On Equal Pay Day, President Obama designated a historic house in Washington, D.C., a national monument in honor of the movement for women's equality.
BREAKING: @POTUS will designate a new national monument honoring women’s equality → https://t.co/O7DbjzSZZ3
Speaking at the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum, Obama called the building, which has housed the National Woman's Party since 1929, "a hotbed of activism, a centerpiece for the struggle for equality, a monument to a fight not just for women's equality but, ultimately, for equality for everybody."
The newly-designated monument will now be called the Belmont-Paul Women's Equality National Monument.
Obama acknowledged the gender wage gap and said "equal pay for equal work should be a fundamental principle of our economy."
"I'm not here just to say we should close the wage gap," Obama said. "I'm here to say we will close the wage gap."
However, many took to Twitter to make the point that Tuesday's announcement is nice and all, but doesn't really fix the wage gap.
@WhiteHouse @POTUS wow great thanks a building!! How is it closing the gender wage gap?
Some argued that Tuesday's announcement ignores the real problem.
@WhiteHouse @POTUS A new monument! Oh boy! As a women I'm so thrilled that you're doing this instead of focusing on the actual problem!
The real problem being, as Obama said in his speech, that women typically earn 79 cents for every dollar their male counterparts make.
@WhiteHouse @MAKERSwomen @POTUS Why not just give women the equal pay they deserve!!!!
"Today is Equal Pay Day which means a woman has to work about this far into 2016 just to earn what a man earned in 2015," Obama said during his speech.
@WhiteHouse @POTUS Monuments are nice, but a monument won't feed nor clothe any woman, especially one that's head of household. Pay them!!!!
tl;dr
@WhiteHouse @POTUS we don't need a monument we need a better paycheck