” became the rallying cry for Democrats but Politifact shows that the numbers are a bit more complicated. According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, the number is as high as 95 cents for the customer service field, and as low as 58 cents for financial advisers. But it's always less. Women are always cheaper. And the Republican Party is always against fixing it.

In June of this year, the Paycheck Fairness Act was blocked in the Senate by 52 to 47 – every vote against was Republican. When the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed the Senate in January 2009, 61 to 36, only five Republicans voted in its favor.

Few things in life are guaranteed, but you can bet on this – they won't be talking about fair pay for women at the GOP convention in Tampa on Monday.