On January 29th 2009, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law.  The bill addresses issues of discirmination against women in the workplace, most prominently with respect to the issue of equal pay.  The fact remains, however, that while this bill has everything to do with pay, it also has nothing to do with pay, especially if we are looking at this from a theological perspective.

The Ledbetter bill is, in many respects, great progress for the Women’s movement and feminists everywhere.  As a feminist, I ask myself, “Could it be that women may really come to be seen as equals – as real, full-fledged human beings?”  Some may think that my question may sound like exaggeration, or hypersensitivity, but our global history and current context beg the question.  Studies conitnue to show that women and children make up the majority of the world’s poor, and this epidemic is most certainly connected to the systemic sin of patriarchy.  For centuries now, men have impregnated women, leaving them alone to face the joys and challenges of parenting, forcing women to allow their bodies to be objectified and/or used in order to put food in their children’s bellies. 

  Women have not only been viewed and treated as things – mere objects – they have been seen as inferior beings whose supposed roles have been restricted to the arena of domesticity.  The struggle for women to ask, plead, and demand to be seen as fully fledged human beings – as equals – has spanned the centuries and continues to this day.  Our shameful global history testifies to this fact.  This bill, perhaps, signals a paradigm shift, from the days where the signs and signals of our culture and our religous institutions tell women that they are not equal, to time and a place where the culture will begin to internalize new signs and  new symbols. 

This bill has everything to do with equal pay, but, it clearly has to do with so much more, especially, as noted earlier, from a theological perspective.  As a Christian community, we must prophetically speak against systemic sins, such as patriarchy, which negatively impact both men and women.  Even more, we must loudly voice the vision of God’s kingdom, in which there is no hierarchy; in which our differences are appreciated and understood, instead of used as a means to dominate one another.  We must do so, because, as much progress and excitement that this new bill generates, laws and bills cannot change hearts.  Thus, we must continue to testify to a vision of God’s kingdom, where all are loved and cherished as equals. 

 On that note, however, on behalf of all feminists, thank you, president Obama!