This discussion is complex and it's not entirely obvious how much of the pay gap is caused by discrimination, but this is one stupid argument.
Where are all-women (or 95% women) companies? If you can get away with paying them less, where are all the capitalists exploiting the market inefficiency and getting rich in the process?
Hell, nowadays companies like Starbucks[0] routinely put social causes first, profits second. So where are these companies?
[0] https://www.starbucks.com/blog/an-open-letter-from-howard-sc...
And the point is that we don't seem to see such companies. All the major tech companies have similar percentages of women, despite all of them trying very hard to increase those numbers.
Efforts to reduce imbalance (regardless of demographic) is necessary to overcome location bias, and the bigger the pool, the higher the tide for all boats.
If you're "labor", stop thinking that you're at war with other demographics.
Thing is, you can do it right and do it wrong. Effort for the sake of effort means little, it's not the thought that counts but results.
https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/download/fedora_content...
When President Bush piloted his No Child Left Behind act, one of the underlying goals was to close racial and class gaps in educational standards, therefore, improving opportunity for disadvantaged groups but not guaranteeing ideal results.
Justice Clarence Thomas, the only current black Supreme Court judge, took a strong stance against race‐based affirmative action as it establishes “a cult of victimization” that permeates leniency on and faulty judgment of black students and workers in admissions and employment processes.
He believes this strengthens stereotypes and requires special, preferential treatment of the black community in order to make up for past oppression.
...
This sentiment is spreading, and a continual decline in academic achievement of black students will most certainly propel these sentiments throughout the country. The American Civil Rights Institute founder, Ward Connerly [who's african american], said he is “not against policies that address ongoing disparities in income, educational opportunities or other factors, but they should not be race based.” Policy reform is now addressing the achievement gap between black and white students in hopes that solving the underlying issue between black underachievement will lead to natural, unregulated increase in black enrollment in universities and, ultimately, employment.
And how to value, let's say, a developer? How do you, personally, differentiate good and bad programmers?
