Your argument is that women are, rightly, paid less because they work less hours and take more time off. I dispute that. That historically may have been the case but is not today. You seem unable to grasp this concept.
It is historical but it does still linger in many industries. I have a relative who is a Managing Director, but often times you don't get female executives because often they are old conservative men. It's not as bad as it used to be, and people of the late Generation X and early Millennial generation will be the first to see gender roles go. They may be useful as wild animals, but in a first world society they don't mean a great deal.
Women, doing the same job, for the same effort in the same hours are paid less. You seem to be happy to defend that. Why? I would like to see people paid the same level for doing the same job.
I'll only so much defend it in certain cases. If a pay is negotiable and a woman so happens to negotiate a smaller salary than the man by nothing more than coincidence, I can't complain too much. I don't particularly like it when a woman is denied a higher negotiable rate because she has the burden of pregnancy and childcare not only by social standards, but by law too with regards to maternity leave. I understand why, but I think there needs to be a discussion on the parental leave system, otherwise I can't see many solutions that would work. Another case is the case of the CEO of Imperial Tobacco vs the CEO of British American Tobacco. The latter company earns over four times the revenue, and as such they can afford to pay their CEOs a bit more not only because of that, but because a good net income like that and added value to the company warrants a bonus. It limits their choices, but then it's probably for their financial interests. If a woman can add value to a company and increase revenue as a CEO, even more than a male CEO of another company, that too warrants a bonus.
Sometimes a negotiable salary increases with someone's previous experience too, and while a woman might have less experience than a man, the amount of work experience won't really be affected by someone's gender, so it's not a particularly huge factor unless I've made a serious mistake. For fixed wages, if they do the same job but less hours than men, then it's no surprise that they would earn less. If a woman is working 25 hours a week, while a man working 35 hours a week, then I don't see an issue. If it's for the same contracted hours, then maybe there's an issue with asking for a pay rise, which unfortunately is less forgiving to the women because of potential pregnancy once again. I mean you can't easily balance out a high paying job and a family life, but still it's almost like a punishment for potentially being able to get pregnant. Not much can be done about a woman's biology unfortunately.
I have done some work in this area in trying to come up with a new pay system to right some of the wrongs and the differentials are shocking. I wont be posting the details as they are confidential but it was enough to satisfy me that there was a problem. These were women (and some men) paid substantially less then their colleagues in doing the same job. Before that I might have been more willing to subscribe to your view that this was the natural order of things because women do "lesser" jobs and take more time off. The truth is they don't and they are still paid less. That cant be right.
Credit where it's due, at least you're actually doing something, which that shows you're not just one of those people who like to do virtue signalling to look good on the internet. I'm just hoping that your work produces satisfactory results for you. But as I've said, the period from gendered masculine and feminine jobs is gradually fading out, and because the gap is shortening I wouldn't expect these ideals to return unless children start getting brainwashed by old conservatives who want the return of gender roles and religious ideals. I hope that doesn't happen, I think there's enough problems with things like that now such as in religious schools where they teach the information in their textbooks as undisputed facts. I am not joking, somebody I knew was once sent home because their family didn't believe in god and said that she was wrong and should believe in god. You know as much as I don't like it, at least left-wing indoctrination is more subtle than that, and sometimes there is at least some degree of truth within it, even if it is blown out of proportion.
As for advising, glibly, someone to sue their employer -
- you have clearly never been in that place. It would be career ( and possibly financial) suicide for someone to take such a course of action which is why most people wont do so.
No, I've not actually been in that position before, so I'll have to give you that one. In fact, I'd be lucky to even have a job myself, so much to the point that I'd probably have to accept being a slave getting whipped across the back rather than leave and sue the employer for human rights abuse. Even if I did do that I doubt people like Theresa May, who is so well known for her brilliant record on human rights, would care very much.