UK going down the feminist route...

If this is what Gordon Brown is all about, he's going to make a lousy prime minister.

Gordon Brown is to unveil a multi-million pound boost for working women after new, Government-backed research uncovered a huge "gender pay gap".

The Chancellor is determined to use next month's Budget to take urgent action to deal with what he sees as injustice in the workplace, and which is estimated to cost Britain's economy up to £23 billion a year.

The figures have been uncovered by the Women at Work Commission, whose chairman, Baroness Prosser, the Labour peer, will discuss the 40 recommendations in her landmark report with Tony Blair and Mr Brown at Downing Street tomorrow.

The report will claim that while girls outperform boys at school, this advantage disappears in the workplace, with the average woman's earnings 13 per cent lower than the average man's in full-time jobs.

Women in part-time jobs earn 32 per cent less than those in full-time jobs and 41 per cent less than men working part-time, figures which suggest a glaring lack of quality part-time posts for women who return to employment after having children.

The commission will claim that removing barriers that prevent women working in traditionally "male" jobs and increasing overall female employment levels could add between £15 billion and £23 billion to Britain's earnings every year.

This all nonsense. If you adjust salaries for age, experience, etc, you'll find the wage gap just about disappears. But, the biggest problem here is the belief that men and women are interchangeable - the plain fact of the matter is that we are different and men and women will always be attracted to different jobs.