And not only that, they take the average pay of all women--probably even women that aren't employed, or work at petty jobs doing housekeeping, or cashiering, or at some other menial task.
Id have much more respect (and would not be surprised at how non-existent a "gap" might be), if they compared men and women employed as chemical engineers; or, men and women CPAs, accountants, office managers, etc. There might still be gaps, but you'd find that they're due to women taking time off from work to have and raise children.
Well, as far as women taking time off to deal with children and family, the liberals don’t like that either. If studies reveal this happens, you can imagine a renewed liberal push for unlimited but paid family leave, among other changes.