“Call me a bitch all day long,” Whoopi Goldberg cheered women who demand what they are worth in the workplace at the risk of being viewed as “bitchy.” Goldberg joined her cohosts on ABC’s “The View” to discuss Equal Pay Day and a recent 9th Circuit appeals court ruling that past salary cannot be considered a justification for a gender pay gap.
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Whoopi was quick to warn that such decisions, while helpful, don’t “take the onus off women.” Responding to the idea that women are sometimes less likely to negotiate for their own salaries in the way that men might, she continued, “Women have to now ask for what they want. This idea that you’re just going to accept it and not say anything, part of this problem is us. Part of the problem is us.”
Meghan McCain agreed, pointing out another thing she felt needed to change — the fact that sometimes the act of negotiation can make people view women differently. “Somehow that if you know your worth and you’re demanding the pay that you think that you deserve that you’re somehow not ladylike, impolite…”
That was when Whoopi interrupted, “Call me a bitch all day long!”
And Joy Behar delivered the chaser. “A rich bitch!”
Sunny Hostin, a former prosecutor herself, detailed the legal implications of the ruling, saying that past salary history was likely to have gender-discrimination embedded within it. A potential employer, she explained, should not be able to use a previous employer’s discrimination to justify paying a woman less in a future position.