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lily ledbetter, these people have been messing with you for a long time. i said yes, ma'am, i understand that more today than i ever have faced it before. as i go back home and i go back to my jobs, as soon as goodyear is notified, the retaliation starts. i've been put on a different job, i think it any information. they did not have a policy and procedures book. there was no job description. they created a new job. and it was very difficult to survive. so i saw the handwriting on the wall. in 1998 i filed the charge. in 1999, the equal employment commission called and said you have one of the best cases we have ever seen. and we would advise you, and we can do it, but we would suggest that you get your own attorney, because we are so backlogged and understaffed during that time, until you get to try -- trial. you get to travel much faster. i found a young attorney in birmingham. he thought my case pro bono. i did my investigation on him. the people i spoke with said he never lost a case. and someone said when i got there, well, he never had to go to trial

it was his committee who named the log ledbetter.i am told i am the only alabamian with a law named for them. it's not comment and there are less than 35 and history. i went back to seattle law school in seattle washington next month and they have reached -- there's a lady there that has been doing the research. it is not a common thing to have a law. it is like congressman miller said, we don't blame people like you. he said we name them for ourselves. whoever drafted the bill. any other questions? please talk into the mic. >> before you got that note, did you have any suspicions that you were not being paid? >> they would tell me based on the treatment and so forth and a lot of other things you you are reading the book. common sense told me that they were not paying me what the men were being paid, but i was sort of a trailblazer. i don't think any woman had ever lasted as long as i did in that job. and not to my knowledge, and i felt like i was in the ballpark. when i got that note and saw how much less, and in calculating my over

how does that differ from the lily ledbetter act?e lily ledbetter act was a great piece of legislation. what happened to lily and what that act prohibited, it made sure women had enough time to file a claim when they experienced paycheck discrimination, so the rule used to be that a woman had to file a game within a certain amount of time after she accepted the rate of pay. unfortunately, lily and most women don't know that they're receiving less pay than their male colleagues until many years later when they discover this, and then it was too late to file a claim. so the lily ledbetter act fixed that problem and allowed women to file a claim within a certain amount of time after finding out about the discrimination. now the paycheck fairness act builds upon that by, for example, allowing men and women to talk in their workplace about how much they're getting paid. so that women know that they're being discriminated against and can bring a claim and don't face retaliation from their employer when they have those discussions. >> joann

lilly ledbetter who was on your show, what a wonderful woman. manager in a goodyear tire plant. she did the exact work as her male colleague. he told her she was being discriminated against. we have case after case after case. we need to make sure that the whistle blowers who speak out about this are protected. that's what this new law will do among other things. i think they may go along with us. there is a war on women. if they, even this student loan situation where we're trying to get the interest rates reduced. how does boehner pay for it? he cuts women's preventive health. it's unbelievable. >> you serve on foreign relations and there's been quite a discussion as of late. i want your reaction to the criticism that the republican attacks that they're putting on president obama on national security. >> listen. president obama made the key decision to go after the man who was the master mind of 9/11. i was there and i voted to go after him. i voted no to go into iraq. i voted yes to go after bin laden. let me just say, if george bush had done

this is what kept lily ledbetter from knowing that she wasn't being paid equal pay. why wouldn't republican women come on to a bill that only tweaks the equal pay act y. wouldn't they come on to it. why is one republican woman on it, especially if women and the economy and women are now half of the workforce. >> because there's nor involved in that, i think it comes to the government involvement in this private business decision but more than just, you are not allowed to talk to each other but there's bigger, the broader point to be made here that the conservative policies of cutting spend can, of lowering taxes, creating an economic business environment that does create jobs, this is a fallacy about how many jobs have been created under obama policies, the failure we all acknowledge that. the 2.2 million jobs created but only 284,000 went to women. this is something that the republican needs to do better job of complaining our policies will help women get back to work, keep them off the government rolls, no, we're not for expanding entitlement programs that are bust

the same job as a individual -- what mitt romney has done is he didn't address the issue of lily ledbettert he would support that legislation, and skied if he would support paycheck fairness. we passed the paycheck fairness bill twice with bipartisan support. it was blocked in the senate by republicans. and president obama will sign that bill if it comes out of the house and the senate. my question is mitt romney is are you going to sign this legislation, are you supportive of it, because it is all about the economic pressures, the financial pressures that women are facing today when they are in the singular position of many instances of being a breadwinner for their families. >> you would think it would be a no brainer to vote for the equal pay, but let me remin you as we leave this, that in the lilly ledbetter fair pay act, 208 republicans voted against it. so they did give their view. thank you both for coming. have a great weekend. you're working, melissa, don't forget i will be watching, melissa harris-perry, weekends from 10:00 a.m. to noon here on msnbc. ahead, can you feel the exci

all i heard was ledbetter vs. good year. but the employment commission supported my case from the time we started because the law was on my side. everything before this man did you still got a check it started a new accounting period. after the goodyear lawyer had 20 minutes zandi he said there'd be cases coming at of the woodwork and it would be a hardship on the corporation's. then may 2007 the verdict came back five/four justice alito wrote the opinion i should have filed my charge with the first check i got even though i did not know it to approve it by should have filed it then. what this means if you get a new job you have six months to file a job -- file a claim. i don't think people on a new job tried to figure out should 95 laing the charge? in good year i did not even know where all the restrooms were. that is not the way it is supposed to be. justice ginsberg hit the nail on the head and said these people don't understand what it is like in the real world and challenge congress. the ball is in your court. you can

would he vote or would he move to change the lilly ledbetter fair pay act. this is a fundamental question now going into this? where does he stand on women in the workplace? the laws name sake, she's not buying it. she was up in new hampshire campaigning for the president today and said that doesn't mean he won't because he has been known to flip-flop quite a bit. well said. it would seem to me that romney's got to be clear on this on how kneels about the law. >> even if you say the gab is smaller. why wouldn't you ban discrimination and why wouldn't you create mechanisms like lilly ledbetter does to enforce those laws. that's what's going on. even if alex is right and men do work marginally more than women, that's a six point pay gap and not a 23 point. women want flexibility. women pay disproportionately for having children and health care. that is sexism. however you want to explain it or slice it or dice it, it all comes down to sexism. >> i was waiting for the romney campaign making a statement saying he doesn't speak for us. how do the republicans make

took a very wooden literal view of the law and said that unless ledbetter could prove, you know, filed the complaint within 90 days of the very first discrimination, she had no cause of action was insane. she didn't know she was being discriminated against for 20-some odd years. he certainly would have been with ruth bader ginsburg and the moderates on that in trying to inject a sense of common sense into it. >> all cou couple of other thin say in the book, he wasn't for women's suffrage and he wasn't active in the civil rights movement of those days. >> he was not initially for women's suffrage, and spoke against it. but then he married and had two daughters. he also associated with some very, very intelligent women, florence kelly of the national consumers league, his sister-in-law, gold maher. he knew jane adam. he knew mary o'reilly in boston. and gradually he came to the conclusion that his -- you know, his argument was fallacious. and especially his wife. his wife was a strong supporter of women's suffrage. and the very shy alice actually went on stage to speak for it and that ma

the lilly ledbetter fair pay act, that's what it did. so if you are being discriminated against at work, if you're getting paidless because you are a woman, the statute of limitations will not be over by the time you can conceivably figure that out. you can actually take a discriminatory employer to work to stop the discrimination. straightforward as policy, right? noncontroversial. 36 republican senators voted against it. the only republicans who voted for it were the four female republicans in the senate and arlen spector who was about to become a democrat. that's it. all of the other republican senators voted no. on the house side, 172 republicans voted against it. only three republicans voted for this thing. when that happened, i've always thought about that vote as just the first sign that republicans were going to vote no on everything that barack obama supported, even anodine, noncontroversial, narrowly targeted solutions to real world problems like this. now we know women getting paid less than men is a real world problem. in rep

the lilly ledbetter fair pay act, that's what it did. the limitations will not be over by the time you figure that out. you can take an employer to court to stop the discrimination. straightforward as policy, right? noncontroversial. 36 republican senators voted against it. the only republicans who voted for it were the four female republicans in the senate and arlen spector who was about to become democrat. on the house side 172 republicans voted for it. only three republicans voted for this thing. when that happened, i've always thought about that vote as just the first sign that republicans were going to vote no on everything that barack obama supported even noncontroversial narrowly targeted solutions to real world problems approximate while women getting paid less than men is a real world problem, in republican world, it is not a problem. not it's happening and we don't mind but it's not happening. in republican's minds women don't get paid less than men in this country. look. in one profession out of 265 women are doing great. butl

. >> join me next time for equal pay advocate, lilly ledbetter and a memoir, "a remarkable journey."> every community has mlk boulevard. it's not just a street but a place wal-mart comes together with your community. make every day better. >> and by contributions from viewers like you. thank you. viewers like you. thank you. >>

and it's not just lilly ledbetter. look at the choice on the supreme court.itt romney says he would put scalia on the supreme court. a huge difference on contraception. mitt romney came out to the right of rick santorum on contraception. so i think issue by issue, the president will have a real case to make against mitt romney. >> the president did also say -- mitt romney said in a debate that he wouldn't touch the contraception rules. the new hampshire. >> he did. but that won't stop help from talking about it. >> like it is is that mitt romney has had a lot of different positions and he needs to be held accountable if what he said during this campaign and where he is on women's issues, be contraception or choice, and further to the right than the most far to the right republicans in the race. >> can we talk about the spouses being the character witnesses for the candidates? >> first i kept hearing this what, what, in my ear? and i thought there was something wrong. no, ryan, it's you. >> so sorry. well, there's always something wrong with me as you know and

the fact that governor romney can't decide whether he supports the lilly ledbetter fair pay act when are make being 77 cents on the daughter is a share. in maryland it is 83 cents. it is unacceptable, and governor romney should have a position on that. when it comes to economics, when a family knows that they're getting 25% less than they ought to because we don't have fair pay in this country, that's an economic question for women and for families. i think it is all fair game and contraception, if you can't make decisions about your own private health care and extra sepgs, what that means is that you can't make decisions about education, about jobs, about planning your family, and i think it is really unacceptable for governor romney to embrace the republican budget. in fact, you can call it a war. you can call it whatever you want. the facts speak for themselves where women's educational opportunities are cut back, where there are cutbacks on things like child care that women really depend on and where two-thirds of the women actually receive pell grants and yet the republican budg

it is a sign of the lily ledbetter law. they gave him very high marks for that. he picked hillary clinton as a secondary -- as the secretary of state. how would you grade him on women's issues? >> he put to stellar women on the united states supreme court. and also, when the members of congress came to us during the budget debacle a year-and-a-half back and said that we want to defund planned parenthood, he said, not going to happen. those were more less his exact words. i really appreciate that he drew that particular line in the sand. if i were to fall of the president, it would be for wasting what i think is substantial time trying to reach across the aisle to reach by partisan conclusions with people that were not interested in policy and only interested in his personal destruction. if he came up with compromises that they had spelled out, they would change what they wanted from him because all they wanted was to see him fall flat on his face. i think he wasted a lot of time with those people when he could of been going full speed ahead, particularly on the h

voting to refrikt birth control, and opposing the lilly ledbetter fair pay act, all among the greatestve you a record of voting against women's rights when you have two "x" chromo zoems, right? okay, so, again, this feels like base level identity politics, we have women too in the party. >> you know, you think about women in the gop, all i think about is sarah palin, how much -- i feel like if john mccain had that many voters, were they voting for sarah palin? what are women getting out of the gop? i always question that. i always wonder. this is a party so against our rights, our reproductive rights what do we get from them? >> and it feels like it's really amped up more recently. women, like anyone else, can fall on either side of the aisle, the very fact that 2010 would be the year of the republican women, you have interesting women challenging the sarah palin moment, but it actually turned out that we had the -- for the first time in more than 30 years, a decrease in the number of women serving in the u.s. congress in what was meant to be the year of the republican woman. does this