It Continues to Be a Real Mystery Why Republicans Aren't Connecting with a Majority of Female Voters

[Content Note: Misogyny.]

Blah blah republicans blah blah women blah blah misogyny blah blah fart:

"Men, by and large, make more because of some of the things they do," [New Hampshire] state Rep. Will Infantine (R) said during a speech on a paycheck fairness bill. "Their jobs are, by and large, riskier. They don't mind working nights and weekends. They don't mind working overtime or outdoors."

Infantine's colleagues protested almost immediately, to which he responded that he pulled all of his information from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

"This is not me," he said before continuing to explain why women make less.

"Men work on average more than six hours a week longer than women do," he said, adding that even among business owners, women earn less. "Women make half of what men do because of flexibility of work, men are more motivated by money than women are."

At the end of his speech, Infantine defended himself one last time.

"Guys, I'm not making this stuff up," he said. "My apologies if I have some people upset."

Provided Infantine's stats are actually accurate, and I've no idea whether they are, it's specious to suggest that women (all of us! the whole monolith!) object to working nights and weekends, as opposed to not being able to, either because we're not given the opportunities or because we are primary child- or eldercare providers or a number of other reasons.

Many men are able to work more hours than women because they have wives or mothers or girlfriends who are providing the childcare and housekeeping and food preparation (for many more than six hours a week), whereas a majority of working women don't have a partner or family member who does as much or more family and home maintenance as they do.

The same is true whether women are employees, self-employed, or business owners.

That ain't about being "motivated by money." It's about necessity.

Which is not to erase the number of women who are, for whatever reason, not keen to work as much as they could possibly work and have other priorities. Those women certainly exist. But their choices to opt-out of MAXIMUM WORKITUDE do not account for the pay gap.