&gt;Are men more valuable to the market?<p>And if so, why?  Maybe men and women work equally hard, all else being equal, but in a society where a man&#x27;s income is used to determine his worth as a person to a greater extent that a woman&#x27;s income is used to determine her worth, a man will spend more time focusing on improving his income, and thus work in ways that provide more value by sacrificing quality of life (while a woman in such a society would focus on increasing what ever attributes the society judges her worthiness based upon).  In such a case, there is clearly sexism, but unequal pay is not the cause, only a symptom, and thus equalizing pay will only cover up a symptom of the deeper problem (and perhaps even exaggerating the problem).