Do you believe the gender gap is real?

[RINO Tom]

Of course it's "real," and I haven't heard that many people deny that.  The debate is what to do about it and how much of it is caused by blatant, rampant sexism flourishing in workplaces all across America.  Due to the sexism of past decades and the societal structure (especially pre-reliable birth control) that pressured women to "work in the home," a lot more men are in senior positions and/or have had positions with companies longer than women who "do the same job."  My last company rewarded seniority quite highly, including with women, but there were simply more men who'd been there longer.  A "Vice President of Commercial Banking" is an umbrella term for "the same job" ... but if a man has held that title for eight years vs. a woman holding it for four, he's going to make significantly more.

Is that sexism?  Maybe an effect of decades of institutional sexism, at best, but it's not some sly, wink-wink structure to purposely exclude women.  This won't be popular on the woke internet, but frankly we'll know a lot more about how pervasive literal gender discrimination in the workplace is in about ten years, and my wager is that it's a lot less than you would think.

Disclaimer: Things like penalizing a woman for being out of work due to pregnancy (usually done in accidental and totally legal ways) IS an example of legitimate gender discrimination that needs addressed, and there are plenty of things like this.  However, most people imagine a bunch of old, sexist White men who just don't want to pay women ... and that's frankly hilariously overblown, haha.