Why does anyone ever hire men when they can apparently get a substantial labor discount by hiring equally qualified women?
Because they judge the female to be inferior to the male. If you believed someone to be a 3.5 instead of a 4 (on a 1-5 scale) obviously you would think you should be paying them less than the person with a 4 right? Well, even with the same actions, the female is judged a 3.5 instead of 4.
But if both the 3.5 and 4 both had the same amount of productivity I would think the market would sort it out and exploit that price differential until it's no longer profitable. How do women not make up the vast majority of the work force? Is every business owner so misogynistic that they intentionally pay more money for the exact same labor performed by a man? It baffles me.
Well, there's only so many ladies to go around! Especially in some fields, a friend of mine was one of only 3 women in a class of 200 engineering grads, ~5 years ago. Now in my field, we post a job and get 300 applications, all from women. This literally happened last year.
Personally, as a lady, I always ask for more money (ok except that one time I REALLY needed to leave my job) but then I wonder if I should've asked for more of a more? I read an article by a hiring manager who said when women ask for more money they often Are not specific about how much more so she only goes up a few k and then they usually accept, or if they're specific they ask only for a small amount. Whereas men for the same role will typically ask for 15k+ more and then get maybe 8k. So they start with a gap which only increases with % raises over time...
So ask for money ladies!
and on topic, personally I stopped telling family about how much I make. It's way more than either of siblings (I'm the youngest) and my mom can't keep her mouth shut and then sister gets all competitive, tells me she makes the same (lie, she works govt so I know it's a lie) then two breaths later makes me pay for lunch bc she is alllll poooor and doesn't get paid enough. Boo hoo.
I only ever told my parents anything so they would not worry about me being secure and now that ship has sailed. Also I'm 99% sure I make more than my dad and some years maybe more than mom, she owns a business so it's up and down.
So, especially if you have potentially jealous siblings, I would let parents know you're secure and keep the details private. Kinda sounded like you did not really want to tell them anyway.