Absolutely nobody is advocating for that. Unless you are saying that happened to you, I don't think it's a problem that actually exists. That's not what gender equality means Dave. It means addressing the places where women are being paid less for the same work simply for being women.

When my husband was the head of HR at his company, he commissioned a study to see if people were being paid fairly based on their experience and level of responsibility. What they found is that even though it's illegal to pay women less for the same work, it was still taking place. Another friend of mine just got a settlement from her company when they did the same sort of study - they realized they had been paying women less for the same work. I think this is still quite common, despite it being illegal.

If someone was recently hired where you work and is getting the same pay as you are after 4 years of work that could be for a variety of reasons, none of which necessarily have to do with gender. If it did happen in your workplace, perhaps you should ask your boss about why that is? The most logical explanation is in this labor market, they couldn't get anyone to take the job at the pay that you started at, and had to raise the starting pay just to get anybody. But again, you should ask your boss about it if that has indeed happened in your workplace. Restaurants are notoriously sexist work environments so it seems pretty unlikely that a woman was paid more for the same work simply for being a woman — because that would also be illegal.

“The Equal Pay Act of 1963, amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, protects against wage discrimination based on sex.1 The Equal Pay Act (EPA) protects individuals of all sexes.”