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I think the problem (and conflict on this issue) is whether and to what degree that is "not possible". Or even to what degree the problem actually exists. It becomes political, and reality tends to get lost in there somewhere along the way.
It's already political. The act of not policing it is just as political as doing so. That's the thing about politics--it isn't limited to laws. Reality only gets lost when it is intentionally obscured for some agenda. That's generally the case when one side pretends the issue is different than what it is (and both parties do that, though the right does it way more).
It's like when a school decides to let kids bring males or females to a dance, rather than just the opposite sex, and people start raging claiming that they are training the kids to be gay according to some agenda. The aim is to hide the actual issue--whether or not it's okay for kids to bring a same-sex friend/date to a dance rather than an opposite sex one--beneath the facade of some great, nonexistent threat. The same tactic is done regarding women's rights.
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I think that we should first come up with a sane method for making this determination. A method that accounts for hours worked, career path followed, and leave taken. One of the interesting things about sex and pay statistics is that when we compare the full set of "women" to "men", we find a significant gap in average pay. But when we actually look at women and men side by side in the same fields working for the same employers, that gap almost entirely disappears. And when we look at individual men and individual women working the same jobs, with the same titles and the same total number of days in the profession, we find that it disappears entirely.
Source or bust, because I flat out don't believe that. And you forgot to mention that women have a harder time getting jobs in the first place, unless it is a position stereotypically held by men (which has been confirmed in studies based on interviews).
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That's not to say that there aren't possible social pressures which result in women working part time more often than men, and entering more often into fields which are lower paid than men, but you're not going to "fix" that with a policy sledgehammer IMO.
And that's not what they are doing. Women routinely make less than men,
in the same job. It isn't like the law is requiring companies to pay women 120% to make up the difference, it's requiring them to pay them the same thing they'd pay a man with the exact same credentials. Stop obscuring the issue.
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I suspect you and I use a different meaning for the word "rights", and we also don't agree on the application of "the same benefits". Life isn't about benefits granted to you by others. It's about what you make of it. I agree that we should make sure that the rules are fair to all, but I just don't agree with some of the social assumptions many of you make.
It isn't the government's job to provide you benefits, no. But it is their job to preserve freedom and ensure that you are treated with equal consideration.
Once it gets to the point where these laws make it easier for women to get jobs, for more money, I'll grant that they're doing something they shouldn't be. Until then, they are necessary.
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I'm trying to find the study--I'll probably post it after dinner. But it had to do with natural double-standards held by men and women. For example, men wearing red were more likely to be seen as a strong candidate, where women wearing red were more likely to be seen as a liability. A man with a assertive personality was seen as an asset, but women domineering. Etc.
The gist of it was that, if you want a job as a man, you need to act like a MAN. If you want a job as a woman, you need to act shier and subservient.
Edited, Mar 8th 2011 5:48pm by idiggory