The trouble with these kinds of stats, atleast in Canada, are that they don't reflect the real world. Say at my university, the average male prof makes 10 000$ a year more than female profs. But, the trouble with these stats is that they don't take into account how much tenure the profs have. In general, the profs who have been here the longest and therefore have more tenure are males due to the fact that they would have started back in the 60's - 70's; before there was an explosion of women into the work place. So naturally, the profs who have been here longest are paid more, and it just so happens that yes, most of them are male.
You need to look at the big picture, not just at averages which skew the information. Looking at it this way is not sexist, it is just acknowledging how history has formed this seeming biased to males.
In my opinion, two people, male and female, with the same abilities are hired on the same day, they should be making the same amount. But, if one of them was hired 10 years earlier, than yes, that person should be making more.
To re-iderate, the history of women in the workplace has skewed the conception of equal pay in todays world due to build up of tenure and such. While I acknowledge and dislike how the pay equity did not exist in the past, it is my belief that nowadays we are paid equally.
