Feisty Female Friday: Lilly Ledbetter
The FFF this week is Lilly Ledbetter.
Lilly Ledbetter was an American activist whose equal-pay lawsuit against the Goodyear Company led to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which ensured that women have protection by law against employers who discriminate against them.
After graduating from high school, Lilly married Charles Ledbetter, a highly decorated Army veteran. With the family struggling financially to support themselves and their two children, she went to work. Her first job was as a manager at a H&R Block office, as an assistant financial aid officer at JSU, and then as an employee of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company plant, one of the company’s few female supervisors. Nearly 20 years later, as she neared retirement, Lily received an anonymous note in her work mailbox that the men were receiving more pay per month than Lilly who was doing the same job.
She filed a pay-discrimination charge with EEOC and was then assigned a new position in retribution for her complaint. Lily retired and filed a lawsuit against Goodyear, charging pay discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A jury found in her favor, but Goodyear appealed the decision and won. The Court of Appeals and Supreme Court also ruled against Lilly, saying that she had failed to file her suit within 180 days of the initial act of discrimination, which was then mandated by law. Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg adamantly disagreed with the decision as did then NY Senator Clinton.
Lilly started a grassroots campaign to remedy pay discrimination against women. She held media interviews and testified before both chambers of Congress to bring this issue to their attention. Less than two years later, President Obama signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which eased the statute of limitations for equal-pay lawsuits. Lilly was present as the law was signed.
At the height of the “Me Too” movement, Lilly wrote a NY Times opinion piece detailing the sexual harassment and car damage she had faced at Goodyear. Her harasser never faced any consequences, coworkers stopped speaking to her, and she was seen as a troublemaker. Lilly realized that her story was also about power of men over women in the workplace, being valued less as a female worker, and initially having no recourse, but now had the force of the law was behind all her and all working women to prevent this from happening to other women ever again.
She had not gained any financial compensation from her court cases, but was out on the road, fighting hard to make sure that all daughters and granddaughters get paid equally for the work that they do. Lilly said that the pay discrimination she experienced for decades had lowered her Social Security contribution and that she often lived paycheck to paycheck, worrying about how to pay her bills.
Lilly was a special working class lady and a fighter for women everywhere. She received the Lifetime Achievement Award for her activism on Equal Pay. A movie, Lilly, based on her life was shown around the country.
She died in AL at the age of 86 and has two surviving children and grandchildren.