In the office where I work, one employee leaves in the mid-afternoon so that she can be home with her children after school. For her, time spent with family is far more valuable than the additional money she would earn from working those few extra hours every day. A wage gap certainly exists between her and her coworkers, but it is not one caused by discrimination. Another woman I know left a lucrative job in the public relations department of a large corporation to start her own business. She took a pay cut, which contributed to the lower average earnings of all women, but she is far happier as an entrepreneur than she was as a cog in a corporate machine.
Choices have consequences.
If women or men choose to balance their professional and personal responsibilities by seeking flexible work arrangements or shifting to part-time work, that, too, is a legitimate choice. The gender wage gap is a manufactured crisis borne of interest group politics, not a reflection of the reality of women's lives. The arguments advanced by feminist groups on Equal Pay Day are deliberately misleading. Worse, their underlying assumption is that women are incapable of making free and informed decisions about their lives-or for standing up for their right to fair compensation. I for one have more faith in the female sex.