If women really are paid less than their male counterparts for doing the same work then firms hiring more women than their competitors would crush them in the marketplace with increased profits. The argument that women are as productive as men yet have lower wages is demolished by this simple logical deduction. Sure there is some anecdotal evidence of this, but I can find a lot of men with similar stories.
Some empirical evidence from Canada on the alleged wage gap from 1971 (when the wage gap should have been even more prevalent):
Symbol Definition
W{mF} wages of married females
W{nmF} wages of never-married females
W{mM} wages of married men
W{nmM} wages of never-married men
Wages of Married and Never-Married Men and Women Category
Ratios
W{mF}:W{mM} 0.33
W{nmF}:W{nmM} 0.992 (no gap)
W{F}:W{M} 0.38
Wages of Men vs. Women in Various Age-Groups Category
W{F}:W{M} All 0.76
25 and over 0.74
16-24 0.95
From a Walter Block Lecture on the topic:
Some empirical evidence from Canada on the alleged wage gap from 1971 (when the wage gap should have been even more prevalent):
Symbol Definition
W{mF} wages of married females
W{nmF} wages of never-married females
W{mM} wages of married men
W{nmM} wages of never-married men
Wages of Married and Never-Married Men and Women Category
Ratios
W{mF}:W{mM} 0.33
W{nmF}:W{nmM} 0.992 (no gap)
W{F}:W{M} 0.38
Wages of Men vs. Women in Various Age-Groups Category
W{F}:W{M} All 0.76
25 and over 0.74
16-24 0.95
From a Walter Block Lecture on the topic:
- The glass ceiling theory is that women are highly under-represented in the upper extremities (top-notch) of whatever you want to talk about.
- Block's argument is that men are "God's crapshoots". There are more male CEO's, but also more male crooks and nut-cases.
- Women are stable, "God's insurance policy".
- The idea is that the the distribution of male and female intelligence, while having the same average, has a different variance. The female distribution has less variance, and is focused around the mean, with thin tails. The male distribution has more variance, with less focus around the mean and fatter tails.
- There is a socio-biological reason for this: men are expendable, women are not.
- From the standpoint of human repopulation, if a lot of men die, so what? If a lot of women die, it's bad because you can't repopulate.
Some pretty interesting, albeit controversial thoughts. Logical thinking and looking at actual facts turns out to be pretty useful when analyzing the world.
To the topic of women traders, we are all equal when trading. The only thing that matters at the end of the day is the P/L statement.
It is best to see people as just people in most situations as everybody is very different. Stereotypes have some grounding in truth, else they wouldn't be stereotypes, but acting and speaking out based solely on such generalizations is just stupid.