Polly Toynbee's Version of the 'Pay Gap'

Another tedious report about the "glass ceiling". Comments are invited, but mine did not get published.

So I've put it here. Can anyone tell me what's unreasonable about it?

What IS this report? Is Polly Toynbee living in the naive bra-burning days of the 1970's?

Women earn less than men because they CHOOSE jobs that pay less.

The jobs that pay more among the working class ones are either hazardous or dirty. You don't see women carrying heavy hods of cement on dangerous scaffolding, working in coal mines, or emptying bins. These jobs pay more to attract workers. Men take them because they have whole families to feed (while women's salaries tend to be top-ups to their husbands').

In professional jobs, however, women earn the same where they are doing the same jobs as their male colleagues.

Here's a simple economic fact that seems to keep escaping Polly's notice. If a woman does exactly the same work for 80p that a man would demand £1 for, why would any employer employ men? Competition through global market forces would result in a work force entirely of women.

But we don't see that. So something other than childish discrimination by silly employers is going on.

It's called economics. And it's time political journalists stopped patronising us with their ridiculous propaganda.