Let’s be as crystal clear as possible here, so no one who is intellectually honest can come back and cry foul:  There should always be equal pay for equal work, regardless of gender, race or anything else. If someone puts two widgets together or performs heart valve replacement surgery or balances the books for a Fortune 500 company and the going market rate for assembling two widgets or performing heart surgery or doing a balance sheet is $xx, then everyone should get the same $xx. Clear enough?

However...the notion that there is an intentional gender-based wage gap, perpetrated by (or at least implicitly approved by) conservative Republicans (white middle-aged Christian males, no doubt) is a phony contention, fundamentally false, unsupported by facts and designed to get the sound bite-susceptible low-information voter to fall for the lie.

Unfortunately, to a great extent the lie works. Many voters are so lazy and ill informed that they don't bother to get past the sound bite.

The Democrats know this. The liberal media know this and they back the Democrats on this all the way.

Of all the innumerable intellectually dishonest and searingly deceptive issues put forth by the Left (and there are many, like “Bush lied, people died,” “Tax cuts for the rich,” “Republicans hate immigrants,” and on and on), the "gender-based wage gap" is among the worst.

Democrats are likely not interested in whether or not a real gender-based wage gap exists. After all, it was discovered in 2015 that Democratic Congressional members and the Obama White House paid female staffers only an average of about 80% of what they paid to male staffers doing the same work. It would seem that Democrats are only interested in seeing if they can tar Republicans with the accusation. Other than that, Democrats apparently have no real interest. It's a phony issue, only worth anything to them if they can use it to leverage political gain.

So is there a "real" wage gap? Perhaps to some minor extent, but it doesn’t appear systemic or structural. There is still some racial, religious and cultural bias in some professional fields more than others and in some geographic locations more than others. There is no such thing as G-d-like perfection where human behavior is concerned. But the US is moving continually in the right direction, both socially and legally, (unlike many other countries, especially Muslim/Sharia Law countries) and the Democrats' assertion that Republicans want to "turn back the clock" on women is an outright lie. An objective observer (does such an entity actually exist?) can plainly see that this is a Democrat-driven issue, backed by the liberal media.

The latest example of Democratic myth pedalling (parroted, of course, by the mainstream media) is the so-called “Equal Pay Day.” April 12th was Equal Pay Day, the date into the following year that females must work to equal what men made in the previous 12 months.

23%. That’s the Shortcoming, the Gap. According to Democrats, women only make 77% of what men make for the same work. So you’d think that women would have to work an additional 23% of a year into the next year to equalize things out. 23% of 365 days = 84 days. 84 days into the next year is March 25^th (or March 24^th if it’s a leap year). OK, so it’s not exactly clear why “April 12^th” is the EPD, when 23% into the year is March 25^th, but hey, as Talking Barbie said so memorably in 1992, “Math class is tough.” That must be it.

An individual's personal initiative and professional aggressiveness probably has as much -- if not more -- to do with career success than anything else. Is gender bias an all-consuming, pervasive workplace problem that is dramatically limiting the success and contribution of half of our professional workforce? Or is it yet another liberal phony issue, drummed up to incite the low-information voter, backed by a sympathetic Democrat-favoring media?

This anecdotal example from a professional female colleague strikes me as spot on:

My husband and I are both professionals in the computing industry. Education-wise, he outranks me. He has a BS in poly-sci and I did not finish my degree in computer science due to work constraints. For many years we earned approximately the same salary. Over the last several years, my salary has exceeded his by a substantial amount. During the 2 years after he was laid off at a previous company, my salary alone sustained our family. This was not the first time. So how does this fit in? I'm female and Republican. I don't have a college degree, and yet I have out-earned my husband for many years (even prior to when he was laid off). Is it ambition (I'm a lot more ambitious than he is) or something else? We can't pin this on any one thing. I just want to let people know that if you let yourself be defined by another's metrics, then you are cheating yourself of your true potential. Use what you have to the best of your ability, and you will always be successful no matter what.

This entire Democrat-driven victimhood trope is so tiresome. With their continual hardships, it’s amazing that Democrats can make any headway in the American workplace at all. They certainly can’t be held responsible or accountable for anything, what with all the oppression, discrimination, prejudice, bias, “-isms” galore, historical setbacks and societal roadblocks.

The only thing more tiresome is Republicans’ abject inability and refusal to combat the Democrats’ and media’s distortions of them.