For Immediate Release
Friday, September 30, 2022
Contact: Hannah Goss, hgoss@azdem.org

WHAT THEY’RE READING: “Blake Masters Tells Female Police Officer Gender Pay Gap is ‘a Myth’” 
PHOENIX — Over the weekend, Blake Masters doubled down on his previous statements saying the gender pay gap “doesn’t exist,” patronizing a Tucson-area female police officer and telling her that it is just a “myth.”

Despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, this isn’t the first time Masters has made headlines for broadcasting his hot (read: incorrect) take that the gender pay gap is a “fake left-wing narrative.” Earlier this year, Masters argued that women are paid less than men simply because they’re not the ones who do the “risky” and “most dangerous jobs.” He even used crab fishing and law enforcement — like the female police officer he patronized in Tucson — as examples of professions that, according to Masters, women simply do not take on.

See below for a roundup of coverage highlighting Masters’ out-of-touch beliefs:

Washington Post: Blake Masters tells female police officer gender pay gap is ‘a myth’

• Republican senate candidate Blake Masters of Arizona is doubling down on his skepticism that women are paid less than men for comparable work, saying on a conservative radio show this past weekend that “the gender pay gap is a myth.”
• The comment comes months after Masters dismissed the idea of a gender pay gap as “a left-wing narrative” which is better explained by the fact that, according to Masters, “men do the most dangerous jobs.”
• Masters most recent comments came over the weekend when a caller to the conservative radio show he was on asked him if he had in fact said women do no dangerous work. The caller identified herself as a female police officer in Tucson and a lifelong Republican who is undecided about supporting Masters in his race to oust Sen. Mark Kelly (D).
• Data from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics show the median weekly earning of full-time female police officers in 2021 is lower than their male counterparts…

Jezebel: Blake Masters Told a Female Cop the Gender Pay Gap Is a Myth

• Masters appeared on the radio show KVOI Inside Track when a woman named Laurie called in and identified herself as a lifelong Republican who is “very much torn” over whether she’s going to vote for Masters or stay home, partly because of Masters’ statements about women not having “dangerous” jobs.
• Laurie said she’s a Tucson police officer who wears a bulletproof vest every day while driving in a marked police vehicle and wanted to know if he still stood by that statement.
• Masters made his original comments in February while arguing against the need for the Equal Rights Amendment, which would ban discrimination on the basis of sex. “We got to push back on the fake left-wing narrative that women don’t have equal rights in this country,” he said.

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