Except that that number as the raw wage difference stands. It's direct from the census bureau (pdf warning, slide 13 has the graph). What you are saying is that that number doesn't bother you because you think it is justified by employment factors.
What I and others say is that employment factors don't make up for the entire gap, and that even if they did it's still a problematic situation that should be addressed.
But legally (in the US and most other countries we are concerned about) they can't do that. Explicit pay discrimination is illegal. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen at all, but doing so in more subtle and complex ways. It's more about who gets raises and who gets passed over. Who gets the promotion. Who gets their experience valued higher. As I said in my previous post, a lot of it down to unconscious bias, combined with a lot of what people consider 'justified' reasons.
Also, given that the 77% figure is a raw number a lot of it comes down to women being in lower paying jobs overall, as well as more part time and low hour jobs. Again, you can argue about reasons and justifications, but I don't think you can pretend it's not problematic.
Let me start by thanking you, for keeping your response both civil and rational.
You are correct that explicit discrimination is illegal; this is as should be. The fact that civil courts aren't clogged with cases of violations of such laws, is, to me, a telling point.
I will, with your permission, side-step any attribution of 'unconscious bias,' until such a time as someone claims James Randi's million dollars with evidence of mind-reading.
I am not out to 'pretend' that women having the freedom to choose positions that allow for flexibility in scheduling and personal valuation of time over money, is not problematic. There is no need to pretend - this is exactly what freedom of choice and conscience is. The only pretending, here, is the unsubstantiated claim that these raw numbers are somehow the fault of anyone other than the rational agents choosing benefits, flexibility, and non-financial pursuits. Women who choose to aggressively pursue positions in STEM fields, politics, or other positions of a high-risk, high-reward nature are just as free to do so as men.
Unfortunately for both sides of this discussion, there is a dearth of research into the effects of such things as: personal motivation, valuation of time vs stress vs income, willingness to negotiate aggressively, and a host of other, potentially confounding, factors. What we do have to work with, is the existence of laws prohibiting such discrimination as is posited (and, I daresay, parroted) by organizations such as NOW; as well as the existence of plenty of women who excel and succeed in acheiving financial/political goals, when such goals are aggressively pursued.
What, to me, is problematic isn't the lack of women in higher-paying sectors of the workplace (specifically, STEM fields, upper echelons of politics, CEO positions), but rather the assumption that a degree in Women's Studies/PolySci ought to be valued by society as a whole, as highly as degrees in engineering, economics, and the like.
I make no claim that women are somehow inferior in any of the higher-paying fields; to do so would be ridiculous. There is, however, solid statistical evidence that women, of their own volition, choose not to pursue such fields. I'll have to dig up studies, but there is the claim from biology that higher testosterone levels lead to higher risk-taking behaviours; this may explain why there are more men then women, at both the top, and at the bottom, of the workforce, whereas there are more women filling roles in the middle. <--citation needed
What gets my goat about the mainstream Feminist arguments concerning positions held by men and women in the workforce, is the inherent assumption that equal opportunity must somehow mean equal results. In a free society, wherein each rational agent is allowed to value hir own time as s/he chooses, this is not so. The problem isn't a lack of women at the top; the problem, if there is one, is the lack of women choosing to grab for the ring, as it were.