"A society which forces women to be the primary caregivers is also one which keeps men as the breadwinners."

What a ridiculous comment, demonstrating no comprehension whatsoever of how men's and women's minds work or how they make choices. Women are not "forced" to be primary care givers. The good ones love their children and willingly - of their own volition - make sacrifices for their children above all else. Got it? Choice, no need to qualify. There are other women, on the other hand, who are often just lazy sloths taking adavantage of the freebies that come with being a stay-at-home sloth. The hardest work that many stay-at-homes might ever have to do is the sort of work they can do in their jammies, like bending down to slot a dvd into a dvd-player. Got it? More choice, no need to qualify. No patriarchy required.

Culture does not grant any such comparable freebies to men. Men do not have the option to work if they want, or to stay at home if their fancy takes them.

The rest is obvious, and almost embarassing to have to spell it out for the nth time. But if we have to, our google search might include the following keywords: supply; demand; the laws of supply and demand; markets; economy; culture. Any man who finishes high school with the intention of becoming a stay-at-home dad will be as marketable to the opposite sex as a truckload of beachsand.

Alex

You have said wage gap coming down women on average spending less time at market work than men on average, is surprising to you.

Could you please describe for us what it is you attributed it to prior to this, and cite your source/s?

"but the reason for that isn't a global conspiracy of feminists struggling to keep men out of their children's lives. It is the dreaded p-word: patriarchy."

You sneering, condescending twit Alex, that was totally uncalled for, you are all uniformly rude and disrespectful to us, then you wonder why feminists have the reputation that they do.

And the people that you are strawmanning and trying to talk down have been pointing out what you think is news and "surprising" - that the data indicates that the wage gap is more of a working gap - for years now.

Its you thats more deserving of the condescension, for believing the nonsensical, hysterical feminist conspiracy theories and claims about the about wage gap in the first place, and then being "surprised" by the most likely and rational explanation thats backed up by the data thats doing the rounds for years now.

This is the study data that I'd like to see.

One that controls for the fact that women that make the gap are married and control more of their combined wage than their husband and all alimony , child support payments and all other relationship related cash and asset transfers.

Then you will see why is that women can afford to take more time out of the wage slave market and still wear better shoes than the men that supposedly earn more than them.

I'm so bored with womens wage gap propaganda ...

Anyone with a basic understanding of figures knows that the earnings gap (pay is equal) is much smaller than claimed by various woman’s groups. It’s also obvious that the earnings gap is due to choices that are made outside the workplace.

As a manager in a medium sized company I’d also like to talk about the realities of hiring and firing in the UK and an idea.

Before taking on an employee a manager has to think of many things, one of those are the liabilities that’ll be coming with them. And what will happen if the employee doesn’t work out. I recommend that any white, male, straight, employee ticks the ‘bisexual’ box when they filling in the HR form for a new job.

That magic little tick gives you similar protection and employment rights to female and minority employees. It includes potential unlimited liabilities in a tribunal claim, which means your employer will be extra carful should they need to discipline you, make you redundant or sack you. It also means that you are no longer the cheap risk free option during a cull, and should you fallout with a female colleague you won’t be the automatic loser in HR policies that often ‘side’ with a female complainer against a male, no matter what the facts are because of the massive risk to the company from an unlimited claim.

If every white male in the UK ticked that box many of the inequalities in employment law and practice would disappear overnight.

> but the reason for that isn't a global conspiracy of feminists struggling to keep men out of their children's lives. It is the dreaded p-word: patriarchy.

There must be a fault in my browser because it failed to display all the evidence you presumably provided for this assertion.