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Over the Back Fence By HANK HENRY EDITOR'S NOTE: Hank Henry is recuperating from surgery. This week he reprises one of his favorite columns; he will return with new material on April 4. This was published on Sept. 2, 1996. Unequal pay rule hit home The problem of equal pay for equal work for women has been with us for less than 200 years. Prior to that time, the percentage of women in the work force was small. Many of them were widows who were left with children to raise and no income. The only field in which women were generally accepted was teaching, and even then school boards traditionally paid men teachers more than than women, even if the women were widowed. World War I saw thousands of women head into factories and shops to replace the men who had gone to war, but that war lasted only 19 months. When the men returned, things were soon back to normal, with most of the women returning home. What jobs remained for women were secretarial positions at low salaries. Low pay for females was based on a belief that men's salaries should be higher because men were the breadwinners. This was not just an abstract theory. It was observed even when individual circumstances should have dictated otherwise. A story from my family history will illustrate that. My mother's brother, Lee, was a political force in Austin, Texas, in the late 1920s and wound up as speaker of the House. In that era, a certain amount of political patronage went with the position, and Uncle Lee was able to get a job for my mother in the comptroller's office in the state capitol. (Comptroller is a fancy name for state auditor.) The pay was $100 a month, hardly enough money to support a family of four, even in Depression times. My father suffered from pernicious anemia, a disease in which the body does not manufacture enough of a certain substance. It was debilitating, with symptoms ranging from exhaustion to personality changes. In 1926, doctors determined patients could be treated by adding lots of liver to their diets, and my father began to regain his health. My mother had been working in the state capitol for three years when she and my dad went to the department head in the comptroller's office and negotiated a deal. She would retire and Dad would take her place. The best part of the deal: Mom's $100 a month turned into $150 when Dad took her place, a 50 percent increase. Mom and Dad used their new-found wealth to make a down payment on a 20-acre egg farm. It was in a beautiful wooded area with a creek running through it. Several hundred white leghorns lived in three large henhouses, which my brother and I had to clean every Saturday. Dad was fine in the new job for the first year or two, then there was a setback with his anemia. He could no longer keep up. The department head called Mom and Dad into his office and broke the news that Dad would have to leave. The department head continued that Mom could have her old job back, but there was one catch. Dad's $150 monthly salary would have to be reduced back to Mom's $100 a month. The manager assured them that he was on their side, but there was nothing he could do about it. The legislature set the salary ranges for employees, with one list for men and another for women. And that was that. To add to the family's woes, some sort of disease struck the flock, and dozens of chickens died every day. I remember the purple medicine that all of us tried to force down the throats of the birds, but they died anyway. So the chicken ranch went away, our older Buick gave way to an even older Chevy, and we moved into a cramped apartment downtown. I have seen several polls in recent months on the disparities of wages between women and men. The difference seems to hover at about 20 percent less for females for similar work. This is quite a difference, but nothing compared to 60 years ago when there was no such thing as equal pay for equal work for women. (Hank Henry is a retired Jackson County commissioner and a former radio and television announcer. Call him at 772-9055.) Prime Times front page Mail Tribune front page Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA