all of these links confirm that yes, in fact, women do make less than men—but we’ve decided that the reasons are unimportant as long as we can write them off as pure personal choice instead of problems of culture and opportunity

look at that daily beast one: most of the most lucrative majors are engineering, and utterly male-dominated. i have heard no end of anecdotes about women being driven away from science and engineering majors (or even classes, earlier) for one reason or another. everything from being uncomfortable as the only woman in a classroom to having a teacher outright say “give up now, women aren’t suited for this”. i can’t imagine how bad it is in an industry like truck driving.

hell, that same article says at the very bottom that white house staff alone have a 12% pay gap, so i don’t know where it gets off claiming the pay gap doesn’t exist

your cbs article links to another one that outright says: “women with a bachelor’s degree had median earnings of $39,571, compared with $59,079 for men … At every education level, from high-school dropouts to Ph.D.s, women continue to earn less than their male peers.”

let alone that women are often seen as less desirable employees because they might have children (even if they don’t have any now), women are less likely to be promoted to management (so they actually cannot do the same job), female-dominated careers are less likely to have bonuses and other retirement incentives (so women have less saving power), etc.

the gap may not be 23% for any given particular job when controlling for every other factor, but only a massive fucking jackass would look at all those other factors, see the 23% still exists, and shrug and say “well i guess it’s their problem then”

edit: the department of labor weighs in on this