>- Women are "less ambitious" because they perceive, often rightly, that their path up the ladder is blocked.

What evidence is there to support this? There are biological differences (I am talking brain structure and chemistry here) that make men competitive, leaders, and providers. IT feels like you are ignoring nature here.

Your argument reminds me of "racial inequality". Blacks in America are not hired and paid as much as Asians. Is this because of racism, unequal opportunity? If we look at history, we see that Asians generally invented more and modernized their societies (writing, language, arts) far more than Africans living in similar conditions and with similar opportunity (natural resources, friendly weather ETC.). Who can explain this? Is there a biological reason these pattern repeats themselves in all races throughout known history? Is it because of some influence? or just differences in DNA? Clearly in America, despite all our efforts, racial inequality has done nothing but grow. Is it because of reasons beyond our understanding? People claim that it is this reason or that reason, but History does not agree with them.

>- Women miss more work due to illness and depression because they aren't treated fairly and are put under more pressure to get the rewards their male counterparts get easily.

This is your opinion (which should be stated). This is pretty subjective and I have never seen nor could I find any evidence to support it. It is true that women who do not work get sick less, bit the same is true for men. Workplace illnesses certainly account for some of this. Even if it were provable, what difference does it make. The problem is perpetuated by the problem that exists (cycle).

>- Women are less amenable to overtime because men are less amenable to doing housework.

This only partially accounts for the difference. Where comparing single men and women, there is still a difference. You may say that the difference still exists and that men just live like slobs, but I doubt you will find much evidence to support that.

>- Women can, and do, cope with "hormone fluctuation" very well. They're quite used to it.

Opinion again. You are probably correct with some women, and not so correct with others. This is probably an unknown variable at hire time, thus a risk. In any case, it is an extra thing that most women must deal with. Men with 4 or more kids at home are very rarely hired as CEO's. It is partly because they have a known distraction (such as a women's hormonal swings). I realize that this is an apples to oranges comparison, but any known detractor for any job translates to points against the applicant.

>- Attractive women in the workplace are only a distraction to unprofessional, easily distracted men.

It feels like you are arguing with me here. I am not disagreeing, I am just saying that many workplaces have very valuable and productive men who fall into this category. All boys/girls schools philosophy is to get rid of possible distractions. This segregation is age old in the workplace as well.

>- Men talking dirty in the workplace just shouldn't. Regardless of the (imaginary) sensibilities of women, what about the men who don't like that?

Shouldn't I agree, but if you don't think that this doesn't play a factor, I have to question your grounding in reality.

>- Men haven't been in charge since the beginning of time. History has had plenty of matriarchal societies.

I said that I was talking in generalities. I am not pointing out minority exceptions like you are. These societies represent such a small percentage of recorded humans existence that they are actually considered statistically insignificant.

>The simple fact is, any business that doesn't select the best possible candidate regardless of gender, is failing their duty to their shareholders/investors/employees to build a secure, stable, profitable and growing company. If I knew that a company I owned part of was recruiting men over women even when the woman is the better candidate I would call for the CEO to be fired.

It comes down to risk. The things that I have mentioned all play a factor in that risk. All non gender related things being equal, the higher risk would be the female. You can argue with this all day, but you are arguing with nature. Maybe this "inequality" is not "fair", but trying to force everything to be "fair" and everyone to be "equal" has never worked and never will. Standards are lowered, gags are placed on dissidents, people start hating each other and their government, things decline. Making everything "equal" and "fair" equates to oppression, unfairness in other places and theft. In the end it always ends up bad. See the history of known civilizations for reference.