> No, your example is bad management incentivizing bad employees and turning away good employees.
Well I definitely agree it was bad management. And I did leave when I realized that despite my performance, they weren't going to compensate me appropriately. To excuse it away as "oh, that's bad management" is being willfully ignorant to the truth that this kind of stuff does happen, in general, more to women. I was in a position where I was fortunate that I could leave and find a better opportunity. But not all women have this luxury. Many need their incomes and don't have the time to look for other opportunities that will value them appropriately.
> Women being paid less due to being women is illegal discrimination.
It's great there are laws to protect women from illegal discrimination. But it's not like that just "magically" corrects itself. You have to bring a suit. Or you just have to leave if you don't want to deal with it. It's like saying "well that's wrong." Sure, it is, but the effort is disproportionately on the "wronged" person to fix it.
> You should have made whatever the maximum you could negotiate. If this employer did not want to pay you more, you should switch employers. A good employer would have paid you much more than the others.
Well yes, and I thought I had. But as I said, it wasn't until I had been at the company, better understood what my "peers" were doing and then finding out that they were paid SO much more than me that I realized I needed to go somewhere else. But I believe the point that many others are making is that if there are been better salary transparency, I could have saved myself some time by realizing they weren't going to value me and what I brought, so I could have passed on the opportunity altogether.