It's ironic that the so-called gender wage gap is greatest in wealthier places like Beverly Hills and much less in poor places such as Indian reservations.

Women earn $.64 on the dollar compared to men in Beverly Hills. For the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, it's $.90. So men earning more than women says nothing of how the money is spent or who benefits from it.

An even more extreme case is Buffalo County, SD, which has the lowest per capita income in the U.S. Women there earn $1.05 to the dollar compared to men. This county is made up mostly the Crow Creek Indian Reservation, and is largely a matriarchy. Many houses lack kitchens and indoor plumbing.

In contrast, Rancho Santa Fe is a wealthy enclave in San Diego County. Women there earn $.58 to the dollar for men. Rancho Santa Fe has the second highest per capita income in the U.S. and the typical house costs over $2 million. The women living there can hardly be described as suffering from the so-called wage gap.

So, high gender wage gap here vs. women earning more here.

Where are women better off? And where are they more likely to be a victim of violence? Where are children - or men for that matter - better off?

Of course, these examples are anecdotes from the extremes of wealth and poverty in the United States and correlation doesn't imply causation, but it is likely related to something else. In these cases, the wealthy enclaves are an example of the success of free markets and property rights, while the impoverished Indian reservations an example of historic injustice compounded by a lack of property rights. A more comprehensive study would result in a graph of locations in the United States comparing the "gender wage gap" to per capita income. There would likely be a lot of scatter in such a graph, but it would be interesting to see what the overall correlation is, and the causes of the correlation would probably be complex and nuanced. But it would likely refute the feminist assertion that women are oppressed by the so-called wage gap that they keep touting.

Steve Van Valkenburg