Fox News personality and former MTV host Kennedy offered a perplexing usage of the slang term “slut shame” while defending high-paid CEOs on Tuesday’s edition of the daytime panel show “Outnumbered.”
Kennedy introduced news of a rule in the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill that will soon require all publicly traded companies to disclose the pay ratios between highly-compensated executives and regular workers.
“Critics say the regulation will just force companies to compile complex data to determine the median salary for all their employees which could cost them millions,” Kennedy said.
Labor groups, however, have backed the regulation as a way to pressure businesses to lower exorbitant CEO pay.
“They are essentially trying to slut shame companies into paying their highest workers less money,” Kennedy concluded.
Co-host Andrea Tantaros chimed in: “And slut shaming companies is not the job of the U.S. government.”
The phrase “slut shaming” usually refers to criticizing a woman for dressing or behaving in an overtly sexual way and is sometimes used to blame victims of sexual assault. The panel did not elaborate on how this compared to the Dodd-Frank rule requiring transparency from companies on their CEO-to-worker pay ratio.
