I’ve talked about the gender pay gap before here. To summarize it as I see it, here is a quick rundown of the facts. For the same job with the same experience and qualifications, men make perhaps 5-10% more than women — that is clearly unfair. Yet the average woman working full time earns only 78% of what the average man earns working full time. How do we explain these two results? It boils down to either inequality of opportunity (men are keeping women out of high-paying professions) or a difference in choices — women choose different jobs, either because of personal choice or societal pressures. It’s hard to prove any of those causes — and it is probably a little of each of these — and it’s unclear what the solution is exactly.

This morning on Meet the Press, there was a roundtable discussion on the state of women in America. I was struck by a comment at the very end by Maria Shriver. In the context of a discussion about Hillary Clinton’s role in last year’s presidential primary, she was asked by the moderator why there are not as many women as men in politics. Her response was that women do not want their lives exposed the way politicians’ lives are these days. She finished up saying, ”It’s not that women aren’t competent, but women view success differently than men. They view power differently than men. And they often want very different lives than men.”

I am glad that Maria Shriver, a self-described feminist, can be honest enough to admit that women want different things out of life than men. I think anyone with half a brain can realize that. Yet some women’s rights groups, like the Women’s Center at my university, would lead you to believe that somehow this should not translate into different occupational decisions or different salaries.  The WC has send out information in the past saying that women working full time should earn 100% of men working full time, regardless of the occupations they choose. To them, anything less is discrimination.

Studies have shown that men take jobs that require them to travel more; they work outdoors more often in harsh temperatures; and they work riskier jobs (94% of all workplace fatalities are men).  To borrow from President Obama’s favorite phrase: “Let me be clear:” I think women should be paid the same amount of money for the same work with the same qualifications, plain and simple. One study of people at age 30 grouped people by major and, without even correcting for job or industry, found that women who majored in economics earned 99% of what men who majored in economics earned. I think that’s a pretty good statement for the economics profession.

Yet I don’t think that, for the economy as a whole, women’s average salaries should equal men’s average salaries — at least not if women are working more convenient hours, in less risky and less stressful jobs. The difference lies in whether you are comparing the same job or a different job — and if you work a different job you should not expect the same pay. For example, the research requirements for tenure at SCSU are much lower than those at Harvard and, not coincidentally, SCSU pays a much lower salary than Harvard. It would be ridiculous for me to complain that I do not get paid as much as a Harvard professor when their lives are much more stressful because their tenure requirements are more strict. I made a decision based on what I wanted out of life and I live with the consequence that others in my profession get paid more than I do for working what is clearly a more difficult and stressful job.

Some women’s rights groups want women to have equal incomes despite having different goals, making different decisions and working in different jobs — “wanting different lives,” according to Shriver. That is asking for special treatment, not equal treatment.