Sure, you can cherry pick anything. Here is an good article (written by a woman) that does a pretty good job explaining why the perception of gender pay discrimination is because people quote statistics without understanding what they mean. I like this article because it references some very reliable statistics that illustrate the point. I also think it's worth noting that no matter the article, cherry picked or not, I have never seen any statistic that shows a gender pay difference for people in the same profession with the same years of experience. I've seen lots of data that shows pay equality in that situation.
Finally it's worth noting that none of this means there isn't cultural disparity - in child care and the expectations associated with it. But there's no evidence of gender pay discrimination on a macro scale.
Don't Buy Into The Gender Pay Gap Myth
The article didn't really have any data for me to get stuck into.
Unless I'm reading it wrong the article didn't debunk the gender pay gap - it said that a particular figure of 78% was debunked. I'm not sure where that figure came from in the first place? It seems to be well known in the US - they cited where it was used rather than analysis of the claim.
A link from the article you linked above said
"According to the AAUW report, “even after researchers controlled for age, education, hours worked beyond full time, industry sector, marital status, and presence of children in the household, female managers still earned just 81 percent of what male managers did, leaving an unexplained 19 percent pay gap,” and later observed, “women continue to earn less than men do, even when they make the same choices.”" but the link to that report was dead.
I found a US study published in the Journal of Economic Literature that starts out with a similar figure to the 75% you mentioned, but goes on to make adjustments, yet still has a persistent unexplained gender gap - it's a long read (101 pages) and I skimmed some parts because economic modelling doesn't mean much to me, but it's interesting. From the conclusion:
"The persistence of an unexplained gender wage gap suggests, though it does not prove, that labor-market discrimination continues to contribute to the gender wage gap, just as the decrease in the unexplained gap we found in our analysis of the trends over time in the gender gap suggests, though it does not prove, that decreases in discrimination help to explain the decrease in the gap. We cited some recent research based on experimental evidence that strongly suggests that discrimination cannot be discounted as contributing to the persistent gender wage gap. Indeed, we noted some experimental evidence that discrimination against mothers may help to account for the motherhood wage penalty as well".
Link:
The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations - American Economic Association (you can download the full pdf for free)
The gender pay gap is real so it is not true to say that women are not paid less than men. Generally they are. However it is true to say the reasons behind that disparity are not always straightforward discrimination - it's a complex subject with many factors at play, not just childcare, including how skills seen as "feminine" are valued and how girls are moulded by society.
For example, if women are socialised to be feminine, do they do worse in situations where pay must be negotiated, a process where a woman may fear being viewed as pushy or aggressive? Apparently so and that isn't an unfounded concern. Although there is other research that claims it isn't that women don't ask - it's that they do and they don't get and other evidence that finds negotiating isn't a skill women do not possess, as they do well negotiating on behalf of others.
Discrimination is difficult to prove because of the lack of transparency with pay, although there have been some very high profile cases when employers were forced to be transparent. A lot of people simply don't know what their colleagues are paid. Gender pay gap reporting is to shine a light and not only make companies accountable but highlight biases they may not be aware they have. It is not *always* a case of discrimination. But sometimes it is.
I'm not trying to persuade you - you're free to believe whatever you want to. Some people believe in Jewish space lasers. I'm just trying to counteract you when you make these categoric statements.
