Joshua,

On a couple of issues you address, Frank is entirely correct.  That's the reason I accused him of arguing with himself.  Nobody is arguing that persons in different professions should be paid the same.  Nobody is arguing that part-time workers should be paid the same as full-time workers. 

However, to your point about benefits -- I will say that I haven't seen any data that women, as a group, receive higher benefits than men to account for the disparities in earnings within the same occupation.  If you're suggesting that's the case, as far as I can tell, that would be pure speculation.

The issue that Frank seemed unable to grasp had to do with gender pay disparities when the occupation is the same, same experience, same responsibilites, same hours, same level of performance.  In other words, all else being equal, women are compensated less than men.

The statistics that begin on the page 8 of the link I provided compare the earnings of male and female full-time workers, occupation by occupation.  This chart shows that, one occupation after another, the disparity is consistent with the summary of disparities on page 7 (with some exceptions).  For example, Frank kept bringing up Human Resources as an area that women gravitate to.  The median weekly salary for full-time female Human Resource Managers in 2005 was $998.  The median for male Human Resource Managers?  $1,357.  So, full-time male HR Managers earned 36 percent more than their female colleagues.

Anecdotally, I can tell you that this happened in my own family.  We learned from my wife's employer's bookkeeper (who happened to be a close friend) that my wife (an architect) was paid significantly less than every man in the same position, including the ones with less experience, less education, less hours billed and, in my biased opinion, less skilled (the same was true for the other women in her position).  You should know that she had received excellent performance reviews from this employer.  As you might imagine, my wife was suddenly demoralized, and changed employers as soon as possible.  We have no way of knowng if such disparities exist with her current employer.  Unfortunately, my wife's experience is the rule, not the exception.