Gaps In Pay Or Advancement Aren't Evidence Of Discrimination
Social psychologist Lee Jussim has a very interesting post on this subject up at Heterodox Academy. He tells this story at the end:

When I chaired Rutgers Psychology Department (2010-2013), I received a call from some Rutgers administrative office, probably HR, which has an "Office of Employment Equity Investigations," seeking explanations for Rutgers' Psychology gender pay gap among its full professors.

I did not even know we had one, so I asked our departmental administrators to track down the salary data of the full professors. They did. As it turned out, the women were making considerably more than the men. In fact, that was what UHR or whoever called were inquiring about -- they wanted me to explain why the women were making so much more than the men.

This, however, was not difficult to do. The department keeps each person's vita on file. In general, our female full professors were more productive (more publications, more grants). Rutgers gives both across-the-board raises (same for all faculty) and merit raises (higher raises for productive faculty), so, in general, more productive faculty make more money. In one case, the person was hired with both a PhD and MD, and the MD gave her a considerably higher starting salary than other assistant professors. Because raises at Rutgers are a percentage of the base salary, a higher starting base salary would produce a higher subsequent salary, even if their productivity was the same.

I did not catch a whiff of discrimination, but, then, maybe I was just a blind fool, and should have raised Hell over the mistreatment of men in my department. After all, "everyone knows" gap=discrimination, right?

Uh-oh! Should we send in the coddle squads -- and offer special fellowships for the men? (Would your answer be the same if the coddle squads and the special fellowships [sisterships?] were for women?)

Jussim links to a Christina Hoff Sommers piece debunking wage gap myths:

researchers count "social science" as one college major and report that, among such majors, women earned only 83 percent of what men earned. That may sound unfair... until you consider that "social science" includes both economics and sociology majors.

Economics majors (66 percent male) have a median income of $70,000; for sociology majors (68 percent female) it is $40,000. Economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Manhattan Institute has pointed to similar incongruities. The AAUW study classifies jobs as diverse as librarian, lawyer, professional athlete, and "media occupations" under a single rubric--"other white collar." Says Furchtgott-Roth: "So, the AAUW report compares the pay of male lawyers with that of female librarians; of male athletes with that of female communications assistants. That's not a comparison between people who do the same work." With more realistic categories and definitions, the remaining 6.6 gap would certainly narrow to just a few cents at most.

Could the gender wage gap turn out to be zero? Probably not. The AAUW correctly notes that there is still evidence of residual bias against women in the workplace. However, with the gap approaching a few cents, there is not a lot of room for discrimination. And as economists frequently remind us, if it were really true that an employer could get away with paying Jill less than Jack for the same work, clever entrepreneurs would fire all their male employees, replace them with females, and enjoy a huge market advantage.

I think something unseen and not discussed that hurts women are these constant cries that women are discriminated against -- coupled with calls to treat women like eggshells, not equals (all in the name of equality, of course).

If I were looking for a job now, I'd somehow let on that I can take a joke (including a super dirty one) and even a compliment, and that I don't have kids, don't want kids, and will never have kids, and thus will not be leaving at 4 to take the kids to soccer or to have foreign objects removed from their nose.

I know -- some mothers work harder than their lazyass Tinder-swiping co-workers, but there are also plenty of mothers (and some fathers) making their kids a big priority (vis a vis their job) and then expecting the same pay as the single, work-obsessed co-worker.

If they get that same pay, maybe they're valuable and it's just the cost of retaining them -- or maybe that's discrimination.

via @SteveStuWill