A more paternal solution would be mandating equal pay for equal work and enforcing it across genders. I like the idea of equal pay for equal work, but define "

A more paternal solution would be mandating equal pay for equal work and enforcing it across genders. I like the idea of equal pay for equal work, but define "equal work"? In a factory job with quotas and quality control, this is probably pretty obvious, but once you step outside that realm it gets very touchy. You could easily have two salespeople (and area where results are easy to measure) but where one works more hours and the other still sells substantially more. Are we measuring hours or results? And in sales we at least have a good measure for productivity, in programming it is often hard to measure. For that matter, how do we define equal pay? I know people that turned down higher paying jobs because they liked some of the less obvious fringe benefits at their current job, such as having long periods on the clock where they could do their homework as long as they were there and ready when called on to work hard and fast. Is the ability to do homework on the clock a form of pay we should be counting? What about having a job where you go on business trips, but you get to go sight seeing in the evenings? Is the sight seeing pay? Someone might pass up more pay to get it. Or the fulfillment from doing a meaningful job instead of chasing money at any cost, or flexible hours.