> But we should strive for fairly statistically equivalent outcomes, and we aren’t close, even along gender lines.

Why do you think this? Why do you think that genders have equal preferences, for example? What about different age groups? The age distribution of various groups is quite different and so that alone will result in different outcomes without any unfair limitations being involved.

What do you propose to do about gender differences in mining, logging, car mechanics, etc.? Are you going to force women to enter those occupations? Why do you think the gender imbalance is evidence of unfairness that needs to be remedied? How much power would you have to give to government in order to achieve "fairly statistically equivalent outcomes" in these cases?

This focus on group "equality" can seemingly only come at the expense of limiting individuals. IMHO we should focus on maximizing individual liberty and not focus on statistical outcomes for groups.

To avoid further use of strawmen, let’s just get very concrete. If a man and a woman voluntarily join the same occupation, and they are in the same percentile when it comes to performance, then they should be paid the same. That is not the case today, even in an industry like tech where genetic differences in strength have no bearing on performance. There are of course many other cromulent examples of gender imbalances in society, and there are other legitimate imbalances related to race, age, class, sexuality, and other factors as well. The reasons for the various imbalances in our society are myriad, but blaming them on some permutation of “the women don’t want to do those jobs” is a little too lazy of a hypothesis for me. I would love to understand how pay equality limits the individual.

> That is not the case today, even in an industry like tech where genetic differences in strength have no bearing on performance.

That's a big claim to make without a citation. And it really doesn't even make a ton of sense given the other factors at play in a modern workforce.

I posit that the majority of employers out there are trying to pay as little to their employees as they can possibly get away with. If women do the same work and I can get away with paying them less, wouldn't the prudent business decision be to hire tons of women and build a culture that women find appealing? And yet somehow most workplaces are male-dominated.

Women are a nuisance, with long absences for child-bearing and time off to take care of needy children and harassment suits and distracting the male employees.

(I don’t feel that way, but we’re not far removed from that being a common sentiment.)

Well certainly EVERYONE doesn't feel the way you have described.

Are there companies out there who are hiring a bunch of women and kicking ass because of it? And if so, why hasn't that success story been told and started propagating in business circles?

> Are there companies out there

There are absolutely lots of companies that have diversity and inclusion programs, and spend lots of money on these issues.

If your metric of success is "What are the successful companies doing" then you have to admit that basically every major corperate environment these days, has diversity programs, so by your own definition, they are important.

They have diversity programs, they aren't trying to hire exclusively women because they are cheaper. Those are two different things.

Also, nobody promotes diversity because diversity it reduces payroll costs. They do it because it allegedly produces better results.

> they have diversity programs

Ok great. Then you agree that diversity programs are good and competitive.

That is good enough of a concession to satisfy most people on this topic, no matter how you got to it!

So that's the success story. You demanded a success story, and at the very least, this shows that diversity programs are good and do produce better results, because basically every successful company does then.

You have not argued for why we should strive for this, only exhorted us to do so.

I presume you think striving for statistically equivalent outcomes is good; I think it's pernicious nonsense. Since you haven't bothered making your case, I won't either.

I suddenly feel like I’m back in my freshman Philosophy of Ethics class. You’re right, I don’t think more conversation would be very fruitful.

For example, men live on average 5 years less than women. How should we fix this? Massive government expenditure into men's health research and men's occupational safety?

Would that be a bad thing? There are a lot of other negative mortality outcomes linked to demographics so maybe we take a look at those as well. The link between abortion bans and mortality rates for women seems pretty germane in the US at the moment…

Maybe, but if the goal is shrinking the gender lifespan gap, reducing women's mortality would actually make the gap worse. You should focus on reducing men's mortality first, until the gap disappears or reverses, at which point you can start considering women's mortality again.