The study and its accompanying press reports indicate that women, universally and systematically, are paid less than men. No, because earnings statistics cannot account for the myriad of choices, trade-offs, and abilities that constitute both our every day lives and particularly our work lives. Earnings data simply cannot measure the infinite combination of factors that make up real life. Catalyst itself acknowledges the fundamental problem with drawing any serious claims of discrimination from these numbers. Of course, this fatal concession, conveniently buried, isn't the stuff of headlines.
Corporations are no worse than every other part of the American economy.
Those are the soundbites that encourage the perception of victimization, and ultimately undermine those women who continue to make extraordinary professional strides.