while i acknolwdge your point about paying everyone the same, no matter how hard they work, this is not the issue here. senior people get paid more than juniors, and those working hard make it to senior faster.
the problem is that women get paid less even if they work as hard or harder than men.
the only way to discover this is to compare salaries.
Working hard isn't the only factor influencing how much someone is paid. It also depends on qualification and eventual productivity.
As I started this argument, the goal of an employer is to pay as little as possible for given work. Let's turn this argument around: if male and female are equally qualified, what would make anyone pay male _more_? If a female accepts to work for less, than she's going to be hired in the first place!
So, maybe females are paid less because they are less productive on the average? It's quite plausible, because they objectively have more distractions then men (giving birth, raising children, etc) . This is a rather valid reason to compensate them with higher pay, but presenting it as 'equal pay for equal fork' is an intentional deception.
that may be true if men and women are actually considered equal, but you are ignoring until recently it was commonly accepted that women are weaker, and generally less capable than men.
therefore the assumption must be that women are paid less because of of this perceived difference, and any claim that women are actually less productive must be proven with extraordinary evidence.
> but you are ignoring until recently it was commonly accepted that women are weaker,
Last time I checked, women's weightlifting or running records were nowhere near those of men. So it is an objective law of nature that women are indeed physically weaker. (To compensate for that, they have unique abilities that men totally lack.)
> therefore the assumption must be that women are paid less because of of this perceived difference
The assumption must be that everyone is paid as low as he/she agrees to work for. It that amount is lower for women, it is only because they agree to work for less. Any rational employer should hire the candidate who asks for less money, and any boss who does not do that will likely go out of business soon, since he can't make rational decisions.
By the way, it is also possible, that a person overestimates his/hers real value to the employer, believing to be doing the same work as another colleague, but getting less pay, starting this fight for 'justice'. In the reality it is most likely that a colleague is only perceived equal, but is somewhat superior in reality.
TL;DR: your salary is an objective value of your labour. if you think you it is worth more, negotiate a raise or go get a better paying job. If you don't get it, you are not worth that pay.
we are not talking about physical labor here, but work that requires the use of your brain.
observable physical weakness has no bearing on any other capacities, but what i said above is specifically about those other capacities.
i expect to see evidence that women are less capable programmers, project managers, etc.
the only thing that a salary measures objectively, is your negotiation skills.
i absolutely disagree that everyone should only be paid what they are able to negotiate for.
if there is an objective measure of performance (which, i admit is very hard, if it is possible at all) then equal performance should get equal pay. maybe add in equal responsibility, since that is also a factor.
> we are not talking about physical labor here, but work that requires the use of your brain.
English is not my first language and I'm not really familiar with the use of word 'weak' to describe mental capacity. Personally, I perceive women to be just as capable as men when it comes to intellectual work.
I don't agree with you that salary measures only negotiation skills. If you are a god-tier haggler, but zero in programming, you wouldn't have big salary for long. Your compensation is based mostly on the value you provide, which is only somewhat influenced by your negotiation skills.
You yourself say that it is very hard to objectively measure the performance of an intellectual worker. I think that is not just very hard, but simply impossible. Consequently, we can't pay people equally for equal performance because we can't even measure that performance to begin with.
In contrast, direct negotiations system is fair, and works both ways. If you think you are underpaid, go on a job market and find a better paying job. If you can't, your perceived market value is lower than you think. If you can, and leave for greener pastures, your current employer will lose a skilled worker, because he underpaid you.
Rational employer will seek to maximize the value extracted from employees, and hire the cheapest candidate with sufficient skills. Rational worker will seek the best paying job. Eventually the job market reaches an equilibrium, and everyone is paid what he or she is currently worth in current economy.
So if some woman thinks that she's paid less than her male colleague, she can just test herself against the marker. If she can't find an equally or better paid job, maybe she's overvaluing herself. And if she can, well, she can simply change job for a better paying one!
(And we don't need to make some bizarre attempts to create a performance measurement system, which inevitably will be flawed and inaccurate)
the problem is that women get paid less even if they work as hard or harder than men.
the only way to discover this is to compare salaries.