Is Rachel Maddow sincere?

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4. sometimes it's somerby who commits the howler

in this case, at least, i can't find an objectionable maddow quote. yes, she repeatedly goes to the 77% figure, but somerby never quotes her as saying that that number represents anything other than what it actually represents -- that on average, women get paid 23% less.

could it be that only 5% of this is due to actual, direct, sex discrimination? sure, but that doesn't change that fact that the raw number is 23% and that's all that she's saying, at least in somerby's blog, unless i'm missing something.

moreover, even if 5% is due to direct discrimination, that doesn't mean that the remaining portion of the pay gap should be dismissed. let's say that a chunk of it is that women have less experience than men. so employers aren't discriminating based on sex, they're discriminating based on experience. well, then, perhaps we should do something to narrow the experience gap, and perhaps the experience gap exists because of previous (and perhaps ongoing) discrimination.