Editor:

The Obama administration and the Statesboro Herald have made great hay of the statistic that women in the United States earn on average 77 percent of what men do, as if to demonstrate conclusively that women are discriminated against by their employers and that the Republicans are somehow responsible for such a situation.

One can with equal accuracy and responsibility say that the temperature in Statesboro is 65 degrees — because 65 happens to be the annual mean temperature of our city. But, as we all know, the mean average of 65 degrees hides an incredible amount of variation in temperature and other climatic conditions that characterize our weather.

In the same way, women in the United States freely make all kinds of decisions that affect their incomes. Certainly, some choose to work and draw a paycheck, but other just as freely choose to bear children, do volunteer work, work part-time or voluntarily care for elderly relatives or children, foregoing monetary income. Are we to value women and their work only by size of their paychecks? I hardly think so.

The use of this statistic is a naked and desperate ploy by some — Democrats and "liberals" — to generate discontent and to obscure the great freedoms which women still enjoy in our country. And this from a national administration which apparently pays its female staffers only 88 percent of what male staffers receive? I smell hypocrisy.

Sincerely,
Reid S. Derr
Statesboro