Why do women get paid less money? It doesn't make any sense. — Val Kilmer

Why do women get paid less money? It doesn't make any sense.

Author: Val Kilmer

Insight: The question sounds simple because it should be. If two people do the same work, they should get the same paycheck. Yet this gap persists across almost every industry, and the longer it stays around, the more we stop asking why. We get used to it. We accept it as just how things are, the way we accept taxes or traffic. But Kilmer's confusion here is actually the healthy response. When you really think about it, the pay gap doesn't make sense—not economically, not logically, not morally. It's not like women are less productive or less valuable on the job. The stubborn fact that it keeps happening suggests the reasons are messier than merit: bias in hiring and promotion, different negotiating patterns, the invisible cost of caregiving that falls unevenly, workplace cultures that undervalue traditionally feminine work. None of these are inevitable or unavoidable. What's worth noticing is that this gap exists despite decades of knowing about it. That gap between awareness and action, between knowing something is wrong and actually fixing it, is often where real problems hide. The confusion Kilmer expresses—that "it doesn't make any sense"—is actually the first step toward changing it. Once you really let yourself feel that confusion instead of accepting it, you start asking harder questions about who benefits from keeping things this way.