Transcript for Wednesday, April 17, 2002

Bill: Good evening.
Welcome to "Politically Incorrect." Here we have for you tonight, Mr. Chris Hardwick.
He is, of course, on "Shipmates." That always makes me laugh when I catch that in the gym.

Chris: Thanks.

Bill: Monday to Friday, and a special episode airing April 29th at 10:00 --
"Worst Dates." Dr. Julianne Malveaux, a labor economist.
So you are not the host of "Shipmates." And your book --
upcoming book, "Unfinished Business" --
it's not out yet.
It literally is unfinished business.

[ Light laughter ]

Julianne: Hey.

Bill: Bob Just, veteran radio talk show host.
And Thursday you can read his column, "God, man and talk radio" on worldnetdaily.com.
And, of course, Holland Taylor, Emmy-winning actress.
Now you're on "Baby Bob," CBS Mondays at 8:30.
Give a hand to our panel here today.

[ Applause ]

Okay, so you are an economist, doctor?

Julianne: Absolutely.

Bill: I rarely get to chew the fat with an economist, and yesterday was equal pay day.
This was the day --
and this is not the first day we've had this.
How many years running are we having equal pay day? Whatever it is, doesn't matter.
It assumes there is a nefarious plot to keep people in the workplace who happen to be women, paid less.
Now, we all know the truth, which is, right, that pay would be equal except women take time out to have babies.

[ Scattered boos ]

Julianne: Well, not all women take time out to have babies.

Bill: Oh, they're booing that.
They're booing the idea.

Julianne: Yeah, come on, boo, y'all.

[ Laughter ]

I mean, quite frankly, it's not Just that women take time out to have babies.
We do have unequal pay.
Even when you control for all those factors, you end up with inequality.
There's a recent GAO study that looks at managers, Bill --
managers.
We're not lookin' at hoochies or anything, we're lookin' at managers.

Bill: Hoochies?

Julianne: Hoochies.

Chris: That's right, 'cause I don't think that's true in the porn industry.
I mean, from what I've heard, I don't --

[ Laughter ]

Julianne: Well, we don't do porn, Chris.
You do that on "Shipwrecks." In the real world --

Bill: "Shipwrecks"?
[ Laughter ]

Chris: That was close enough, you know? They're sort of the subjects of the show.

Bill: Shipwrecks.

Julianne: But it's not a nefarious plot --

Bill: Kind of "Survivor" meets "Shipmates."

Chris: Exactly.
Where you want a ship --

Julianne: I'm sorry.
I didn't mean --

Bob: You know, I'll tell you, we can go one better, actually, because we talk about equality and fairness, and I actually think with all the news that's coming in now, with the "60 minutes" report on the child-bearing years and how quickly they go by, and with the "Time" magazine cover story --

Bill: Yeah.

Bob: You could go one better philosophically and say, you know, women between 25 and 35 should be paid more than men, because they're giving up more.
They're actually giving up an opportunity in their life --

[ Applause ]

Now, you know, it may not be practical --
it may not be practical to do that, but I think our young women need to get the message that if they get out of law school, let's say, or they get their MBA, and they're there, 25 years old, up against a 25-year-old guy --
ten years later, their life is going to change, and that guy's life is not gonna change.

Julianne: No, Bob, you're diminishing women by making that argument, because you're suggesting that they don't know that they are making choices when they choose to go out and do what they're doing.

Bob: The evidence says they don't know.

Julianne: No.
What we've done is we have created a workplace that is alien and hostile to people who have children, where we don't have paid child care --

Bill: You've gotta be kidding about that one.

Holland: That's really changed, though.

Julianne: Not much.

Holland: I mean, there's a real change.

Julianne: 3% of all workplaces have day care centers.

Holland: But it's moving in that direction.

Julianne: 3%, that's 3 out of 100.

Bill: 3%? That seems low, from the crying I hear, but okay.

Julianne: It is of course low.

[ Laughter ]

Holland: It's probably in L.A.

Julianne: That's because you are whining to yourself, my man.

Holland: It's probably low in L.A. or New York, but in the middle of the country --

Bill: Okay.

Holland: I don't think it's a nefarious plot, though.
That's the point that I question, Bill.
There's not a nefarious plot to keep women at a lower pay.
I Just think it's part of a general unconsciousness.
I think we have a very immature country, stilled in culture.
And I think that there is quite a division in our minds, unconsciously, about what people are worth, and who's providing for the family.
It's built in.
It's built in.

Julianne: You know, you make such a good point, because we pay tree trimmers less money than we pay nurses.
Now, I would, you know, someone who takes care of a sick person --

Bill: You mean we pay tree trimmers more --

Julianne: More, more.

Chris: I would think that's good, we pay tree trimmers less.

[ Laughter ]

Julianne: Holland: We pay tree trimmers --
tree trimmers are paid more.

Holland: We pay almost anybody more than we pay teachers or nurses.

Julianne: Exactly.
We pay people who park cars more than people who watch kids.
And so we're really making --

Holland: This is, again, this is unconscious --
this unconscious --

Julianne: --
Statements about worth.

Bill: As an economist, you probably have familiarized yourself with the law of supply and demand.

[ Light laughter ]

You know --
we also pay Alex Rodriguez $250 million to play baseball, and I'm sure --

Julianne: And you don't make that much money, no.

Bill: --
I could get a round of applause by saying that's not nearly what a fireman makes.

[ Applause ]

Told ya.

Julianne: Well, Bill, you asked for it, you got it.

Bill: So that's the country we live in.
Welcome to capitalism.

Julianne: But capitalism is flawed, and we all know that.
And not only is capitalism flawed, but the fact is that the people who evaluate what people are paid --
because this is not about supply and demand.
We talk about nurses and teachers and social workers, you're talking about people --

Bill: Yes, it is.

Julianne: No, we're not.

Bill: The amount of people who can do what Alex Rodriguez can do is one --
Alex Rodriguez.
That's why he gets the big bucks.

Julianne: Well, let's leave Alex Rodriguez aside and let's talk about --

Bill: The amount of people who can empty bedpans --
and I love nurses, my mother was a nurse, it's a great job, they are underpaid --
but more than one can do it.

Julianne: More than one can do it, but more than one can also trim the tree.
More than one can also trim the tree, but the questions become, who's makin' the decision about what factors in your job are what we call compensable, which you're gonna pay for.
And someone's gonna say climbing --

Bill: Well, that's the market, but --

Bob: The bigger problem is that there's --
you know, we talk about a wage gap.
There really is a reality gap.
And that is that women have to understand, and maybe --
and the culture needs to understand that Enron is not gonna love them, okay? It's not gonna happen.

Julianne: People are not lookin' for love, they're lookin' for pay.

Bob: Corporations are not loyal, they're not faithful.
Companies aren't governments.
Our governments are not gonna love them, either.
If they --

Holland: They have standardized --
they're standardized jobs, though.

Bob: There has to be some connection to women, to understand the nature of career, that it is --
they're not on the same track as men.
They're not on the same track as men.

[ Talking over each other ]

The biological clock is ticking.

Julianne: I think that your argument, again, is the same argument as earlier, it's a patronizing argument.
Because first --
as you said --
because first of all, when you compare women who have never had children with men, women who have never had children still make less.
You have a pay gap that is a function of patriarchy, it's a function of people paying women less, it's a function --

Holland: There's an assumption always that the man is supporting the family.
And that argument is made in jobs where there is fluidity in what you're paid.
Not if you're a postal worker or in the Army or the armed forces, or in the diplomatic corps, at the lower level.
A job is paid a certain fee.
The fact that you're a breadwinner or not a breadwinner doesn't matter.

Chris: I like what you're saying with the whole patriarch idea, because certainly I think that's where the country was, you know, earlier in the last century.
And I think in the last 25 years, certainly a lot of changes have been made, and there's a lot of --
a lot of things have evolved, socially, as far as pay and equal pay.
But I think evolution just takes --
it Just takes a little bit longer.

[ Talking over each other ]

Julianne: As long as it takes --
what it means is that some people are being relatively disadvantaged.
Women still make 74 cents for every dollar that men make, and that's simply unfair.

Bill: Look, I will back you up on the fact to the end, because I'm surrounded by women in the workplace.
I love women in the workplace, they're the best workers.
And I know firsthand, it takes a lot more for them to get ahead than the man, Just because of the cultural reasons you were talking about.
To advance a woman, she has to be twice as good as the man.
But that 74 cents statistic is baloney, because four out of five women will have a child at some point in their life, same as a Catholic priest.

[ Laughter ]

Julianne: Are you gonna attack someone for having a child?

Bill: No, no, no.

[ Applause ]

But, I mean, you're an economist.
When someone has to take a whole year off to feed a mewling, puking infant, of course --

[ Laughter ]

Holland: Shakespeare.
Shakespeare.

Bill: Exactly, Shakespeare.
It's from Shakespeare, thank you.
And they boo it.

[ Talking over each other ]

Bill: The idea of categorizing an infant as mewling and puking --

Julianne: We're talking about mewling and puking, that's charming.

Bill: It is charming, thank you so much.

Chris: Shakespeare was an [ bleep ]!
[ Laughter ]

Julianne: Bill --

Chris: I'm so serious.

Julianne: Do you think --
let me Just ask you this.
Do you think that feeding a --
I'm not gonna fill in the blanks, but feeding the infant with all the blanks you had, does this, like, atrophy your brain --
Just to get less money?

Bill: Well, it does atrophy your brain --

Julianne: No, it does not!

Bill: So you can work right up until the moment you have a baby and right after.

Julianne: No, but Bill, when you go back to work --

Holland: But when you do go back to work, you should be paid the same as the men --

Bill: Somebody Just got off the death penalty because of postpartum depression, I think.
So it does affect the brain.

Julianne: Well, that was another story, and we're not --

Bill: Oh, it's another story, but it's about a woman who got pregnant and had children, isn't it?

Holland: What does that got to do with what she would be paid if she were working?

Bill: Because she said it doesn't affect the brain.

Julianne: But what I'm saying to you is this --

Holland: Well, she could get a job.

Julianne: First of all, the unequal pay does not have anything to do with childbearing and rearing, because you've got the unequal pay whether you've had children or not.
You see it, whether you have children or not.
You can measure it --

Bill: But a company --
as he was saying, a company is heartless.
It is Just a machine.
And of course, if someone has to take a year off, they're gonna be less valuable as a worker.

Julianne: Well, what if you didn't have to take a year off?

Bill: It's not that when pregnant, it's against you as a woman.
It's that you are taking time off to have children.

Julianne: But all women don't take a year off.
All women don't take a year off.
And you cannot assume that all women take a year off.
I mean, dudes have problems, too.
Y'all crazy.

[ Laughter ]

So, I mean --

[ Applause ]

Bill: Yeah.

Bob: You have to look at the fact --
you have to look at the fact that for many, many years, I mean, many --
since the '70s, women have been told the career, career, career, career.
And they --
it really has been indicated that that's what they should sacrifice their time and their life for.
And now all of a sudden, women are reaching the point where they're middle-aged --
well, the point is, right now is what we're talking about.
And in the news, Just in the last week, two major news entities have been talking about it.
Women are looking at their lives and they're saying, "My gosh, everything I thought I wanted to have and was going to have, I'm not gonna be able to have because I sacrificed my life to Enron."

Bill: Right.

Julianne: You are taking the tiniest slice of life, the tiniest slice of life --

Bill: I gotta sacrifice myself for this commercial.
We'll be right back.

[ Applause ]

Bill: Well, President Bush met today with the delegation from Lebanon, headed by their Prime Minister, Rafic Hariri.
It was a little confusing for Bush.
When his aides told him he was meeting with the Lebanese, he thought they meant Rosie O'Donnell and her partner.

[ Laughter ]


[ Applause ]

Oh, I kid the president.
You know I kid the president.
And he loves it.
By the way, the president wants another $33 million --
and he got it --
for abstinence education.

Chris: I don't think anyone wants to screw him, so I think it's --

[ Laughter ]

Bill: Yeah.

Chris: I think that might be a little high.

Bill: I mean, I thought the hijackers were obsessed with virgins until I saw what was going on.
$135 million last year, up from the year before.
And now, $33 million more.
And of course, this abstinence education means that the schools don't get any money unless they teach abstinence.
And if they mention birth control, it has to be in the negative.
You know --
"Condoms break 82% of the time." That kind of --

Holland: Does that really have to be in a negative --

Bill: Yeah, you have to --
you can only mention birth control to say what's wrong with it and how much it doesn't work.

Chris: Well, that seems responsible.
Oh, wait --
no, I mean the opposite of that.
That's retarded!
[ Laughter ]

That is absolutely ridiculous.
Why would you not want to educate people --

Bill: Right.

Julianne: Because you have an agenda.
This is what you call the right-wing agenda being stuffed down people's throats, and it's absolutely absurd.
I mean, at the end of the day, all we have to look at here is that, as you said --
I'm not gonna repeat it --
nobody wants to do it to the do-it.
But, you know --

Holland: But I think there's something to be said.
If you have an agenda --
of course, we don't want that, but I think there's something to be said for including abstinence as a possibility, amongst all the other things that are taught.

Chris: It certainly is an option, but not as a sole --
oh, as an option, as an option.
I mean, what is this?
[ Laughter ]


[ Talking over each other ]

I don't even know what this is!

Holland: Wait a second.
The option that I'm talking about is --
the option that I'm talking about is one that allows a young person --
there are plenty of 16 and 17 and 18-year-old girls, and certainly boys, too, who are not, themselves --
they do not themselves, wish, really, to get into the game where they're really, in this day and age, exposed to things that medically are beyond what they're capable of coping with or want to cope with that age, or emotionally want to cope with.
There are plenty who would like to have some support to stay out of that game until they feel more confident and secure --

Chris: That's absolutely true, but --

Bob: They need more than support.
The point I was trying to make is that you cannot teach abstinence as an option.
It's too limp-wristed --

Chris: Okay, Bob, whatever.

[ Laughter ]

Bob: No, but Chris, you have to be serious about it.
It's a serious thing.
You know, when a 13-year-old girl has sex with a boy, she's living a lie, and he's living a lie.
Now, listen to me, listen to me.
Listen to me.
She thinks --
she thinks that he loves her, okay? And he thinks he is somebody 'cause he screwed her, right? That's a lie.

Bill: Oh, that really changes when they're not 13.

[ Laughter ]

Bob: No, no, somebody has to --
but we're not talking --

Julianne: Time out!
[ Applause ]

Bob: Someone has to stand up before the kids and tell 'em, abstinence is a serious thing.

Chris: That's fine, but --
that's fine to do that, but don't Just --

Julianne: But guess what? After it's a serious thing.
After it's a serious thing, guess what? We know that a whole lot of kids can't hold that ground, and so are you gonna penalize 'em? Now that you haven't been abstinent, are you Just like the creature from the black lagoon, and no one's ever gonna talk to you? You also need birth control education --

Bob: Bill was talking about --
and Bill was talking about that.
It's Just you have to --

Julianne: I agree with you, about the fact that you need to make sure that people have choices, have --

Bob: To be honest, though, Julianne, that's what I'm saying --

[ Talking over each other ]

Chris: What you're saying is not honest, though.

Bill: Right.

Chris: You can't --
if you tell kids --

Bob: To tell kids that condoms aren't foolproof isn't honest?

Chris: Oh, that --

[ Talking over each other ]

Julianne: But guess what? Condoms are better than nothing!

Chris: All right, but wait.

Bob: There's AIDS out there, there's all sorts of disease --

Bill: I know, but you know what? I've heard that argument so many times, and that is dishonest.
That yes, a condom can break.
I've been using them for 30 years.
Not one has ever broken --

Bob: That's more information that I need to know, Bill.

Bill: Yeah, but I mean --

Chris: Teaching abstinence is fine, but, make --
you know, teach everything.
Don't Just say, "Abstinence is the only way," because I tell you, the first way to get a teenager to do something is to tell them not to do it.
The biggest whores that I knew in high school had fundamentalist parents!
[ Laughter ]

Totally true!
[ Applause ]

Bob: Yeah, I've heard you out.
But listen to me, the thing is that what you Just did --
I understand, you're right on in the point you're making and the attitude that you presented.
If you go, "You can't do it like that," that's right, it's authoritarian.
It needs to be presented with love.
These kids have to understand --

Julianne: Love, in high school? Give me a break.

Bob: Hold on, hold on.
Young girls need to feel that their bodies are precious, that their lives are precious.
And if they come from a dysfunctional --
I mean, I came from a --
you know, my parents were divorced when I was 5 years old.
I was full of anger by the time I got to high school.

Bill: But you know what? When you lie to kids and you scare them unnecessarily --
they did this with the drugs.
They told kids basically, "You know what, if you smoke marijuana, you're gonna be in big trouble, and you're gonna die," and then the kid smokes a joint, and he finds out, "You know what, I didn't quite die from it, so that guy has no credibility." And you have the same thing when you do it with sex.
You have no credibility when you scare them and they find out --
"Ooh, wow, this actually feels pretty good."
[ Laughter ]

Bob: But the diseases out there --
the diseases out there are rampant.

Julianne: Abstinence is at one end, and ho'ing is at the other, and there's a whole lot of stuff in between.

Chris: Teach it as an option, but also Just educate that if they are going to do it anyway, you need to teach 'em how to do it responsibly.

Bob: I understand, I understand, I understand.

Julianne: You also have to teach birth control.
You have to teach birth control.

Bob: But see, the thing is, Chris, that the flaw that I'm saying and identifying with what you're saying --
and obviously this argument has been going on for a long time.
And I've been a teacher, and when you stand in front of kids, they are scanning you to see if you're credible in what you're saying to them.

Bill: Right.

Bob: And the moment --
and that's why I agree with the point you're making --
but listen to me, when you talk about abstinence, you have to understand it and believe in it and really care that the kids connect to it.
And what's happening is our sex educators --
to them, abstinence is a block.
It's something they don't want to talk about.

Julianne: That's not true.

Bill: Don't want to talk about? They practically have to by government decree --

Bob: That's my point, they have to.
They don't really believe it --

Bill: Oh, I see.
Look, all right, I gotta take a break.
I'll come back to it, Julianne.
I'll come right back to it.

[ Applause ]

Bill: All right.
We're talking about abstinence.
They were screaming and yelling.
You couldn't get in.

Holland: We were all screaming and yelling, and I think it's that whoever speaks has to have a lot of credibility to be worth a grain of salt, but I think the one issue that we can't question is the medical issue.
I mean, times are very different from when I was a kid, when one had a certain carefulness if one was wise about birth control.
But now that's true.
The medical dangers are really horrific.

Bill: I never had to worry about abstinence.
It was forced upon me --

[ Laughter ]

--
By the chicks in my high school.

[ Laughter ]

Holland: The dangers are really horrific right now, and I'm not even talking about AIDS.

Bill: Horrific --
how do --
?
[ Talking over each other ]

Julianne: But at the same time, the fact that you raised --
it really does raise another issue.
If I had my druthers, of course, people would be abstinent, but people are human.
They're gonna do the other thing.
They're gonna do whatever they have to do.
So let's make sure if people are sexually involved, they have a condom.
They have the protection.
We teach them birth control.

Bill: And then what is the horrific?

Julianne: We have the education.

Bill: Tell me the horrific in high school 'cause I was Just reading the article about hepatitis c, and it said there's twice as many cases of that --
30,000 die --
as AIDS.

Holland: There's about ten different sexually transmitted diseases.

[ Talking over each other ]

Bill: But you think that's rampant among high school kids?
[ Talking over each other ]

Bob: The thing is --
the thing is we shouldn't limit it Just to the medical dangers which are very real and frightening, but there are psychological dangers.
Public television did a show called --
front line did a show called "Lost children of Rockdale County."

Bill: I saw it.

Bob: It was stunning.

Bill: You're right.

Bob: And one of the key points that it made that we can't ignore is psychological damage.
These boys and girls are not being taught the power and significance of sex and the sanctity of sex.

Julianne: Well, wait a minute.

Bob: Now, let me Just finish.
So that the point is that what happens is they're screwing around in high school.
The girls feel betrayed.
The boys feel like they're somebody when they're not.

Bill: Right.

Bob: They end up hating each other.
They get to college --
and this is what the documentary said.
They get to college, they can't even date.
They can't even relate to each other because they've been abusing each other sexually through all of high school.

[ Talking over each other ]

Chris: No one is relating to them --
I mean, the girls that I know that have the healthiest attitudes about sex, their parents were very open to them, and said, "Look, these are some of the things you're gonna face in life.
Here's what you do."

Bob: Well, what does that mean, "Healthy attitude toward sex"?

Chris: I mean, like open.
They talk openly about it.
They were educated.
Their parents didn't Just say, "Don't do it." They were open with them.

Julianne: We're ignoring the fact that we live in a very sexualized society that when you're 15 years old, you'll flick on the television and you got some hoochies --

Chris: Like on "Shipwrecked."
[ Laughter ]


[ Applause ]

Julianne: See, he's never gonna let me get over, but seriously --

Bill: What about the music? The music is even more important.

[ Talking over each other ]

Julianne: Do you remember the concert thing? I called it the Kentucky fried chicken version of women.
I mean, you can buy a box of chicken.
All the pieces of chicken didn't come from the same bird.
You get like these women on these videos.
All the flabby parts didn't come from the same woman.

[ Laughter ]

It's like red hair and a leg there.

Chris: What kind of sick Frankenstein fantasy are you talking about?
[ Laughter ]


[ Talking over each other ]

Bob: Look, women --
mothers can't even go to the store and buy decent clothes for their fifth and fourth grade children --

Julianne: Yes, they can, if they want to.

Bob: --
Because they're sexualized clothes with sexual messages.
The mothers are freaking out.
The whole society --
"USA Today" called the American society "sex-soaked society."

Bill: Wow.

Bob: We have --
honestly, we really have a --

[ Talking over each other ]

Bill: I got to take a commercial.

[ Applause ]

Bill: All right, kids, you heard it here.
Celibate, come on.
There's no party going on here.

[ Applause ]

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