Ellen Pao is the Al Sharpton of sexual harassment.  She sued the VC firm of Kleiner Perkins, claiming gender discrimination and sexual harassment.  She lost a civil trial.  To win in a civil trial, you don't need to show guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt," but merely show that it is more likely you are telling the truth than the other side.  She couldn't meet even that loose standard, showing that her lawsuit was ridiculous.  In fact, as the evidence came out, it turned out that not only hadn't she been discriminated against, but she had made millions there and had been given special treatment by one of the senior partners, and she still found time to have an adulterous relationship with another married partner.

But even though she lost this case, every time there is some claim of discrimination against women, her photo often accompanies such articles as if she had proved her case.  Pao, a confused, nerdy-looking Chinese-American with glass lenses so thick they look like the bottom of Coke bottles, doesn't look like a rabid feminist, but she is.

She has since made news as interim CEO of Reddit, the misogynist, profanity-laced message board website, by declaring that new hires cannot negotiate on salary.

Ellen Pao, interim chief executive of Reddit, announced last month a ban on salary negotiations at the social media company. Her stated goal: to eliminate the persistent disadvantage that women have at the bargaining table.

The Daily Caller also reported:

“Men negotiate harder than women do and sometimes women get penalized when they do negotiate,” Pao said. “So as part of our recruiting process we don’t negotiate with candidates. We come up with an offer that we think is fair.”

The Washington Post article continued with phony studies and psychobabble indicating that women have more trouble than men negotiating salaries.

Let's see how this argument stands up

1) Women, as a group, are less capable of negotiating salary than men. Isn't that incredibly sexist, to label an entire gender as shy wallflowers, especially when we know it's not true?

2) Evil men, who run all companies, will give more money to male applicants who try to negotiate, but not women.  If that were really true, if women were really making 78 cents on the dollar for men, as many phony studies that don't compare comparable jobs show, why wouldn't all companies all hire women? They could get the same work done and save 22% on labor costs.  You don't see all women companies because there is little or no pay disparity.

3) Even if you ban salary negotiations, if the people making the offers are sexist, what is to stop them from making higher offers to men, or only hiring men? If you assume the people hiring hate women, this won't help at all.

In fact, the only way to guarantee that men and women are truly equal is to legislate that everyone in each company has the same salary – regardless of the job held, from janitor to CEO.  That way you can be 100% certain that men are earning the same amount as women, just as they do in perfectly egalitarian places like North Korea.

This argument is so insulting – both to men, who it assumes are all evil, and to women, who it assumes are all shy pliable types, and also to common sense, since anyone who has it would realize that this is really a puerile measure.

Two exit questions:

1) Do you think Ellen Pao tried to negotiate her salary before taking the job at Reddit?  Or do you think she said, "I am a girl.  I must obey and accept whatever is offered" without asking for more?

2) Given her history, do you think the Reddit's board of directors should try to keep her away from male employees who are married?

This article was produced by NewsMachete.com, the conservative news site.